WASHINGTON: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Friday that it will temporarily suspend expedited processing for all H-1B petitions starting April 3. H-1B visas allow highly skilled workers to spend three to six years at sponsoring companies in the U.S. They are particularly important to Bay Area technology firms, which use them to fill engineering positions. This suspension, to last up to six months, will apply to applications filed for the fiscal year 2018.
There is an annual cap of 85,000 H-1B visas for for-profit companies. Applications typically exceed that cap within the first week they become available. The agency received 236,000 petitions for fiscal year 2017. Before the agency’s move Friday, a company could pay an extra $1,225 processing fee to know within 15 calendar days whether a prospective employee is eligible. Decisions on the visas are ultimately made by lottery, however, and access to the expedited track does not impact an applicant’s probability of a winning lottery entry.
It normally takes several months for an H-1B application to be processed. The citizenship and immigration agency said on its website that the temporary suspension will help it reduce overall H-1B processing times and work on “long-pending petitions, which we have currently been able to process.” It is normal for the USCIS to suspend expedited processing for a few weeks each year so it can deal with the high volume of applications. But Martin Lawler, a Bay Area immigration attorney, said this is the most widespread and longest suspension he’s seen. It will impact companies that are planning large projects and need a certain number of staff to develop those projects, he said. It could also impact universities and nonprofits, which are exempt from the H-1B cap but often apply for expedited processing, attorneys said.
