The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has reported receiving 190,098 cap subject H-1B petitions during the first five business days of April 2018, more than twice the number mandated by Congress’ cap of 65,000 under the regular H-1B cap and 20,000 under the advanced degree cap for each fiscal year.
On April 11, USCIS completed a computer generated and random lottery to select the 20,000 advanced degree cap petitions it will process for the 2019 fiscal year. Those not selected in this lottery, were included in a second lottery conducted to select the 65,000 regular H-1B cap petitions that USCIS will process.
We expect to start receiving H-1B receipt notices for petitions selected in the lottery within the next two weeks and that they will continue to trickle in through the month of June, as in previous years.