U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that it has completed its random selection process for regular, cap-subject H-1B petitions received during the first week of April, 2019, and also that it has received a number of petitions projected as sufficient to meet the 20,000 H-1B visa U.S. advanced degree exemption (“master’s cap”). As of this morning, our office has begun receiving receipt notices via email for cases that qualified for and were filed under Premium Processing, and we hope to receive receipt notices for all filed petitions over the coming few weeks. However, in reality, notification could take much longer. In the FY 2019 H-1B season, some petitioners received notifications regarding their selection or rejection under the H-1B “lottery” as late as July, after filing in April.

In total, the USCIS received 201,011 petitions during this year’s filing period (FY 2020), which is slightly higher than the 190,098 petitions received last year (FY 2019).

Lippes Mathias will provide updates as we see how the cap selection notification process rolls out this year. Stay tuned!