H1B 2016 Cap is Reached
Author: New York Immigration attorney Alena Shautsova
On April 7, 2015 USCIS announced that the H1B Cap, or amount of visas that are allocated to foreign workers in specialty occupations has been reached for the 2016 fiscal year. The government has received more than allocated 20,000 petitions for the advanced degrees and more than 65,000 petitions for the general category.
Now, government’s computer will randomly select the “winners” and after that, their applications will go through consideration process. If the petition is granted an the beneficiary uses the cap, the petition is counted towards the cap. If for some reason, the selected petition is not approved or the beneficiary is not utilizing it, the “spot” will be returned to the pool and will be given to someone else.
USCIS continues to accept petitions that are not covered by the 2016 cap, or cap exempt. Such petitioner can be filed for example by those whose H1B status is being extended due to pending labor certification or I-140 petition; or those whose employment conditions changed and need amendments, etc.
All petitions that will not be selected, will be returned together with the filing fees, as long as they were not duplicated.