USCIS Reaches Fiscal Year 2015 Annual Cap Limit

On April 7, 2014, USCIS announced that it had received enough H-1B submissions to reach the congressionally mandated statutory cap for fiscal year 2015. USCIS also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions categorized as advanced degree exempt. The federal agency will accept all filings received by April 7, 2014; a computer-generated process will randomly select enough petitions to meet the caps of 65,000 general category submissions and 20,000 advanced degree exemption submissions.

USCIS will continue to accept and process H-1B petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted against previous years’ caps. Petitions filed for the following will continue to be accepted and processed: extension requests for the amount of time a current H-1B worker may stay in the U.S.; requests to change the terms of employment for a current H-1B worker; requests for an H-1B worker to change employers; and requests to allow a current H-1B worker to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.