USCIS has announced on May 17, 2019 that is has completed all data entry for fiscal year 2020 H-1B cap-subject lottery selection. USCIS has also announced that this year, they have received 201,011 filings in the week between April 1 and April 5, which is an increase of 10,913 petitions from last year. On April 10, USCIS ran two lotteries to choose the cases that will be processed to completion. The first lottery selected enough cases from the standard and advanced-degree filings to meet the standard quota of 65,000. Advanced-degree filings not selected in the first draw were placed in a second lottery to choose enough filings to meet the cap exemption of 20,000 for holders of U.S. advanced degrees.
USCIS will now begin to return all petitions that were not selected and will announce when all selected applicants have been notified. Due to the volume of the filings, USCIS cannot provide a definite time frame for when all the of unselected petitions will be returned. Starting next year, USCIS will implement an online lottery system where applicants will be picked online before their applications have to be mailed in to reduce the amount of paperwork USCIS has to process. To learn more about the proposed changes, please click here. For information about the current H-1B cap procedure, please click here. To learn more about the H-1B visa and your eligibility, please click here. To learn more about options for working in the U.S. other than H-1B visas, please click here.
