H-1B Temporary Workers

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USCIS’ previous practice of adjudicating the I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, filed with a qualifying I-129 petition under Premium Processing has ended.  USCIS now requires every I-539 applicant pay a biometrics fee and an Application Support Center appointment take place to capture the applicant’s biometrics.  This has led to I-539 applications taking substantially longer …

Yesterday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced start dates for premium processing of fiscal year (FY) 2020 cap-subject H-1B petitions.  USCIS will review premium processing requests in two phases.  The first phase will process cap-subject petitions that request a change of status and the second phase will include all other FY 2020 cap-subject petitions.…

On January 25, 2019, USCIS announced that it would resume premium processing for all fiscal year (FY) 2019 H-1B cap petitions on Monday, January 28, 2019.  There is some confusion among employees and employers thinking that this applies to the upcoming H-1B season.   Please note that the next H-1B cap season is fiscal year 2020,…

Cap-subject US employers and their prospective employees alike have been waiting on edge to find out whether the FY2020 H-1B Cap Season would proceed as before or whether US Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS’s) recently proposed significant changes would be implemented to take effect before April 2019.  The result:  the Registration requirement will not take …

On November 18, 2016, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule to “improve aspects of certain employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant visa programs.” This final rule also “amended regulations to better enable U.S. employers to hire and retain certain foreign workers who are beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions and are waiting…

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 20, 2016 that that for two weeks after premium processing resumes for H-1B cap-subject petitions (scheduled to start on May 12, 2016), USCIS will temporarily suspend use of Pre-Paid Mailers. This means that USCIS will not use any provided pre-paid mailers submitted with H-1B cap petitions…

The US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has updated its May 19, 2015 alert announcing temporary suspension of premium processing for certain H-1B petitions.  http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-temporarily-suspends-premium-processing-extension-stay-h-1b-petitions

Here are the highlights:

  • May 26, 2015 – July 27, 2015*:  Premium processing is suspended for all H-1B extension of stay petitions with extremely limited exceptions for cases meeting the

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Last year at about this time, I published a blog post captioned, “FY 2015 H-1B Cap:  What are the Odds?” (https://immigrationview.foxrothschild.com/h-1b-temporary-workers/fy-2015-h-1b-cap-what-are-the-odds/).  According to my very basic calculations, I estimated that the odds of receiving one of the limited FY 2015 H-1B numbers was about 43% under the regular cap, with slightly better chances for those…