4.5% decrease in H-1B visa applications

The numbers of H-1B Visa applications have decreased by 4.5% and this is the second consecutive year of the decreasing trends. 1.90 lakh applications have been received by the US for the fiscal year 2018-19. In 2017-18 the numbers of applications received was 2 lakh. This decrease is not a huge margin and indicates that the interest in H-1B visa applications continues.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been resorting to the system of lottery from fiscal year 2013-14. The reason is that the numbers of H-1B Visa applications are in huge numbers when compared to the yearly quota of 65, 000 visas. The year 2016-17 was the peak for these visas as 2.36 lakh H-1B visa applications had been submitted. The current year’s figures indicate an decline of 19.5% with the peak figures, as quoted by the Times of India.

The applications for fiscal year 2018-19 were accepted from 2 April. USCIS declared on April 6 that adequate numbers of applications required to exhaust the quota of 65, 000 visas. The applications received are also adequate for the 20,000 Masters quota for applicants from US universities it added.

The USCIS revealed that it has utilized random selection process generated through computer to select adequate applications to cater to the annual quota. The first lottery process selected candidates for the Masters quota of 20,000 H-1B visas.

The petitions that were remaining after the Masters quota round were then transferred for the second lottery round for general quota of 65, 000 visas. The second round had to thus select candidates from around 1.70 lakh applications.

One of the leading immigration firms in the US has sad that the selection chances for applicants in the 2018-19 lottery is roughly around 38%. The overall selection chance in this season stands at 455, it added further.

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