On April 5, 2013, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) announced that it had received enough petitions to meet the
statutory H-1B cap of 65,000 new H-1B visas to be issued each
year. The H-1B visa category is used by U.S. businesses to
employ foreign workers in a "professional" or
"specialty occupation" position. USCIS also announced
that it received enough petitions to meet the 20,000 advanced
degree exemption. USCIS reported receiving approximately
124,000 H-1B petitions within the first week of the filing
period.
On April 7, 2013, USCIS selected the H-1B petitions to be
processed using a computer generated random selection process,
known as a lottery. H-1B cap subject petitions received after
April 5, 2013 or not selected for processing in the lottery will be
rejected and returned to the petitioner along with the filing
fees. USCIS has started to issue receipt notices for premium
processing cases selected for processing.