The USCIS has raised the anxiety levels among practitioners and corporate sponsors by not being fully forthcoming on the new H-1B registration process for FY2021 H-1B Cap subject petitions.
The basic construct of the new process will mean that all petitions have to be registered between March 1, 2020 and March 20, 2020. Each petition will require a $10 registration fee. The USCIS intends to inform the stakeholders of all selected petitions by March 31, 2020 and provide them between 60 days and 90 days to file the actual petition.
The registration process will include some basic information on each potential beneficiary. There will have to be a two-step validation process between the sponsoring organization representative and the legal representative before a petition can be submitted.
There are still many questions regarding the process that will need to be clarified and the USCIS will begin to start with outreach on February 6th, 2020 and February 11th, 2020 meant to clarify the process further.
Additionally, the USCIS is still warning stakeholders that if the new registration system does not work for any reason, they may chose to suspend the electronic registration as it did last year and revert to paper filing of petitions – in which case they will accept petitions starting on April 1, 2020 and continue until at least April 7, 2020.
USILAW has prepared a spreadsheet for our clients to gather relevant information on potential cap subject applicants. We are requesting that this information is provided to USILAW by February 21, 2020 so that the information can be vetted and readied for the registration process that is slated to officially begin on March 1, 2020. Since the registration is a multi-step process and may involve system errors, it has been advised by multiple sources that the registration be attempted earlier in the time window provided.
Please feel free to contact USILAW with any questions or issues that you may have. You may reach us via telephone at +1 (202) 618 4540 or via email at info@usilaw.com.
