United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
("USCIS") will begin accepting cap-subject H-1B petitions
on April 1, 2015, for start dates of October 1, 2015 or later. The
agency confirmed that it expects to receive more than the
congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 plus 20,000 US master's
(or higher) degree holder petitions within the first five business
days and will hold a lottery among those to select the petitions to
be processed. USCIS also announced that it will begin adjudicating
premium processing petitions from lottery "winners"
beginning no later than May 11, 2015.
Last year, USCIS announced that premium processing would begin
no later than April 28, 2014. This year's estimated increased
delay indicates that USCIS expects an even larger number of
petitions than the more than 172,500 received during the FY15 H-1B
cap program. We expect many petitioning employers will have to wait
until late May to receive a decision on premium processed
cases.
