H-1B Cap Reached for Fiscal Year 2008 But Those With US Masters May Still Be Fine

The USCIS announced today that it had received enough H-1B petitions towards the fiscal year 2008 (FY 2008) cap. There is a cap of 65000 visas for H1B visas. As of late Monday afternoon (April 2, 2007), USCIS received approximately 150,000 cap-subject H1B petitions. USCIS will perform initial data entry for those filings received on April 2 and April 3 and will then conduct a random selection. Due to the high volume of petitions, USCIS will not be able to conduct the random selection for several weeks. Those petitions that are not randomly selected will be returned. The USCIS has indicated that it would reject all cap-subject H-1B petitions for FY 2008 received on or after Wednesday, April 4, 2007.

The first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of foreign workers who have earned U.S. masters' or higher degrees are exempt from any fiscal year cap on available H-1B visas. The USCIS does not yet know how many of these petitions it has received as those petitions are mixed with the cap-subject cases received on April 2 and 3. The USCIS will make a future announcement regarding the "final receipt date" for those petitions. The press release is attached.

Press_Release_Cap_Reached_for_2008.pdf

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