The US on Monday (April 2) began accepting applications for H-1B visas, which are considered as the most sought-after work visa among Indian professionals. The federal agency responsible to process the visas, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS, has started accepting applications for H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2019, beginning October 1. The USCIS has indicated there will be zero tolerance by it for even the minutest of errors. The US agency also warned that all duplicate applications would be subject to rejection.
The Donald Trump administration recently announced a new measure, making the approval of H-1B visa more tougher. According to the new policy, any company will have to make one more clarification to prove that its H-1B employee at a third-party worksite has specific and non-qualifying speculative assignments in a speciality occupation.
The USCIS has not yet indicated if it plans to go for a computerised draw of lots as has been the case in previous years after receiving several times more applications than the Congressional mandated cap of H-1B visas.
A leading advocacy group representing the tech industry has said that it expects number of H-1B petitions to reach the Congressional mandated caps in coming days. As a result of which the USCIS would again resort to a computerised draw of lot to determine successful applicants, it said.
"Within a few days we expect that the H-1B visa lottery will reach the annual cap, as it has for the past six years, highlighting the overwhelming demand for this visa category, FWD.us president Todd Schulte said.
The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
The H1-B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by the Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.
Days ahead of the start of the H-1B visa application process, USCIS warned that all duplicate applications would be subject to rejection.
Expecting a huge rush of application beginning today and greater scrutiny of all petitions, which would require much more man hours, USCIS has also temporarily suspended premium processing. This suspension is expected to last until September 10, 2018. During this temporary suspension, USCIS will reject any Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service, filed with an FY 2019 cap-subject H-1B petition.
During this time, USCIS will however continue to accept premium processing requests for H-1B petitions that are not subject to the FY 2019 cap.
Ahead of the H-1B visa filing process, USCIS said this work visa should help US companies recruit highly-skilled foreign nationals when there is a shortage of qualified workers in the country. (With Agency Inputs)
