H1B Petitions for FY 2012 Start on April 1, 2011

WASHINGTON March 19, 2011 - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced yesterday that it would start accepting cap subject H1B visa petitions for alien worker on April 1, 2011.

Employers in United States use the H1B program to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The cap  for fiscal year 2012 is 65,000. The first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of individuals with U.S. master’s degrees or higher are exempt.

H1B Visa petition(Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker) must be filed by U.S. employers, who may begin applying for the H1B visa six months before the actual start date of the visa.

For example, the beginning of the fiscal year 2012 is October 1, 2011, employers can apply as soon as April 1, 2011 for the fiscal year 2010 cap, but the beneficiary(foreign professional) cannot start working until October 1st, 2010.

Cases will be considered accepted on the date USCIS receives a properly filed petition for which the correct fee has been submitted; not the date that the petition is postmarked.

If USCIS receives more petitions than it can accept, it may on the final receipt date randomly select the number of petitions that will be considered for final inclusion within the cap. USCIS will reject petitions that are subject to the cap and are not selected, as well as petitions received after it has the necessary number of petitions needed to meet the cap.