Visa Lawyer Blog
Congratulations to those of our readers who won the H-1B visa lottery for fiscal year 2019. If your checks were not cashed between April 1 and May 3, unfortunately you were not selected in the lottery for the upcoming fiscal year. Thankfully our office has prepared a helpful guide that will help you explore alternative options to the H-1B visa by clicking here.
Our office continues to receive receipt notices for petitions that were selected in the lottery. As of the month of May our office has enjoyed a 66.66% success rate for petitions filed under the Master’s cap, and a 41.37% success rate for petitions filed under the Regular Bachelor’s cap, well above the national average of 35%.
If you have received a receipt notice, please keep in mind that premium processing services, for all FY 2019 cap-subject petitions, including petitions seeking an exemption for individuals with a U.S. master’s degree or higher, are suspended until September 10, 2018.
If you were selected in the lottery and you do not receive a request for evidence, you should expect your petition to be processed by October, however your petition should be approved before then.
If you have received a request for evidence, it may take USCIS up to 60 days to receive a final result once USCIS has received the response to your request for evidence. This means that there will be a slight delay for petitions that receive a request for evidence which may result in a final decision being rendered into the months of November or December. If your petition is still pending by September 10, 2018, and premium processing is reinstated you may wish to upgrade your petition to receive a decision more quickly, although we have advised clients against upgrading their petition to premium processing in cases that have received a request for evidence.
We will notify our clients once premium processing is reinstated.