Enter to open, tab to navigate, enter to select
USCIS on Premium Processing for the FY2020 H-1B Cap Season
Practical Law Legal Update w-019-6486 (Approx. 4 pages)
USCIS on Premium Processing for the FY2020 H-1B Cap Season
by Practical Law Labor & Employment
| Published on 26 Mar 2019 • USA (National/Federal) |
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued an update describing premium processing availability for the FY2020 H-1B cap season, which begins on April 1, 2019.
On March 19, 2019, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued an update describing premium processing availability for the FY2020 H-1B cap season, which begins on April 1, 2019.
Premium processing will be available for cap-subject H-1B petitions in two phases:
- First, petitions requesting a change of nonimmigrant status may request premium processing concurrently with the H-1B petition. Although the premium processing request may be filed with the petition, premium processing will not begin immediately. USCIS expects it to start on or before May 20, 2019. A petitioner that fails to request premium processing when filing the H-1B change of status petition must wait until premium processing begins for these cases to request it.
- Premium processing for petitions not requesting a change of status will begin no sooner than June 2019. USCIS will announce when petitioners may file a request to convert a pending H-1B petition to premium processing. The agency will not accept a concurrently filed premium processing request for a petition that does not request a change of status.
Premium processing is immediately available for all other types of H-1B petitions (see Legal Update, USCIS: Premium Processing Available for All H-1B Petitions).
New H-1B Data Hub
USCIS also announced a new H-1B Employer Data Hub, which will be available on USCIS's website on April 1, 2019. The new hub will be searchable and contain information about H-1B petitions, including:
- Fiscal year.
- NAICS industry code.
- Petitioner name.
- City.
- State.
- Zip code.
Similar information is available from the Department of Labor (DOL) on Labor Condition Applications (LCAs), the preliminary step in the H-1B petitioning process, through the DOL's disclosure data.
Reminder: New Selection Process
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a Final Rule on January 31, 2019, amending several of its regulations governing the filing and selection processes for cap-subject H-1B petitions (84 Fed. Reg. 888 (Jan. 31, 2019)).
In the event USCIS receives more petitions than there are available H-1B visas, the Final Rule changes the order in which registrations are counted towards the projected number needed to reach the H-1B allocations. Historically, USCIS counted petitions filed for beneficiaries with a master's degree or higher under the H-1B advanced degree exemption first until the projected number of petitions needed to meet the advanced degree exemption allocation (20,000) was reached, before beginning to select petitions filed for the regular cap (65,000). Under the Final Rule:
- USCIS will first select the number of petitions estimated to meet the regular H-1B cap from the entire pool of registrations.
- Once the regular cap projected number is reached, USCIS would then count registrations for petitions that are eligible for the advanced degree exemption but were not selected under the regular cap toward the projected number needed to reach the advanced degree exemption allocation.
USCIS has also created a website for information specific to the FY2020 cap season. Interested parties may check the website for updated information and sign up for email alerts.