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H-1B Visas Run Out, CIS Will No Longer Accept Petitions for FY 2010. Petitions Received on December 21 Subject to "Random Selection"

In an announcement that may have been delayed by the massive east coast snowstorm that forced closure of the Washington, DC offices of the Immigration Service on Monday, USCIS posted the following update on the Fiscal Year 2010 H-1B count on its website yesterday:

As of December 21, 2009, USCIS has received sufficient petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY2010. USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY2010 that are received after December 21, 2009. USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions that are subject to the cap and were received on December 21, 2009.

H-1B Petitions filed by cap-exempt organizations (including some non-profit organizations and certain research/educational institutions) will continue to be accepted since they are not subject to the "numerical cap" of 65,000 visas.
Those "cap-subject" employers wishing to file H-1B petitions for FY 2011 will be able to file beginning April 1, 2010 for employment beginning October 1, 2010.
Separately, the drumbeat alerting of USCIS plans for unprecedented H-1B enforcement continues: "U.S. Moves to Strengthen H-1B Enforcement," Computerworld December 21, 2009.

Full post as published by Masliah & Soloway on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).