US reaches congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa cap for FY-2021; applicants to be notified before 31 March

Washington: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it has reached the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B cap for the fiscal year 2021 as it received enough requests from corporations and businesses. The USCIS, the federal agency which screens and allocates H-1B applications, said it reached the cap and randomly selected among the registrations properly selected. The fiscal year begins from 1 October, 2020. USCIS will notify the successful applicants and their companies before 31 March, that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition. The deadline for submitting the H-1B applications by successful registrants is 30 June. [caption id=“attachment_5263981” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Under the new H-1B Electronic Registration Process implemented this year, before the start of the application filing season on 1 April, all the companies were mandatorily asked to register with the USCIS and 20 March was the last date for the registration. USCIS said that it has received enough registration for the Congressionally-mandated cap for 65,000 H-1B visas. In addition, USCIS also issues another 20,000 H-1B visas for those who have earned masters and higher degrees from a US institution. “USCIS has received enough electronic registrations during the initial period to reach the FY 2021 H-1B numerical allocations (H-1B cap). We randomly selected from among the registrations properly submitted,” the federal agency said. “We intend to notify petitioners with selected registrations no later than March 31, 2020, that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration,” it said.