Following the lottery results issued last week, USCIS announced that H-1B petitioners may begin submitting petitions during the 90 day window noted on the selection notice.  USCIS reported nearly 275,000 unique registrations were submitted during the initial registration period with approximately 46% of all registrations under the advanced degree category.

USCIS randomly selected from the registrations and issued electronic notices through the online myUSCIS accounts. The online accounts will show one of the following statuses for each H-1B candidate who was registered:

• Submitted: The H-1B candidate was not chosen in the initial lottery selection, but will remain in the pool until the end of the fiscal year. If a case has not been “Selected” as of March 31, 2020 it is more likely than not that the case will not be selected in the FY 2021 lottery.
• Selected: Selected to file an FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition.
• Denied: A duplicate registration was submitted by the same registrant for the same beneficiary, or a payment method was declined and not reconciled. If denied as a duplicate registration, all registrations submitted for this candidate for the fiscal year are invalid.

Seyfarth will continue to closely monitor H-1B cap developments and will provide updates regularly.