From the ISSS-BU News Update for 23 April 2007
Latest H-1B Visa Update
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made two important announcements this past week regarding the H-1B category. The first announcement, published late last Thursday, warns of an error that caused receipt notices to be mailed erroneously prior to April 12, 2007, which was the date that the random selection process of all cap-subject applications received on April 2 and April 3 took place.
A small number (USCIS does not say how many) of H-1B cap-subject applications received on April 2 and April 3 had receipt notices generated for them prior to the computer generated random selection process on April 12. This was a mistake, as all fees were supposed to be held until all the cases could be counted. USCIS warns that the issuance of receipt notices for cap-subject H1-B cases with notice dates earlier than April 12 should not assume that their application was selected for processing. Any cases that were issued receipts with dates prior to April 12 and were not selected for processing on April 12 will have their applications returned and receive a refund of their filing fee. Final notification of petitions that were not picked during the random selection process will occur in May 2007.
The complete text of the announcement may be read at:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/H1Bfy08CapUpdate041907.pdf
The second announcement is that as of Monday, April 16, 2007, the 20,000 H-1B visa exemption for those with U.S. master's degrees or higher had not yet been reached. However, 16,987 applications that qualify for this category have been received by USCIS. Thus, as of April 16, 85% of the 20,000 available exempted applications has been used. It is anticipated that the 20,000 limit will be reached very soon.