USCIS Announces Plans to Conduct 2nd H-1B Lottery!!

On July 27, 2023, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it plans to conduct a 2^nd H-1B lottery this year. USCIS received a record 780,884 H-1B registrations this year, but concluded that more than half were submitted by multiple employers on behalf of the same person on account of rampant fraud made easier with the new online registration system. In the last few months, USCIS has been conducting extensive fraud investigations and revoking many of H-1B registrations previously selected on account of those findings, and has just determined that they will need to make new selections in order to meet the statutory H-1B quota for this year (65,000 regular H-1B visas and 20,000 H-1B visas for those with advanced degrees from U.S. universities).

Specifically, USCIS announced today:

We recently determined that we would need to select additional registrations to reach the FY 2024 numerical allocations. Soon, we will select additional registrations from previously submitted electronic registrations using a random selection process. We will announce once we have completed this second selection process and have notified all prospective petitioners with selected registrations from this round of selection that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration.

Those with selected registrations will have their myUSCIS accounts updated to include a selection notice, which includes details of when and where to file.

How to Understand the Registration Status

The employer’s USCIS portal (my.USCIS.gov) lists the following statuses for everyone registered in this year’s H-1B lottery:

• Selected: The employer may file an H-1B cap petition for the beneficiary beginning during the period noted on the selection notice.
• Submitted: The beneficiary was not chosen in the initial lottery selection, but will remain eligible for selection in subsequent lotteries this fiscal year, should USCIS determine that it needs to conduct additional lotteries.
• Denied: A duplicate registration was submitted by the employer for the same beneficiary. If a registration was denied as a duplicate, all of the employer’s registrations for that specific beneficiary are invalid.
• Invalidated – Failed Payment: A registration was submitted, but the payment method was declined, not reconciled, disputed, or otherwise invalid.

Employers are only able to proceed with filing H-1B petitions for those marked “Selected.”

What Happens Next?

USCIS has not yet announced when the second lottery will occur, nor how many additional selections will be made. Employers and their attorneys will soon receive notifications if their registrations were selected. The H-1B beneficiary, unfortunately, has no way of checking on the status of their selection and must wait on notification by their employer and/or attorney. Individuals working with Minsky, McCormick & Hallagan, P.C. should rest assured that the attorneys will inform them if their case is selected as soon as the selection notification is received.