U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Friday, April 5, 2019 that they have received sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap for fiscal year 2020. The agency will reject and return filing fees for all unselected cap-subject petitions that are not prohibited multiple filings. The fiscal year begins October 1, 2019 and USCIS started receiving the H-1B petitions from April 1, 2019. USCIS has not yet revealed the number of regular cap petitions received by it in the first five days.
USCIS will next determine if they have received a sufficient number of petitions to meet the 20,000 U.S. advanced degree exemption under master’s cap.
USCIS will continue to accept and process 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:
- Extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States;
- Change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers;
- Allow current H-1B workers to change employers; and
- Allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.
For more details, please visit: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-reaches-fy-2020-h-1b-regular-cap