
Who Can Apply For H1b Visa – The 2023-24 H-1B visa cap filing season is approaching. Now is the time to take a look at H1-B visa lottery season, including H1-B registration, requirements, and potential changes. With many new changes coming to the 2024 H-1B lottery, there are only a few short months left to file. Use this guide as your one-stop shop for all 2024 H-1B visa information, news, and updates. It is important to stay up to date on the latest updates and changes to the H-1B visa process, as rules and regulations can change from year to year. Stay ahead of the curve and increase your chances of success with our guide to the 2023-24 H-1B visa caps.
VisaNation Law Group’s experienced team of attorneys specializes in H-1B and employment-based immigration. They help countless skilled workers from all backgrounds around the world obtain H-1B visas. We would like to keep you updated on the latest news about this highly sought-after visa. We will update this article regularly to keep you up to date on the latest information on H-1B caps for the 2023-24 filing season. For more information about the 2024 H-1B visa season, please contact us directly to see if you qualify for a free consultation.
Who Can Apply For H1b Visa
The H-1B rules covered in this article are in effect as of the date of this publication. However, we will keep you updated on the situation.
Visualizing The Data Behind America’s H 1b Visa Program
Registration for the highly anticipated H-1B visa lottery will take place from March 1-17, 2023. At the end of this period, attorneys and applicants will receive emails to check their registered accounts for draw notifications. A sample notification is posted below. This email may be sent from [email protected] to the employer and/or attorney email address used to register.
The H-1B visa is for skilled professionals working in the United States with at least a bachelor’s degree. These professionals can be in fields such as computer science, architecture, medicine, dentistry, engineering, accounting, and more. The H-1B visa has many benefits, making it the first choice for many professionals seeking employment in the United States. Some of these benefits include:
Employers seeking to file an H-1B cap petition for the fiscal year 2023-2024 cap must first register electronically. They will then need to pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee. This includes those who qualify for an advanced degree exemption. Each employer may submit only one entry per H-1B employee. Employers must certify that they will submit a complete H-1B petition if their submission is selected.
Employers seeking H-1B workers subject to the cap or their authorized representatives will complete the registration process online. The process requires only basic information about the company and each requested worker. USCIS will then run the H-1B random selection process on these electronic registrations. Only those with selected registrations are eligible to file H-1B cap petitions.
H 1b Lottery 2023 24
For H-1Bs in the 2023-24 season, most projections call for enrollment exceeding 500,000 in the upcoming lottery. USCIS conducts the regular cap lottery first and then the US Master cap lottery. This lottery gives individuals with a U.S. master’s degree a greater chance of being selected. USCIS did three rounds this past H-1B season because the filing rate was so low (not enough to meet the quota), so there’s a chance this could happen again. In fiscal year 2022-2023, USCIS received a total of 484, 000 registrations. Immigration experts believe USCIS may receive registrations closer to the 500,000 cap during the upcoming lottery.
This year, the H-1B 2023-24 registration window begins at noon ET. March 1 to noon ET March 17, 2023. New accounts can be registered starting at noon ET. February 21, 2023. *Representatives and registrants must wait until March 1 to enter beneficiary information and submit registration and pay the $10 fee. If sufficient registrations are submitted by March 17, 2023, USCIS will randomly select registrations and send a selection notification to the user’s myUSCIS online account. USCIS plans to notify account holders by March 31, 2023.
Over the past few years, you may have heard that USCIS delayed the Trump administration’s January 8 H-1B lottery rules. This attempts to prioritize candidates at higher salary levels by December 31, 2021. The Biden administration changed the effective date to December 2021 to allow for a thorough review. Amid a court battle, the government removed the rule entirely from the Federal Register. Therefore, the H-1B 2024 lottery is based on a standard random selection process rather than priority based on salary level.
The prevailing wage is the average wage paid by employees doing the same or similar work. Like H-1B visas, most employment visas require employers to pay prevailing wage as the minimum wage. The Department of Labor (D.O.L.), under the Occupational Employment Statistics (O.E.S.) program, provides prevailing wage figures used by employers in the Labor Certification Application (L.C.A.) process.
Topic · H1b Visa Violations · Change.org
USCIS uses an online pre-registration system to make the H-1B lottery more manageable. The FY 2021 H-1B season is the first year that USCIS has implemented an online filing system. Prior to this, employers were required to send a hard copy of the H-1B petition package, supporting evidence, fees and labor conditions application. Online filing systems are more efficient and timely.
Employers must register their beneficiaries in the USCIS database before the filing window begins. The registration window will open on March 1, 2023, and close on March 17, 2023. Thereafter, petitions will still be used, but only after the beneficiary has been selected in a lottery to increase efficiency. The system works as follows:
Certain employees are not required to go through the H-1B registration process. This includes professionals who are in H-1B status and are changing employers with time remaining on their 6-year H-1B allocation. Additionally, professionals who have been counted toward the cap and need to extend their approved status. Additionally, those who work for cap-exempt organizations (nonprofits, educational organizations, etc.)
Employers should begin as soon as possible to identify potential employees who have not had H-1B status in the past but may need to obtain H-1B status beginning October 1, 2023. Individuals to remember may include:
The H1b Transfer Process Explained: Step By Step Do’s And Dont’s
USCIS also requires educational information about H-1B beneficiaries, such as whether they have earned an advanced degree (master’s degree or higher) from a U.S. school.
When broken down, the H-1B visa 2023-24 process is relatively simple. Under the regular cap, USCIS randomly selects 65,000 registrations via computer. USCIS will select an additional 20,000 advanced degree exemption registrants. Under the free trade agreement, 6,800 visas will be reserved for Chilean and Singaporean citizens.
You must submit your application to the correct service center as shown in the registration selection notice. There are specific mailing addresses for cases subject to the H-1B cap. You can find the correct mailing address for the service center named on your Registration Election Notice through this USCIS Address page.
When you view your registration online, you will see one of four statuses attached to your case. they are:
H1b Visa Lottery 2024: Registration Process, Required Documents, And Application Status
Please remember that after March 17, 2023, all registrations will show “Submitted.” Around mid-March, some will change to “Selected,” “Rejected,” or remain “Submitted.” If USCIS needs to increase registrations to either cap during the fiscal year, it will select additional registrations from the “Submitted” pool. After October 1, 2023, the remaining “submitted” registrations will be changed to “unselected”.
USCIS conducts regular capping first. However, since all master’s registrations are capped, including master’s degree holders, the Immigration Bureau will select some master’s registrations within the regular cap and not enter the master’s lottery. USCIS will then include all unselected master’s degree registrations in the master’s degree lottery.
This past H-1B season we saw record low visa denial rates. Statistics show that USCIS approves 96% of visas. During Trump’s presidency, H-1B denial rates were as high as 24% at one point, and in addition to NOIDs, requests for evidence (R.F.E.s) were also high. During the F.Y. 2022 season, USCIS rejected more than 72% of applications before reviewers could make an assessment.
Analysts, including those at the National Foundation for American Policy, point to Trump’s restrictive policies, particularly targeting highly skilled foreigners, that led to growing denials during his time in office.
H 1b Electronic Registration Process
For next season, we believe USCIS may receive enrollment caps closer to 500, 000 during the lottery period. This means applicants with a bachelor’s degree have a one-in-five chance, and applicants with a qualifying U.S. master’s degree have a one-quarter chance. H-1B Denial Rates by Fiscal Year
The average H-1B visa rejection rate in the past 10 years is 17.9%. Why does it fluctuate so much? One of the biggest reasons is the change in the U.S. government and the policies it creates.
Want to know which companies have received the most H-1B approvals? Tata Consultancy Services received the highest total number of ongoing approvals last year, followed by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Infoys, Apple, Deloitte, Cognizant and Intel. This data is provided by the USCIS Employer Data Center. Check out the chart below for a more comprehensive breakdown of support.
The United States has benefited greatly from this