Immigration Law

H-1B Applicants Face Less Than 50% Chance Of Approval

By Robert Kraft

According to figures released today by USCIS, there were 163,000 applications filed for the 65,000 available H-1B visas. So if most of the applicants are actually qualified, each applicant has less than a 50-50 chance of being chosen in the lottery drawing. Pitiful. The United States has such a great need for qualified workers, but we continue to use an artificial cap to deprive ourselves of this productivity. Here is the USCIS press release:

USCIS Releases Preliminary Number Of FY 2009 H-1B Cap Filings

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a preliminary number of nearly 163,000 H-1B petitions received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008. More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree category.

USCIS expects next week it will conduct the computer-generated random selection process, beginning with the selection of the 20,000 petitions under the advanced degree exemption. Those petitions not selected under the advanced degree category will join the random selection process for the cap-subject 65,000 limit.

USCIS will reject, and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, unless found to be a duplicate. USCIS will handle duplicate filings in accordance with the interim final rule published on March 24, 2008 in the Federal Register.

USCIS will provide regular updates as the processing of FY 2009 H-1B cap cases continues.

Full post as published by Immigration Law Answers Blog on April 10, 2008 (boomark / email).