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On April 12, 2018, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had completed the computer-generated random selection process for fiscal year 2019 H-1B cap cases. At the same time, USCIS disclosed that it had received 190,098 H-1B petitions during the relevant filing period, a drop from the 199,000 received last year. However, this still was more than enough to fill both the regular and master’s cap quotas of 65,000 and 20,000, respectively. As a result, USCIS will now issue receipts for the selected cases and return all unselected petitions with filing fees.

USCIS will continue to accept and permit premium processing of H-1B petitions that are not counted toward the congressionally-mandated cap on new H-1B petitions. This includes H-1B petitions to extend or change the terms of employment and H-1B petitions allowing the worker to change employers.

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If you have any questions regarding this Alert or any other U.S. immigration issues, please contact Epstein Becker Green’s Immigration Law Group:

Robert S. Groban, Jr.
New York
212/351-4689
rgroban@ebglaw.com
Pierre Georges Bonnefil
New York
212/351-4687
pgbonnefil@ebglaw.com
Patrick G. Brady
Newark
973/639-8261
pbrady@ebglaw.com
Jungmin Choi
Newark
973/639-5226
jchoi@ebglaw.com
Jang Hyuk Im
San Francisco
415/399-6067
jim@ebglaw.com

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