BackH-1B visa: Rare second lottery move to help hundreds of Indian IT professionals
The H-1B visa, a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers, is most sought-after among Indian IT professionals
PremiumThe USCIS will conduct a rare second lottery for the H-1B visa to decide on the successful applicants, a move which would provide another chance to hundreds of Indian IT professionals who could not make it in the first election. H-1B visa, a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers, is most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that a decision was taken after determining that the computerised draw of lots for H-1B visas conducted early this year did not give enough number of Congressional mandated H-1B visas.
USCIS said an H-1B cap-subject petition must be filed at the correct service center. Online filing is not available for H-1B petitions.
"Petitioners filing H-1B petitions must do so by paper and must include a printed copy of the applicable registration selection notice with the FY 2022 H-1B cap-subject petition," the US agency said.
Petitioners filing H-1B cap-subject petitions, including those petitions eligible for the advanced degree exemption, must still submit evidence and establish eligibility for petition approval based on existing statutory and regulatory requirements, USCIS added.
The petition filing period based on registrations selected on July 28 will begin on August 2 and close on November 3. Individuals with selected registrations will have their myUSCIS accounts updated to include a selection notice, which includes details of when and where to file, it said.
USCIS said in March 2021 it had conducted an initial random selection on properly submitted electronic registrations for the fiscal year (FY) 2022 H-1B cap, including for beneficiaries eligible for the advanced degree exemption.
"Per regulation, we use historical data related to approvals, denials, revocations, and other relevant factors to calculate the number of registrations needed to meet the H-1B cap for a given fiscal year. Only those petitioners with selected registrations for FY 2022 are eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions. The initial filing period for those with selected registrations for FY 2022 was from April 1, 2021, through June 30, 2021. We recently determined that we needed to select additional registrations to reach the FY 2022 numerical allocations," it said. (With PTI inputs)
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