Tuesday, August 23, 2022

USCIS REACHES H-1B CAP FOR H-1B CAP CASES FILED IN THIS YEAR’S H-1B CAP LOTTERY (FISCAL YEAR 2023)

On August 23, 2022, USCIS announced that they received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the 65,000 H-1B regular cap and 20,000 H-1B master’s cap, for fiscal year 2023 (registrations filed in March 2022).

For all non-selected cases, the attorney of record and petitioner should have received a non-selection notification through the registration on the USCIS website. The status for registrations properly submitted, but not selected, will state: Not Selected: Not Selected – not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration.

USCIS will continue to accept H-1B cap exempt petitions and H-1B petitions for workers that have previously been counted against the cap.

Monday, August 8, 2022

SEPTEMBER 2022 VISA BULLETIN: ANALYSIS AND PREDICTIONS

The Department of State has just issued the September 2022 Visa Bulletin.  This is the eleventh Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2022. This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin.

Visa Bulletin

Table A:  Final Action Dates -- Applications with these dates may be approved for their Green Card (Permanent Residency card) or Immigrant Visa appointment.

 

EB

Worldwide

CHINA

INDIA

PHILIPPINES

1st

C

C

C

C

2nd

C

01APR19

01DEC14

C

3rd

C

22APR18

15FEB12

C

Other workers

08MAY19

01JUN12

15FEB12

08MAY19

Table B: Dates of Filing

The USCIS is expected to use the Table B Dates of Filing chart for I-485 employment-based filings. See: USCIS Visa Bulletin Dates

MU Law Analysis

As is often the case toward the end of the fiscal year, there was not much movement as the USCIS and DOS seek to use the remaining visas in the fiscal year. We are repeating the same message as last month.

EB-3 Other Workers, which is the category for occupations that require less than two years of education or experience to perform the job, remains retrogressed to 08May2019.  This date will not advance until October 1, 2022, with the start of the new fiscal year. 

The India and China EB-2 categories remain unchanged.  EB-3 India and EB-3 China advanced one month each.

The WW and Philippine EB-3 remained current. We may see a retrogression of WW and Philippine EB-3 before the end of the fiscal year, once the full allotment of visas is exhausted. This is common, and nothing to be too concerned about, as we have explained in the past.