H1B Visa News Portal

Employers of H-1B Visa applicants will need to register electronically before proceeding with any other step to apply for a H-1B visa in the 2021 Cap Season, after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that they have completed a successful pilot testing phase of the electronic registration process, thus implementing it in the next H-1B lottery. According to a press release of the USCIS, at the end of the electronic registration, applicants will also need [...]

The United States Department of Homeland Security has delayed the introduction of a proposal for major changes to the H-1B visa program, for the third time now. Two years ago the agency had promised to implement changes in order to combat “fraud and abuses” to the much sought after H-1B visa which is a non-immigrant visa that enables foreigners to work in the US in specific job positions such as professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, IT specialists and [...]

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services have decided to start applying a new non-refundable fee to H-1B visa applicants for every registration submitted. A press release on the final rules explains that the USCIS will now ask employers submitting petitions for foreign workers to pay a $10 non-refundable fee for each H-1B registration. The move has been taken in a bid to collect the means necessary to modernize and more efficiently process applications to live or [...]

More than 50 US business school deans and company CEOs have signed an open letter calling on President Donald Trump and Congress leaders to reform the current H-1B visa cap. They worry that their current immigration policies are hurting the economic growth of the country. More specifically, they believe the 85,000 cap on annually-issued H1-B visas is too low, and will not produce the necessary talent that the US economy needs to strive. “We are needlessly capping [...]

H-4 visa holders will probably be able to keep working in the United States until spring 2020, a US Department of Justice memo published on Monday hints. While hearing a challenge to the work authorization granted to H-1B spouses in 2015 under former President Barack Obama, the Homeland Security told lawyers in the case that the earliest possible publication date for the rule is spring 2020, but that this time-frame is “aspirational,” according to the memo. While [...]

Three California men and one other from New Jersey have been charged by complaint for being involved in a scheme through which they falsely filed H-1B visa applications for foreigners under claims they already had a job in the US. The H1B visa is a non-immigrant US work visa which enables foreigners to work in the US in specific job positions such as professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, IT specialists and similar.  The visa is also called the [...]

The rate of H-1B visa approvals has dropped from 93% for fiscal year 2017 to 85% in 2018. A total of 335,000 H-1B visas, including first and new applications, were approved, out of 396,300 completed applications for FY 2018. According to numbers released by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a year before, there were 373,400 applications approved out of 403,300 received. Data shows that the approval rate has been dropping since 2015 as follows: [...]

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services have completed all H-1B visa cap selection process for fiscal year 2020. According to a press release of the agency, the computer-generated random selection process, including those selected under the U.S. advanced degree exemption has been finalized. “As in previous years, we will now begin returning all H-1B cap-subject petitions that we did not select and will issue an announcement once we are done notifying petitioners. Due to the volume [...]

American employers wishing to bring to US highly-skilled foreigners on an H-1B visa may soon have to face some other challenges, while applying, and that is the higher costs for getting the visa. The Trump administration is proposing to increase the fees for H-1B visa applicants, in order to fund the expansion of the apprentice program that prepares the American youngsters in fields related to technology. While testifying before a Congressional committee the United States Labor Secretary [...]

The American Center for Immigration Studies has come with a new report, unfolding stories of American STEM workers who were allegedly “victims of the H-1B program”. The CIS, which is a non-profit organization and think tank that opposes immigration, through the years has voiced its concerns regarding “foreigners taking jobs from Americans.” In its latest report, the CIS accuses big corporations and their lobbyists for falsely claiming that there is a shortage of American STEM workers. “In [...]