H1-B US Visa application cap reached for 2020: USCIS

Washington : The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has claimed that it has reached Congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B US visa cap for the fiscal year 2020.

The H1-B US visa helps people in getting permission to get paid for their services in the United States.

What is H1-B US visa?

It is a non-immigrant visa that allows the US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

H1-B Visa application cap as per new rules

With changes in rules for the US H1-B Visa application, a cap of 65,000 has been imposed in order to increase employment opportunities for the residents on America. The USCIS, the federal agency mandated with task of approving such applications, on Friday said that they have already received a sufficient amount of application for the fiscal year 2020.

The fiscal year begins October 1, 2019 and it the USCIS started receiving the visa petitions from April 1. However, the agency did not reveal the number of petitions received by it in the first five days.

According to the agency, it will refund the application fees for all rejected applications.

Petitions filed for current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap, and who still retain their cap number, are exempt from the FY 2020 H-1B, the USCIS said.

Last year, the USCIS received 190,000 cap-subjected H-1B petitions. In 2018, it received 199,000 applications while in 2017, 236,000 petitions in the first five days after it started receiving the applications.

The USCIS received 232,972 H-1B cap-subject petitions in 2016 and in 2015, it received 172,581 cap-subjected petitions.