USCIS to conduct second lottery round for H-1B visa applications
Finberg Firm
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Thursday that they will conduct a second lottery for H-1B temporary work visas to reach the annual cap for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. However, selections will only be from the previously submitted H-1B registrations.
In March 2023, USCIS held an initial lottery on properly submitted electronic registrations FY 2024 including the beneficiaries eligible for the advanced degree exemption. The initial filing period for those selection registrations was held from April 1, 2023 to June 30, 2023.
“We recently determined that we would need to select additional registrations to reach the FY 2024 numerical allocations. Soon, we will select additional registrations from previously submitted electronic registrations using a random selection process”, USCIS said in a statement.
“We will announce once we have completed this second selection process and have notified all prospective petitioners with selected registrations from this round of selection that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration”, they added.
The H-1B allows U.S. companies to hire and petition graduate level foreign workers in specific industries (specialty occupations) that require technical or theoretical expertise in specialized areas of industry. This includes architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, business specialties, accounting, law, theology, and arts.
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