USCIS announced on
April 7, 2017, that it has received enough H-1B petitions to reach the
statutory cap of 65,000 visas for fiscal year (FY) 2018. USCIS has also
received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the U.S. advanced degree
exemption, also known as the master’s cap.
USCIS received 199,000 H-1B petitions
during the filing period, which began April 3, including petitions filed for
the advanced degree exemption. On April 11, USCIS used a computer-generated
random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the
65,000 general-category cap and the 20,000 cap under the advanced degree
exemption. USCIS will reject and return all unselected petitions with their
filing fees, unless the petition is found to be a duplicate filing.
