On April 2, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting new H-1B petitions for professional positions. We note that these petitions will have a start date of Oct. 1, 2018.
Please review your employment needs now to determine whether you wish to sponsor any of your current or prospective employees for H-1B status. This includes those professionals already employed by you in F-1 Optional Practical Training status, E-3 status, TN status, J-1/J-2 status or L-1B status, and any individuals you may wish to bring on board on or after Oct. 1, 2018.
We expect that the H-1B quota will be fully subscribed within the first five business days of April. In 2017, USCIS received over 199,000 H-1B petitions for only 85,000 spots (inclusive of petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption). Since we will be filing all of our clients' H-1B petitions on the first business day of April, if you haven't already done so, please let us know now or no later than the end of January of the H-1B cases that you would like us to prepare. Please send us all the information (including completed questionnaires) as soon as possible so that we may begin working on your cases. If you have any questions or need additional information about this alert, please feel free to contact us.
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