Giving an opportunity to professionals who wish to test foreign waters, Washington has said that it will begin accepting H1B visa application in India, from 1 April. It is expected that the allotted seats may be filled within the first a week April, itself. Aspirants can submit their applications to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
US being the leader with its economic structure is light years ahead of India, as of now. The H1B visa is the most popular format and thousands of Indian apply for it every year. The USCIS can issue up to 65,000 H1B visas, that are largely wanted by IT professionals and IT services’ companies.
According to a TOI report, after the recent global economic crisis, US’ economy is recovering. USCIS said, “Due to the high level of premium processing receipts anticipated, combined with the possibility that the H1B cap will be met in the first five business days of the filing season, USCIS has temporarily adjusted its current premium processing practice.” It added that application cases would be considered accepted, only when it will receive a properly filed petition with the correct fee on a given date, not the date when the petition is postmarked.
The guidelines for this year’s filing process have been released by the federal agency. The mandated cap on H1B visas for this year beginning from October is 65,000. However, the first 20,000 H1B applications by people with US master’s degree or higher, will not be counted as part of the 65,000 cap. “USCIS anticipates receiving more than enough petitions to reach both caps by 7 April,” said the federal agency.
“The agency is prepared to use a random selection process to meet the numerical limit. Non-duplicate petitions that are not selected will be rejected and returned with the filing fees,” concluded USCIS.
