USCIS News : H1B 2019 Lottery Completed – 190,098 Petitions Filed

The most awaited number by many, with tons of calculations using LCA numbers and other correlations on comments, etc. have come to an end. USCIS released a press note indicating that they have received 190,098 H1B petitions for FY 2019 quota. Below is the press release summary.

 Summary of USCIS H1B Lottery 2019 Competed 190K petitions filed :

• USCIS completed Lottery for H1B Visa FY 2019 on April 11^th.
• Total H1B Petitions received for FY 2019 quota – 190,098
• USCIS accepted petitions for 5 working days from April 2^nd to April 6^th and announced that they reached regular cap of 65,000 and Masters cap of 20,000 on April 6^th.
• USCIS will reject and return all petitions with their fee for all the H1B petitions not selected in H1B Lottery, provided they are not considered as duplicate petitions as per the new rule. Check Sample H1B Reject Letters for Not picked in Lottery
• Lottery Process used for FY 2019 :  USCIS conducted H1B Lottery for Masters cap first and the unselected petitions form that pool became part of the regular quota lottery.
• USCIS  will continue to accept H1B petitions that are cap exempt or the ones counted for the cap in the past that fall under the categories of H1B Extensions, H1B petition for Change of employment terms, H1B Transfers to new employers, and Concurrent filing of H1B for second H1B position.
• Also, they gave split of number for Masters and Regular quota on their H1B 2019 page, which is new. Some people are confused on where we got these numbers, it is on the USCIS H1B 2019 Updates page . I have put a screenshot for your reference.
  • Masters Quota Filings   : 95,885
  • Regular Quota Filings : 94,213

What are our Predictions vs.  USCIS actual numbers ?  
Many were speculating less numbers for H1B FY 2019 as there were many new rules, changes and the political climate was not that great in the past one year… Despite all of these, our H1B 2019 Lottery predictions were from 170,000 to 190,000 . USCIS actual numbers of 190,098 is very much close to our predictions… Though our predictions were not popular among many that we were forecasting more numbers…but, the reality is that there is tremendous demand as seen with numbers…Hope our lottery predictions helped at least some plan in one way or other.

What’s the take on press release ? What’s Next ? 
The press release is not very different from previous years. Also, the process of H1B Lottery is not different from previous years and is same. As we know from previous FOIA request, USCIS selects additional 5k for masters and 10k for regular quota considering denials…Also, this year, they updated the number of petitions filed for regular quota and masters quota. This was not published in the past.

Now that lottery is done, the waiting game begins for everyone. All of you, who have been selected will get a receipt notice and it has a number that you can use to trace your case on USCIS site. Read Understand H1B Case Number

As the wait can be long and there is no way to know about your case vs others, we highly recommend that you add your case to the anonymous H1B tracker.

It is sad that many smart, talented students and professionals from Ivy League Schools, IITs, Many good companies like Google, Microsoft and many more have to go through lottery putting all their hard work and effort for luck to decide in lottery…Its unfortunate, but that’s life and reality…If you get selected in lottery good, if not, take it as another part of life as it comes and move on…don’t put yourself under pressure thinking about it, it was not in your control and you have nothing to do about it…

What do you think of the H1B Lottery numbers ? Your take ? Your thoughts ?

Reference : USCIS Press Release FY 2019 Lottery Complete

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