USCIS Questions and Answers - OPT Extension for Qualified Students

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 8, 2008 that it had received enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year 2009.  USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption.  Before running the random selection process, USCIS will complete initial data entry for all filings received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008.  Due to the high number of petitions, USCIS is not yet able to announce the precise day on which it will conduct the random selection process.

USCIS will carry out the computer-generated random selection process for all cap-subject petitions received.  USCIS will select the number of petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 for the general category and 20,000 under the “advanced degree” exemption limit.  USCIS will reject, and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, unless found to be a duplicate.   USCIS will handle duplicate filings in accordance with the interim final rule published on March 24, 2008 in the Federal Register. 

USCIS will conduct the selection process for “advanced degree” exemption petitions first.    All “advanced degree” petitions not selected will be part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit.