The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services have conducted another random selection of H-1B visa applications, the third in a row for the fiscal year 2022.
According to a press release of the USCIS, the selection has been conducted upon an assertion that more registrations are needed in order to reach FY 2022 H-1B numerical allocations, including here the advanced degree exemption.
“On Nov. 19, we selected from among previously submitted electronic registrations using a random selection process. The petition filing period based on registrations selected on Nov. 19 will begin on Nov. 22, 2021, and close on Feb. 23, 2022,” the agency noted in its press release.
According to the same individuals who have been picked in this round of selection will have their myUSCIS accounts updated in order to include a selection notice. The same will contain more details regarding when and where to file.
The H-1B visa is a US work visa, which permits companies and other employers in the country to employ highly skilled workers from other countries like chemists, statisticians, scientists, financial analysts, industrial engineers, computer systems analysts, computer hardware engineers, etc.
There is a mandated cap of 65,000 H-1B visas annually, known as the regular cap. An additional 20,000 visas are issued for holders of US master’s degrees and higher. Moreover, there are some H-1B non-immigrant visa applicants who are exempt from the cap, including here H-1B employees performing labor or services in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
November’s random selection is the third in a row for this year. Previously, the agency conducted a random selection from among properly submitted electronic registrations for the FY 2022 H-1B numerical allocations in July 2021.
The first initial selection was conducted in March this year.
“Per regulation, we take into account historical data related to approvals, denials, revocations, and other relevant factors to calculate the number of registrations needed to meet the H-1B numerical allocations for a given fiscal year. Only those petitioners with selected registrations for FY 2022 are eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions,” the agency notes in a press release regarding the third random selection.
In September this year, VisaGuide.World reported that the number of H-1B visas issued by the country’s administration this year has increased, since the approval rates for H-1B in the first three quarters of the US fiscal year were 98.1 percent, compared to 2019 when the rate was 84 percent.
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