USA Immigration News

Fiscal Year 2013 H-1B Visa Cap Reached

Highly skilled overseas workers seeking to work in the U.S. under the H-1B visa category will now have to wait for next fiscal year's program as the statutory cap of 65,000 for H-1B visas for fiscal year 2013 has been reached, according to the announcement made by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on June 12, 2012.

USCIS stopped accepting new H-1B specialty occupation petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2013 after it filled the annual cap on June 11, 2012, which is much earlier than it did last year. The annual cap this year was reached within 10 weeks, while it took seven months last year and almost the entire year in 2010 for the cap to be hit.

USCIS will not consider properly filed cases as received on the date that the petitions were postmarked but the date that USCIS physically receives the petitions. Cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers will be rejected if they arrive after June 11, 2012 and seek an employment start date in FY 2013.

According to the announcement, as of June 7, 2012, over 20,000 H-1B petitions were filed on behalf of people exempt from the cap under the "advanced degree" exemption. H-1B petitions will continue to be accepted and processed by USCIS if they are otherwise exempt from the cap.

USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been previously counted against the cap because these petitions will not be counted toward the FY 2013 H-1B cap. By accepting these petitions, USCIS aims to extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the U.S. and change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers, as well as to allow current H-1B workers to change employers and work concurrently in a second H-1B position.