US immigrant aspirants must begin preparing for the Fiscal Year 2019 H-1B Visa Petitions

US immigrant aspirants must begin preparing for the financial Year 2019 H-1B Visa Petitions. The reason is that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has enhanced its requests for extra evidence for specific individuals. This requires particular attention to the qualification of the applicant as an expert occupation for H-1B visa.

The filing of H-1B Visa Petitions for the financial year 2019 that are subject to annual cap commences on 2 April 2018. The new financial year is effective to start from or after 1 October 2018. The petitions for this year will be accepted by the USCIS from 2 April 2018 and most likely will be open until 6 April 2018. Cap limited petitions for H-1B visas will also be accepted after 6 April. But this is until USCIS decides that adequate figure has been achieved, as quoted by the Mintz Immigration Law.

Petitions that are accepted then enter into arbitrary draw of lots. In this a restricted figures of petitions are chosen for processing of H-1B visas. An annual cap of 65, 000 is applicable for the financial year 2019 as well. Additional 20,000 visas will be offered. These will be available for individuals who have completed a Master’s or Doctoral degree in the US. The degree must have been obtained from an endorsed educational institution in the US.

As per the past trends, it is anticipated that USCIS will stop receiving petitions by the end of 5th April 2018. After this, the petitions will be accepted for the 20,000 quotas for a higher degree in the US. Then the petitions will enter a random draw. Unselected petitions will be transferred to the general draw wherein they will compete for the 65,000 visas along with all other normal petitions.

It is thus advised that the complete petitions must be ready by 23 March 2018. These can be then filed for being received by the USCIS on 2 April 2018. The prospective applicants will include fresh workers, candidates who were not chosen in the previous H-1B visa draws, former J-1 trainees, and F-1 students. L-1 workers facing delays in green cards and individuals pursuing H-4 work authorization can also apply.

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