US Immigration Dept. exhausted mandated H-1B visas for 2019

Washington D.C. : The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Friday of exhausting the mandated number of H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2019.

As per a release on the USCIS website, it has reached the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa cap for the fiscal year 2019. It has also received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the 20,000 visa U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master's cap.

H-1B, considered as the most sought-after work visa among highly-skilled Indian professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

Further, the United States agency will reject and return the application fees for all unselected cap-subject petitions that are not prohibited for multiple filings.

As per the clause of the multiple filings, "related entities include petitioners, whether or not related through corporate ownership and control, that file cap-subject H-1B petitions for the same beneficiary for substantially the same job" their applications will be rejected by the USCIS."

USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap.

Further, the petitions filed for current H-1B workers, who have been counted previously against the cap, and who still retain their cap number, will also not be counted toward the FY 2019 H-1B cap.

USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions filed to extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States, change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers.

It will also allow current H-1B workers to change employers and allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.