Grzeca Law Group, S.C.

BUSINESS IMMIGRATION BULLETIN

01/24/08

H-1B FY 2009

As you may know, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) received over 150,000 petitions for new H-1B visas within the first two days of filing last year. As a result, the H-1B visa "cap" of 65,000 was immediately exhausted for Fiscal Year 2008 and a lottery system was used to determine which petitions would be accepted for processing. New H-1B visas for your professional employees will be available for employment beginning October 1, 2008. The CIS will begin to accept H-1B petitions for this employment six months in advance, on April 1, 2008.

We expect that the same number of petitions are likely to be received by the CIS this year, and based on previous events we cannot guarantee that all petitions filed will be accepted by the CIS. However, to ensure that petitions on behalf of your foreign national employees are received as early as possible, our office is planning to send all completed H-1B Petitions to the CIS on March 31st, for receipt on the very first day of filing. Therefore, at this time, please inform us should your company wish to begin the process of preparing H-1B petitions for any of your current or prospective employees so that we can begin this process as soon as possible.

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