Publication

The H-1B visa cap subject filing period began on April 1, 2019 and three days later the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had already received enough petitions to meet the congressionally mandated regular cap of 65,000 petitions for fiscal year 2020.[1] By April 10th USCIS announced that it had also received a sufficient number of applications to reach the master’s cap of 20,000. USCIS received a total of 201,011 H-1B petitions, including advanced degree petitions.

USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process to select enough H-1B petitions to meet both the regular and master’s caps. In accordance with new H-1B selection regulations, USCIS first selected all H-1B petitions submitted on behalf of all beneficiaries – from the remaining eligible, it will select those projected to reach the advanced degree exception.[2]

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-reaches-fy-2020-h-1b-regular-cap

[2] https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-completes-h-1b-cap-random-selection-process-fy-2020-and-reaches-advanced-degree-exemption-cap