USCIS announced that they have completed entering data for H-1B cap receipts as of May 4th, 2015. Therefore, a receipt notice should have been issued for all cases that have been selected in the H-1B cap lottery.

Our office has not received rejected H-1B petitions back from USCIS. USCIS will return all H-1B petition packages that were not selected in the lottery to the attorney who filed the case (or the employer, if no attorney was involved). Just as we did for the H-1B receipt notices, we will let employers know as soon as we receive rejected H-1B packages so that they know the status of the case.

What's Next?

If your H-1B petition was selected in the lottery:

1. We will receive an approval notice (again, we are notifying employers as soon as we receive these). Our office has started receiving approval notices already for a handful of cases.

2. Alternatively, we will receive a request for evidence asking for more documentation. If you see online that an RFE was issued, please keep in mind that it takes around a week to 10 days (sometimes more) for our office to receive the RFE notice. We have no way of knowing what is requested until we receive the RFE notice itself. Once the RFE response is submitted, USCIS will approve or deny the petition.

If you are currently on OPT and are relying on cap-gap to continue working, please make sure to coordinate with your DSO at your institution to have the I-20 extended.

We will continue to keep our clients notified of developments on their particular cases as we know this is tremendously important for your professional and personal goals!