The reception of requests for H-1B visas for the 2015 fiscal year will begin on April 1, announced the U.S. Immigration Service on Tuesday.
These types of visas, not for immigrants, are used by foreign professionals who graduated inside or outside the United States so they can work in the country temporarily.
According to a report published by the NBC, it's expected that at least 160,000 requests will be presented next April, while the number of available visas is just 85,000, estimated Marc Klein, an immigration lawyer from Thompson & Knights.
According to Klein, this year's requests are more than the ones presented in 2012, when 134,000 petitions were received, and the year before that, with 124,000.
Despite these figures, the requests for H-1B visas expected by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), might not be higher than the 201,000 received in 2001, the highest ever for this type of visa.
As in previous years, the USCIS might provide a maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas, one of the most popular among professionals and IT enterprises, according to Congress.
An additional quota of 20,000 visas, destined for those graduated in America universities from Masters programs or above, will be ready to receive requests next April 28 and are excepmt from the normal 65,000 cap, according to The Economic Times.
Reception and requisites
According to the USCIS, all the cases will be considered as accepted on the date in which the USCIS "receives the correctly presented petition along with the corresponding tariff."
Delivery
The USCIS said that both H-1B visa caps, the one for 65,000 and the one for 20,000 US graduates, will be done through a "random selection process."
It repeated that "the non-duplicated petitions that are not selected will be rejected and returned along with the corresponding tariffs."
"Owing to the large amount of requests, there is a possibility that the maximum amount allowed cap is reached during the first five days of the requests period, the USCIS temporarily adjusted its current system of expedited process," it said.
"To facilitate the priority acceptance of petitions for expedited process of the requests subjected to the cap, the USCIS will started the expedited process of H-1B cases no later than April, 28, 2014," the agency said.