US to accept H-1B visas from today
Washington: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has made elaborate arrangement for receiving applications for the much coveted H-1B visas, beginning on Tuesday, to meet the expected rush.
As per the Congressional mandated cap, USCIS can allocate a maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2015 beginning October 1, 2014.
“To facilitate the prioritised intake of cap-subject petitions requesting premium processing, ISIS will begin premium processing for H-1B cap cases no later than April 28,” ISIS added.
ISIS conducted a computerized draw of lots for available H-1B visas Last year. This random lottery was conducted on April 7, 2013, and was the first random lottery since April 2008.
Meanwhile, Marc Klein, an immigration attorney with Thompson & Knight told the CNBC news that at least 160,000 applications are expected for the 85,000 available visas. Her estimate would top 2012’s 134,000 petitions and last year’s 124,000.
The highest ever number of applications was more than 201,000 in 2001, according to USCIS.
“It just shows US still lags behind other countries when it comes to an emphasis on educating American-born students in computer science, math and other areas,” she was quoted as saying.
