As of the morning of April 9, 2009, the USCIS announced that it has received approximately 42,000 regular cap H-1B visa petitions and that it will continue to accept petitions filed under this category until the cap is reached.

However, the agency also reported that it has received approximately 20,000 petitions under the advanced degree exemption cap. The agency is continuing to accept cases filed under this category as they anticipate that not all filed cases under this category will actually be approved.

The USCIS has also confirmed that any cases filed under premium processing during the first 5 business days of the filing window (i.e., received by April 7), will use April 7 for the beginning of the 15-day premium processing period.

We will continue to provide updates as they become available.

If you have identified any individual that you at this point still want to sponsor for an H-1B cap petition this year, you will want to act quickly to file a new H-1B visa petition for him/her, as there is no way to know when the H-1B visa cap will be reached for the "regular" cap. It is likely that the "U.S. advanced degree" cap will be closed by tomorrow. The cap could be reached within a matter of days or weeks so the sooner you file for a cap-subject H-1B, the better your chances are of obtaining one.

Please also note that USCIS has announced that on the date that an H-1B visa cap (regular or U.S. advanced degree) is reached, all H-1B visa petitions received for that cap on that final date will go to lottery. After the lottery is concluded, no further H-1B visa petitions will be accepted against that cap until the first filing date for the next fiscal year (April 1, 2010). If the Master's cap is reached before the regular cap, left over Master's cap cases received on the "lottery day" will be automatically shifted to the regular cap.

With regards to specific petitions filed by our office, we started to receive premium processing electronic receipts yesterday. These are being sent out to the employees and HRs upon receipt.

You can read the USCIS press release here (pdf).

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