Q&A on H-1B CAP Numbers
December 29th, 2009 by Brian D. Zuccaro
CIS recently released Q&A information with respect to the recently hit H-1B cap. The Q&A information touches upon the numbers set aside for Singapore and Chile and the number of overall H-1B petitions received for processing.
The Q&A was posted on AILA Infonet on 12/29/09 and is cited as AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 09122961:
Question 1: How are the H-1B1 numbers for Singapore and Chile counted? We know that the 6,800 numbers for this category are subtracted from the regular cap, reducing it to 58,200. Are the H-1B1 numbers being returned to the regular H-1B cap? If so, when and how many?
Answer 1: 6,800 cap numbers are held in reserve each year for Chile/Singapore H-1B1s. The unused Chile/Singapore numbers are then rolled over into the next fiscal year’s regular cap. For example, the unused Chile/Singapore numbers for FY08 were rolled into the FY09 regular cap and the unused Chile/Singapore numbers for FY09 were rolled into the FY10 regular cap. There were approximately 6,100 unused Chile/Singapore H-1B1s in FY09. That number was added to the 58,200 regular cap numbers available for FY10 to get 64,300 regular cap visas available for FY10 (this excludes the 20,000 master’s exemption).
Question 2: We believe that USCIS accepts more H-1B petitions than there are cap numbers because of an assumption that a certain percentage of petitions will be denied or withdrawn. What is total number of filings that USCIS will accept this year to achieve the statutory number of H-1B approvals?
Answer 2: Yes, USCIS has historically accepted more H-1B petitions than available cap numbers based on the assumption that some petitions will be denied, rejected or withdrawn. However, this year was different from previous years as we were able to use actual data on approvals to determine when to end the filing period for the regular cap. We applied approval, denial, withdrawal, etc. rates from the cases that had already been adjudicated to our pending cap-subject petitions to estimate how many of the pending petitions may be eligible for a cap number. We then added that number to the number of petitions that had already been approved for an FY10 cap number. When the estimated cap eligible number reached 64,300, we closed the filing period. We ran a lottery on the filings received on Monday, December 21st since we only needed a portion of those filings to reach the cap.
