[author: Rachel Coyne]

On April 7, 2016, USCIS announced that it had received enough H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 visas for FY 2017. They also received more than the limit of 20,000 H-1B petitions filed under the advanced degree exemption, also known as the master’s cap. In total USCIS received more than 236,000 H-1B petitions during the filing period which began on April 1. On April 9, 2016, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 general-category cap and the 20,000 master’s cap. Only about 27% of H-1B petitions that were filed were selected in this year’s lottery. USICS will reject and return all unselected petitions with their filing fees. Premium processing for H-1B cap cases will begin no later than May 16, 2016. Read the full alert on the H-1B cap lottery here.

Rachel is an intern with the firm and is not a practicing attorney.