The well-known US H-1B is basically an employment-based, non-immigrant visa class for provisional employees to the US. This visa is given for a period of three years even as it is the duty of the recruiters or job-providers to suitably spot any present workers and employment aspirants who may be in need of the H-1B Work Permit.
There is an upper limit on the figure of the H-1B Visa that the concerned body, namely, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), can admit every year. The cap for the fiscal year 2017 is 65,000 out of which roughly 6,800 are duly reserved for the nationals of Singapore & Chile under Free Trade Agreements with these specific nations.
Come April 1, 2016, and the USCIS will begin admitting request for H-1B Visas for the next year, 2017. Candidates with either a Master’s Degree or any advanced degree proffered by a recognized college or university in the US have an extra allocation of 20,000 H-1B Visas. Those under the master’s cap will have an additional opportunity of making the cut under the regular H-1B lottery arrangement if they fail to make the grade under the master’s lottery.
There is a high probability that, like every year, this year also the Immigration US will obtain H-1B Visa petitions far in surplus of the approved cap even while this ceiling would be fulfilled inside the first week itself as common.
The USCIS declared that the lottery arrangement would be fittingly applied to each of such petition received through the first 5 days (apart from holidays) of the given time. But, the yearly allocation overflowed only on April 1 denotes just on the first day. The same was pronounced on year 2008.
A plan has been made that from now onwards the applications for the H-1B Visa would not be admitted post the initial 5 days of declaration. After the ceiling has been hit, fresh H-1B Work Permits will not be to be had until October 1, 2017.
These people are required to submit an H-1B–any present worker who has F-1 student position and who will hence require H-1B position to keep on working after their Optional Practical Training (OPT) comes to an end.
A regulation has been suitably passed that the workers with F-1 student position and whose OPT would lose its validity between April 1 and October 1, 2016 will have the time till October 1 so that they can submit an application for H-1B Work Permit.
Significantly, some options are there to the H-1B Work Permit. In case an affected worker comes into any of these classes there will be no requirement on the part of that worker to submit a petition for an H-1B Work Permit in April. It is mandatory that recruiters/firms begin identifying and starting H-1B Visa processing for the aspirants or present workers who need sponsorship.
