April 11, 2008

USCIS Announces Number of FY 2009 H-1B Cap Filings Received

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") today announced that they had received a total of 163,000 H-1B petitions during the cap filing period. More than 31, 200 of these petitions were for the advanced degree category. USCIS expects to conduct a computer-generated random selection process next week. The Agency has announced that they expect to begin with the selection of 20,000 advanced degree H-1B petitions. Those petitions not selected under the advanced degree cap will be placed into the pool for selection under the regular cap for which there are 65,000 spots. USCIS also announced that they will return filing fees for all petitions not selected.

GT will continue to provide updates from the USCIS regarding the FY 2009 H-1B cap as they become available.