USCIS To Conduct Mini-Lottery if Required for H1B Visa 2009/FY 2010,
By HSB
April 1 is 2 days away. Attorneys will send the H1B visa petitions on March/31/2009 via Express Courier service like FedEx, DHL to USCIS processing centers. USCIS gave some guidance about this new H1B Visa season. They are not sure how many applications will be submitted. Last year ( April/2008 for FY 2009), USCIS predicted more number of H1B petitions would be filed. But this year most of them are expecting H1B Quota will not be reached within first 5 business days of April ( till April 7).
Update from USCIS about H1B filing
I read from few immigration attorneys blog about update from USCIS through AILA. This is what I inferred from the announcement
- USCIS receives a sufficient number of cases in the first five business days of April to reach the H1B cap, then the “lottery” will be conducted
- All the H1B petitions submitted till April 7, all five days form April 1 will be included in lottery.
- If there is lottery, then receipts will be issued only to petitions selected in lottery process.
- All the H1B petitions will have receipt date of April 8, 2009.
- If H1B Quota is not reached till April 7, 2009, then USCIS will continue to receive and accept petitions until the day upon which USCIS concludes that a sufficient number of petitions is reached.
- Mini Lottery will be conducted for those cases received on the last day ( What is H1B 2010 Mini Lottery? ) (New)
H1B Visa Predictions from USCIS
While USCIS believes that the cap will be reached before October 1, 2009, they are not able to make any further predictions, although they have heard from various stakeholder groups (including AILA), that fewer petitions are expected to be filed during this H-1B cap season.
Poll Results – H1B 2010 Quota Predictions (New)
You can subscribe to Happy Schools Blog’s Newsletter to receive instant updates delivered to your email inbox about latest H1B updates from USCIS.
Related posts:
- H1B Visa 2010 – What is Mini Lottery?
- H1B 2010 – USCIS Accepting Visa Applications
- H1B Visa 2009 Lottery Results
- H1B Visa 2010
- H1B Visa Lottery is Complete – Results in 4 Weeks (2008 – 2009)
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/h1b/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216403452
Hey Thanks Yana for the Article.
i sent my application on March 30th and it arrived on March 31st at 11am. Will this be accepted?
I believe the answer is no. The application started on April 1st so they wont even consider the application that arrives before the start date. Read the instructions for filing H1b.
They generally consider applications received on the 30th and 31st, but not before that.
where does five business days come from? isn’t an interim rule only last year?
Rule is still applied this year too.
Well, this looks promising…
Good luck to everyone who’s submitted a single H1B Visa application for an actual job waiting for them! You know what I mean
I really dont know whatchu mean? Care to explain in details? BTW, I am one of those who submitted a single H1B Visa application for an actual job.
I just mean that I wish good luck to all those applying single application for an actual job. That is a fair application. I hope that all multi-applicants get found out and removed from the lottery, thus increasing the chances for all the legitimate applications.