H-1B Cap is Reached for All Categories, Including Those with a U.S. Advanced Degree

This past weekend U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the U.S. Advanced Degree H-1B cap for fiscal year 2007 was reached on July 26, 2006. Any application received on July 26, 2006, at USCIS will be subject to a random selection process in order to fill the full 20,000 H-1B numbers available to holders of U.S. Advanced Degrees. All those petitions not selected, and all those received by USCIS after July 26, will be returned.

USCIS had previously announced that the cap on the regular H-1B numbers for fiscal year 2007 (which commences October 1, 2006, and ends September 30, 2007)—available to all foreign workers who are in a specialty occupation—was reached at the end of May, 2006. Barring an action of Congress, there will be no more H-1Bs available until fiscal year 2008.