U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reached the FY2020 H-1B visa cap.
For FY2020, Congress mandated a regular cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, plus an additional 20,000 H-1B visas for those with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions of higher education (i.e., the master’s cap). Last Friday, USCIS announced that they reached the H-1B general visa cap, and then reached the master’s cap later on Wednesday. Read the announcements from USCIS by clicking here and clicking here.
What’s next? USCIS will process those petitions which were selected using a computer-generated random selection process and reject and return all unselected petitions along with their filing fees. According to USCIS, they received 201,011 H-1B petitions during the filing period which started April 1st and ended April 10th, which is about 15% less than last year.
Notwithstanding the H-1B cap, USCIS will continue to accept and process H-1B petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap. Petitions filed for current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap, and who still retain their cap number, are exempt from the FY 2020 H-1B cap. USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions filed to (i) extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States; (ii) change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers; (iii) allow current H-1B workers to change employers; and (iv) allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.