The USCIS announced that on April 11, 2018, a computer-generated random selection process was conducted to select enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally-mandated cap and the U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year (FY) 2019. Between April 2 and April 6, the USCIS received 190,098 H-1B petitions. In an announcement on April 6, the USCIS confirmed that it had received enough H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 and the master’s cap of 20,000. USCIS will reject and return all eligible unselected petitions with their filing fees.
The USCIS conducted the selection process for the master’s cap first and then all unselected master’s cap petitions became part of the random selection process for the 65,000 cap. Additional information on H1B cap cases is available from the US Citizenship and Immigration Service.
