H-IB visa aspirants exceed quota, lottery to be held

US Immigration authorities have received enough applications for the H-1B visas surpassing the 65,000 annual quotas within a week.

US Immigration authorities have received enough applications for the H-1B visas coveted by Indian high-tech professionals surpassing the 65,000 annual quotas within a week and a random lottery will pick the successful aspirants.

Announcing that the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year 2009 had been met, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services(USCIS) did not reveal the number of applications received but said it would “carry out the computer-generated random selection process” at a date to be determined.

“Before running the random selection process, USCIS will complete initial data entry for all filings received during the filing period ending on April 7. Due to the high number of petitions, USCIS is not yet able to announce the precise day on which it will conduct the random selection process,” a statement from the agency said.

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The random process will determine the 65,000 winners who could start working at their sponsor companies from October 1, 2008. Last year US authorities received 123,000 applications in less than two days. The USCIS also received more than 20,000 H-1B visa applications filed on behalf of persons exempted from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption.

This category is reserved for graduates of American universities and there will be random lottery to select the 20,000 applications as well. The agency announced that it will conduct the selection process for “advanced degree” exemption petitions first. “All advanced degree petitions not selected will be part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit.”

The 65,000 annual quotas being hit was widely expected by US business leaders, who feel the cap is too low and affected the hiring of foreign skilled workers.