New Lottery System Is Completed For H-1B Visa Registration Process

If you have been down on your luck in H-1B Visa for the year 2020 or you are planning for applying for the next fiscal year, it is freaking captivating for you to know how a new system of electronic registration process works.

USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) has announced on 6th Dec that the final testing process for random selection for electronic registration for H-1B Visa is completed.

For the next fiscal year, USCIS has been said new petitions will commence from 1st Apr 2020 for  H-1B Visa 2021 under this new system of electronic selection or with new algorithm computer-generated selections. On 9th Dec, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had published this new process for H-1B visa applicants along with processing fees, which is effective from 9th Dec 2019.

Companies or entrepreneurs thinking of applying for H-1B visas for foreign workers for the next fiscal year 2020-2021 would have to register online and also have to break the bank for this registration in the form of a processing fee of $10. Once the registration date passed, US Citizenship and Immigration Services will start the lottery system in a new order on these registration applicants. The first round of lottery would have to fill the master quota cap, and those with remaining unselected master’s petitions are selected again to fill the master’s quota cap. After the final selection of lottery, an employer with lucky drawn applicants in the lottery should submit the full petition with USCIS. Here “lottery” in the system means nothing like buying lottery tickets; in fact, it is officially called a computer-generated random applicant selection process.

For most recent record year, USCIS received almost 200,000 applications, which is nearly 2.24 times more than actual cap numbers. USCIS decided to run an algorithm for the selection process for the first master quota and again ran the algorithm on unselected petitions.

After the selection, petitioners will be updated by USCIS with step by step instructions for registrants on how to complete the registration process on their website with dates and timelines.

USCIS Deputy Director Mark Koumans addressed that federal agency will conduct surveys and other outreach engagements to ensure registrants and interested parties are familiar with the new selection and registration system.

He also added USCIS might proclaim if it is required to continue accepting registration out of this process or accepting beyond registration period once only if it does not receive enough registrants and subsequent petitions to reach that 85,000 petitions every year.