Prior to this year, employers filing cap-subject H-1B’s were required to complete, signed Petition for Non-immigrant Worker plus supplements, accompanied by a Labor Condition Application, all required exhibits and a filing fee, all of which had to prepared and filed by April 1- six months before the start of the upcoming fiscal year. However, due to the statutory limit or “cap”on the number of new H-1B’s, more than half of all timely-filed Petitions were rejected. In addition to causing disappointment for employers and H-1B candidates, this system was considered inefficient and a waste of time, money and resources.
For fiscal year 2021 (FY2021), USCIS has adopted a new system. Under the new H-1B pre-registration system, employers were able to create online accounts and pre-register H-1B eligible candidates. The pre-registration system, which ran from March 1 to March 20, is now over and USCIS has conducted a random lottery to select those cases eligible for filing under the “cap” for FY2021.
USCIS has announced that during the pre-registration period, it received nearly 275,000 registrations. Roughly 46% of registrations were filed for prospective beneficiaries with U.S. Masters or higher degrees; nearly 81% of submitted registrations were for potential beneficiaries from India (67.7%) or China (13.2%).
NOTE: According to USCIS, cases not selected in this first round will remain eligible for selection until the end of this fiscal year. In the event that USCIS determines that it needs to increase the number of registrations to meet the H-1B regular or advanced degree caps, it will identify registrations held in reserve for selection. By the end of the fiscal year (09/30/20) all registrations will be reported as Selected, Not Selected or Denied.
At the Law Office of Matthew I. Hirsch, we are now moving forward with the preparation and filing of Petitions for Non-Immigrant Worker for selected cases. The filing period will begin on April 1 and will continue for 90 days. We will be reaching out to employers and employees for the information and documents that we will need to prepare cases for filing with USCIS.
FINALLY NOTE: The Law Office of Matthew I. Hirsch is officially closed, but set up to work remotely. My team has been amazing in their enthusiasm and preparedness to work through the pandemic together. We will be picking up files from time to time at the office, taking them home and working on them. We will continue to meet the needs of our clients, while complying with the work-from-home requirements in our region. For questions, contact us.