United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has just announced that the H-1B Cap for FY2016 has been reached. USCIS has also reached the additional 20,000 cap for H-1B petitions for U.S. Master’s or higher degree holders.
USCIS will now conduct a random-selection lottery. The lottery system will first be imposed on the U.S. Master’s Cap filings to select 20,000 petitions. The remaining petitions will be entered into the Regular Cap lottery. Cases not accepted under the lottery system will be rejected and returned.
Due to the overwhelming number of H-1B petitions received, USCIS has not yet announced the date it will conduct the random-selection lottery.
If your case is accepted for processing, you will receive a Receipt Notice acknowledging its acceptance. However, please note that it may take many weeks before all Receipt Notices are issued. For cases filed using Premium Processing, USCIS will begin reviewing such cases no later than May 11th, 2015.