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H-1B quota filled up on 1st day of filing
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 05 April 2007, 17:30 IST
The United Nations Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the petitions filed for H-1B quota for 2007-08 have already been consumed. On April 2nd, the first day of filing H-1B petitions, USCIS, received over 1,65,000 H-1B petitions.
They will consider petitions filed till April 3rd because the law requires USCIS to accept petitions for one more day after they calculate the 'final receipt date'. The USICS said that they would reject all petitions and fees received form April 4th onwards.
However, for the petitions received on April 2nd to 3rd, USCIS said that they would use a random selection process. USCIS will reject and return along with filing fees all petitions received on those days that are not randomly selected.
Some have expressed 'surprise' and 'shock', while others including hundreds of tech companies, immigration lawyers, and USCIS quietly planned and prepared for this eventuality.
Navneet S. Chugh, attorney with the Chugh Firm said that an initial data entry would be performed for all filings received prior to conducting the random selection process. In light of the high volume of filings, USCIS will not be able to conduct the random selection for several weeks.
The H-1B quota for 2004 finished in October, and for 2005, finished in August, and on May 26th for last year. Petitioners can now only file new H-1B petitions on April 1, 2008 when H-1B visas become available for FY 2009, for a start date of October 1, 2008.