US receives 172,000 H1B visa petitions, lottery decides fate

The US, which received more than 172,000 applications for the H-1B visas, has conducted a computerised draw of lots to determine who all would be given the most sought after work visas that are highly popular among IT professionals from countries like India.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducted the computerised draw of lots to select the Congressionally mandated 65,000 applicants, who would receive the H-1B visas.

The USCIS, in a statement, said it also conducted draw of lots for Congressional mandated 20,000 H-1B petitions filed under the advanced degree exemption. "USCIS received about 172,500 H-1B petitions during the filing period which began April 1, including petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption," the federal agency said.

"On April 10, USCIS completed a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 general-category cap and 20,000 cap under the advanced degree exemption," it said.

For cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, USCIS will reject and return the petition with filing fees, unless it is found to be a duplicate filing.

The USCIS conducted the selection process for the advanced degree exemption first. All advanced degree petitions not selected then became part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit, the federal agency said.However, the USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap.

Petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap will not be counted towards the congressionally mandated fiscal 2015 H-1B cap.