The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency responsible for H-1B visas, began the process on Monday with an unprecedented scrutiny.
The H-1B visa, the non-immigrant visa, is the most sought-after visa among skilled Indian professionals. Both domestic and US companies use this to employ foreign workers.
Although there is an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 for H-1B visas each fiscal year, after Chinese, Indians are the second highest to apply for this visa. As per the rule, the first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.
The H-1B visa processing was embroiled in a controversy last year when the US temporarily suspended the premium processing in March.
The US government made tougher requirements to process H-1B visa for Indian professionals. In February this year, the government also decided to shorten visa tenure of third-party contract workers and made renewal clauses very tough.
In an email response to DH, the USCIS Public Affairs Officer Arwen FitzGerald stated that on Monday, the Department will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the FY19 cap. "We will not have specific information about the petitions until after we run the lottery," FitzGerald added.
Ahead of the H-1B visa application process for the fiscal year 2019 beginning October 1 this year, the USCIS warned that all duplicate applications would be subject to rejection.
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