On April 11, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process to select enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally-mandated cap and the U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year (FY) 2019.
USCIS received 190,098 H-1B petitions during the filing period, which began April 2, including petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption. USCIS announced on April 6, that it had received enough H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 and the master’s cap of 20,000. USCIS will reject and return all unselected petitions with their filing fees unless the petition is a prohibited multiple filing.
USCIS conducted the selection process for the master’s cap first. All unselected master’s cap petitions then became part of the random selection process for the 65,000 cap.
As I have previously reported, USCIS generally selects 25,000 petitions for the master’s cap and 75,000 for the regular cap knowing that a percentage will end up withdrawn or denied.
USCIS does not normally announce how many petitions were filed in each cap. In our office, over 80% of our filings were in the master’s cap (AD or Advanced Degree). This time around USCIS has provided the cap count in each category: 95,885 were filed in the Advanced Degree cap and 94,213 were filed in the regular cap.
I’ll be posting updates as we start receiving receipt notices in the mail.