New Delhi: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is preparing to conduct a lottery to select H1B Visa beneficiaries, including the master’s cap for advanced degree holders. This comes with the closure of the initial H1B sign-up period for the fiscal year 2025 on March 25.
Due to a technical issue with its website, the USCIS delayed the deadline for visa applications for the financial year 2025 by three days from March 22nd to March 25th, 2024. The organization declared that it will contact all potential petitioners who have chosen beneficiaries, confirming their ability to submit a petition subject to the H1B cap.
Businesses submit more H-1B applications than the 85,000 annual cap, and the USCIS selects the recipients through lottery. According to Forbes, Indian tech workers have taken the lead in obtaining H-1B cap-subject visas in recent years, accounting for over 70% of the 85,000 visas made available, including the 20,000 master’s quota for holders of advanced US degrees.
Indians obtained 77 % of the 320,000 H1B visas that were awarded in 2022. The USCIS expects about 350,000 applications this year; this is less than last year due to enhanced efforts to combat fraud. Out of the 759,000 registrations made last year, more than 400,000 were duplicates.
The reports state that the USCIS filing fee for beneficiaries on H1B petitions would increase by 70%, for those on L-1 petitions it will climb by 201%, and for those on O-1 petitions, it will increase by 129%.
USCIS is moving the H-1B Form I-129 filing location to a lockbox as of April 1. As a result, applications for H-1B and H-1B1 (HSC) must no longer be submitted at USCIS service centres using Form I-129.
Rather, all paper-based petitions—cap, non-cap, and cap-exempt H-1B filings—must be submitted at USCIS lockbox facilities.
The USCIS emphasized that there will be no grace time offered for any H-1B or H-1B1 (HSC) petitions that are received at a USCIS service centre on or after April 1, 2024.
Petitioners must make sure that their petitions are filed in the appropriate area to prevent rejection. Furthermore, on February 28, USCIS launched a new online organizational account called “MyUSCIS,” which enables several people to work together with their legal counsel to prepare H-1B registrations, petitions, and related Form I-907.
Additionally, USCIS opened online filing for non-cap H-1B petitions on March 25. Selected petitioners will be able to start filing online for H-1B cap petitions on April 1. Additionally, USCIS informed petitioners that, as of April 1, 2024, fees for the majority of immigration applications and petitions will change.
