USCIS Announces Two New Changes to H-1B Visa Procedures
An Effort to Increase H-1B visas Granted to Workers with a U.S. Master’s degree or Higher
On January 31, 2019, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced new changes to the H-1B process, one to take effect this year, the other to take effect in 2020.
As background, USCIS gives out 65,000 H-1B visas each year, with an additional 20,000 H-1b visas reserved specifically for individuals who hold U.S. Master’s or Doctorate degrees. In the past, a “Master’s CAP” lottery was held first, to allocate the 20,000 visas reserved for those holding advanced U.S. degrees. Then, the general H-1b lottery was held to allocate the 65,000 more H-1b visas. Those eligible for the Master’s Cap lottery, but not selected, got a second bite at the apple by participating also in the general cap H-1b lottery.
Effective April 1, 2019, USCIS is reversing the previous order of selection. Now, USCIS will first conduct the general H-1b Cap lottery, where both Master and Bachelor petitions will compete for H-1b visas. After the 65,000 visas are selected, USCIS will then conduct the Master’s CAP lottery, where only Master’s CAP petitions NOT selected in the general lottery will compete for the 20,000 Master’s CAP visas.
By reversing the order, those with advanced U.S. degrees will have an even better chance of securing a coveted H-1b visa. This is because all Master’s CAP eligible individuals will first compete in the general lottery. Then, only those who do not secure one in the general lottery are competing for the 20,000 Master’s CAP visas. This will make securing a visa in the general lottery more challenging for those who do not have a U.S. Master’s degree or higher. Another way to view this change is that Master CAP applicants will be competing against a smaller number for the 20,000 Master CAP visas because many of their colleagues will have already secured a visa in the general lottery. This change is good news for Master Cap eligible applicants, but bad news for all other H-1b applicants.
USCIS estimates that this reverse order will likely result in a 16% increase in probability of securing a Master CAP visa. This amounts to an estimated increase of 5,340 workers who have a Master’s degree or higher.
The New 2020 H-1b Registration Process: Eliminating the Need to Prepare and Pay for a H-1b Visa Petition that May Not be Selected in the Lottery
The second change USCIS announced is a change that will take place next year, in 2020. Currently, employers who want to sponsor a foreign worker for an H-1B visa are forced to prepare the entire application and send it to USCIS on April 1. Then, USCIS makes the selection from those prepared applications. This process forces employers to pay attorneys’ fees to prepare an entire application without assurance that the foreign worker would be selected.
In an effort to remove this burden from employers, USCIS announced that for 2020, they will begin an electronic registration process. Through this process, employers can register online and find out whether or not their H-1B petition was selected before preparing an entire petition. This should save employers thousands of dollars in legal fees. This will also save employers time as they will no longer have to be involved in preparing a petition that will not be reviewed. This should encourage employers to petition for more foreign workers as they will have assurance that their money and time will be used to prepare a petition that will actually be reviewed by USCIS.
USCIS announced that they will spend this year building and testing the electronic registration system in an effort to design a fully functional process.
If the system works as it should, this should greatly save employers time and money. Hopefully USCIS will be able to follow through with their promise to build and test the system, working out the problems before going live.
If you have questions about these new changes to H-1b procedure, please email us from our contact forms on our site, or feel free to give us a call at 303-872-6985.
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