On March 29, 2022, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced that the Service had received enough initial electronic registrations for the fiscal year 2023 (“FY23”) H-1B cap, including the advanced degree exemption (master’s cap). Consequently, the Service has notified all prospective petitioners whose registrations were randomly selected that they are eligible to file cap-subject H-1B petitions for the named beneficiary in the selected registration.
Read moreH-1B Salary Based Selection Process Final Rule is Officially Withdrawn
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has announced that the January 2021 final rule modifying the H-1B selection process has officially been withdrawn by The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). This rule would have eliminated the random selection process known as the H-1B visa lottery, and replaced it with a process prioritizing those foreign nationals who are offered the highest salaries relative to their occupation and geographic area according to the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) prevailing wage system.
Read morePRESIDENT TRUMP ISSUES PROCLAMATION SUSPENDING CERTAIN WORK VISAS INCLUDING H-1B’S FOR THOSE OUTSIDE THE US (UPDATED JULY 2, 2020)
President Trump today issued a proclamation temporarily suspending certain employment-based work visas for those outside the United States through December 31, 2020. This order, which does not affect foreign national workers already in the US in any category, could effectively bar hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals from coming to work in the US. President Trump claims his actions are necessary to protect US jobs amid the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Read moreH-1B Blood, Sweat, and Tears
H-1B cap season is tough (as our previous Friday Photos over the years have shown). This week the firm pushed to put the final touches on all our cap petitions that will be filed starting April 1.
In preparation for sending out our H-1Bs, Gaby got into a bloody fight with our REG CAP stamp, Liz broke a sweat from running around to check in with our paralegals, and Carolyn bid some petitions a tearful goodbye. Nothing says a labor of love like some blood, sweat, and tears!
H-1B Electronic Registration Postponed for This Year’s H-1B Cap (Fiscal Year 2020)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today posted a final rule effective April 1, 2019 that introduces an electronic registration requirement for H-1B cap cases but suspends the electronic registration for this year’s H-1B cap season (FY 2020). After considering public feedback, USCIS decided to suspend the electronic registration requirement for the FY 2020 cap season to “complete user testing and ensure the system and process are fully functional.” This move will be welcomed by many immigration practitioners, who since the initial announcement of the electronic registration have been concerned whether the registration rollout would be ready and fully tested in time for the fast approaching start of the H-1B FY 2020 filing period on April 1, 2019.
Read moreBloomberg Law: “High-Stakes Lottery for H-1B Visas May Become Simpler Next Year”
L. Francis Cissna, director of US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), has announced that the agency is making plans to simplify the H-1B visa lottery program beginning in 2019 for the 2020 fiscal year. These changes would potentially include an employer’s ability to preregister electronically for the H-1B lottery and, if selected in the lottery, file the H-1B petition with USCIS, instead of submitting full petitions before the lottery is completed. Cissna tells Bloomberg Law that he hopes that the agency will implement changes in time for when H-1B cases can be filed in April 2019, although the agency may not have sufficient time to do so. "[Y]ou don’t have to file and go through the hassle and effort and cost of preparing a full-blast petition,” Cissa says, touting the benefit of preregistration. “I think that’s a lot easier than the current situation.”
Read moreBloomberg Businessweek: “Trump Booted Foreign Startup Founders. Other Countries Embraced Them”
As the Trump administration sought to end the International Entrepreneur Rule created by the Obama administration for immigrant entrepreneurs and has made obtaining H-1B visas more difficult, other countries have sought to attract tech talent and entrepreneurs. Although immigrants and children of immigrants have played critical roles in many of Silicon Valley’s top companies—including Google, Tesla, eBay, Stripe, Apple, Oracle, and Amazon—immigrants are now being drawn to visa programs with a range of perks in such countries as the UK, China, Japan, Israel, Germany, Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. “The fight over tech talent is not something that is coming in the future. It’s happening right now,” Kate Mitchell, founder of Scale Venture Partners in Foster City, California, tells Bloomberg. “And we are losing.”
Read moreUSCIS Resumes Premium Processing for H-1B Cap Petitions
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has resumed premium processing effective September 18, 2017 for all H-1B visa petitions subject to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 cap including for the 20,000 additional petitions for those workers with a US master’s degree or higher educational degree. Premium processing is only available for pending H-1B cap petitions, not new submissions, since USCIS received more than enough petitions during the April filing window to meet the FY 2018 cap.
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