On Tuesday, April 3, 2007, we reported on the USCIS announcement that the cap was reached for new H-1B petitions (for fiscal year 2008) on the first day of filing and that the number of received petitions triggered the regulatory requirement to initiate a random selection lottery process, pooling all petitions received on April 2, 2007, and April 3, 2007. USCIS announced yesterday that during those two days it received 133,000 pieces of mail containing H-1 petitions. As some of the pieces of mail may contain more than one petition, it is still unclear exactly how many petitions were received altogether.
As of Wednesday, USCIS has sorted 28,052 H-1B cap subject petitions and 4,703 petitions under the special U.S. earned Masters' degree or higher cap exemption. USCIS has begun the process of registering petitions and issuing receipt numbers and receipts, but has indicated that it would require a substantial amount of time, at least several weeks, to complete the sorting and registration of the remaining petitions. Once each petition has been issued a receipt number
, USCIS will then be able to conduct its computer-generated lottery and select H-1B petitions for processing. Employers whose petitions were in fact received on either April 2nd or April 3rd should expect to be issued a receipt for each petition. This will only be evidence that the petition has been properly received and entered into the lottery database but is, of course, no indication that the petition has secured one of the cap numbers.
Proskauer Rose LLP counsels corporate clients and their employees in all areas of immigration, nationality and consular law. This includes obtaining work authorizations and visas to enable companies to hire aliens or transfer personnel between nations; compliance with and defense of anti-discrimination and unlawful immigration practices; and advice and appearances in special circumstance matters such as asylum claims and removal proceedings. Much of the work involves obtaining appropriate non-immigrant or immigrant visas to enable corporations to transfer executives, managers, persons with specialized knowledge or other key personnel temporarily or permanently to the United States.
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