The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is delaying the effective date of the H-1B Selection Process final rule until Dec. 31, 2021. What this means is that USCIS will apply the regulations currently in place (i.e. random selection) to the initial registration period, and, any subsequent registration period for the FY 2022 registration process that takes place before Dec. 31, 2021
USCIS also announced on February 5, 2021 that the registration period for the fiscal year (FY) 2022 H-1B cap will open on March 9, 2021 at 12:00pm Eastern and will run through March 25, 2021 at 12:00pm Eastern. Prospective petitioners and representatives will be able to fill out petitioner and beneficiary information and submit registrations for the H-1B cap season during this period.
Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives will need to use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary. Prospective petitioners or their representatives will be able to submit registrations for multiple beneficiaries in a single online session. Each successfully submitted registration will receive a confirmation number that can be used to track registrations.
USCIS will randomly select registrations and send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts by March 31, 2021.
An H-1B cap-subject petition may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for that beneficiary was selected in the H-1B registration process.
USCIS has also provided further instructions about the H-1B Electronic Registration Process.
SW Law Group will keep you updated about any further developments regarding this matter.