U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today that the agency has received sufficient H-1B petitions to fulfill the statutory mandated quotes for the 2012 fiscal year. Here is the agency’s announcement:
“On November 22, 2011, USCIS received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY 2012. USCIS also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption as of October 19, 2011. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2012 that are received after November 22, 2011. USCIS continues to accept cap-exempt petitions, DOD petitions and Chile/Singapore H-1B1 petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2012.”
The H-1B is one of the key immigration statuses for employing foreign workers with bachelors degrees or the equivalent. Applications will be accepted again on April 1st, 2012 for start dates commencing no earlier than October 1st, 2012.