USCIS to accept H-1B visa applications till 7 April

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services will accept petitions for the H-1B work visas on the first five working days beginning April 1. However, USCIS facilitation centers would accept H-1B visa applications if it does not receive adequate number of applications to meet its annual Congressional-mandated cap of 65,000,  the agency said today.

'' We will continue to accept the petition, if we do not have the right number to meet the cap, after the first five business days from 1 April to 7 April,'' said Chris Rhatigan, spokeswoman for USCIS.

The USCIS last week had announced new guidelines for applications related to H-1B visa, in view of the restrictions imposed in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which prohibits hiring of people with H-1B visas by companies receiving federal aid money.

This, however, would not affect the processing of applications, USCIS said.

On Friday, USCIS announced that it would begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2010 (FY 2010) cap on 1 April 2009. Cases will be considered accepted on the date that USCIS takes possession of the petition; not the date that the petition is postmarked, it added.

The number of H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2010 has been limited to 65,000.  The first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of aliens who have earned a US masters' degree or higher would be exempt from the fiscal year cap.

USCIS said it will monitor the number of petitions received and notify the public of the date by which it has received the necessary number of petitions to meet the H-1B cap, known as the ''final receipt date.'' 

To ensure a fair system, USCIS said, it would, if needed, randomly select the number of petitions required to reach the numerical limit from the petitions received on the final receipt date. USCIS said it would reject petitions that are not selected, as well as those received after the final receipt date.

H-1B petitions cannot be filed more than six months in advance of the requested start date.  Petitions seeking an H-1B worker for an 1 October 2009 start date cannot be filed earlier than 1 April 2009.

Petitions for new H-1B employment are exempt from the annual cap if the beneficiaries will work at institutions of higher education or a related or affiliated nonprofit entities, or at nonprofit research organizations or governmental research organizations.  Thus, employers may continue to file petitions for these exempt H-1B categories seeking work dates starting in FY 2009 or 2010, it said.