This year USCIS will accept H-1B cap-subject filings from April 3 through April 7, the 1st having fallen on a Saturday this year. Our expectation is that once again more submissions will be received during this period than the available H-1Bs – 20,000 for those with Master’s degrees from US institutions of higher education, 65,000 regardless of where the degree (or equivalency) earned.
These numbers are statutory and don’t increase to fit actual demand – which was in excess of three times the available H-1Bs in the 2015 and 2016 filing seasons.
As in years past (this cap has been reached in the first five days in each of the last five years), USCIS would then conduct a random lottery to select petitions which will be provided the allotted H-1B numbers and processed by USCIS, ultimately being adjudicated as Approved or Denied.
The remaining, unselected cases will be returned to the petitioning companies (or their attorneys) with literally thousands of dollars in fee checks each case uncashed by USCIS, and thousands of dollars worth of time and effort that went into preparing the petition never even viewed by USCIS adjudicators.
The jobs sought to be filled by these filings, very often, will move overseas with the employee the company had hoped to hire.