On April 7, 2014, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency announced it received more new H-1B petitions than it is authorized to approve for the fiscal year 2015. This includes both the 65,000 global supply, as well as the 20,000 supply allocated to foreign professionals who earned a graduate degree from a university in the US. The USCIS has not yet announced the date on which it will conduct the random selection process. We will update this blog when more news is available.
No more new H-1B petitions will be accepted, but the USCIS continues to accept petitions exempt from the quota limits, including petitions filed for professionals previously counted, regardless of whether an extension, change of employer, concurrent employment, or employment with a university or related research organization is exempt from quota limits.
On January 16th, we posted here our H-1B Blast Off Countdown. As predicted, the demand by US employers continues to outstrip the inadequate supply allocated by Congress. Access to the skilled workers needed by employers to compete globally continues to be determined, at least initially, through a random selection process that does not prioritize or favor specific occupations, large or small employers, industries, etc. Although there has been much talk in Congress about comprehensive immigration reform measures that include increasing the supply of new H-1B visas, there has been no legislative movement lately and any quota increase before the 2014 mid-term elections in November seems increasingly unlikely.
