On Friday, May 4, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that, as of April 30, 2007, it had received 20,000 H-1B petitions for "foreign workers who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education." This means that in addition to the standard H-1B cap, which was met on April 2, 2007, the H-1B "master's" cap has now been reached as well, and USCIS will reject any petition received on or after May 1, 2007, unless the petition falls within one of the categories of cases that are not subject to the cap.
USCIS has implemented the following process for handling petitions based on the U.S. master's or higher degree exemption:
-
The final receipt date for H-1B petitions on behalf of "foreign workers who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education" for the congressionally mandated 20,000 limit is April 30, 2007.
-
All petitions falling within this classification that were received on April 30, 2007, will be subject to a computer generated random selection process. Petitions not randomly selected will be rejected and returned along with their filing fees.
-
Any petitions filed on May 1, 2007, or later, requesting this exemption, will be rejected.
-
The next filing date for these types of petitions will be April 1, 2008, for FY 2009 employment with a start date of October 1, 2008.
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.
This News Flash is a service to our clients and friends. It is designed only to give general information on the developments actually covered. It is not intended to be a comprehensive summary of recent developments in the law, treat exhaustively the subjects covered, provide legal advice or render a legal opinion.
