H-2B Visa Cap Reached for First Half of 2008

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received enough petitions to exhaust all available H-2B visas for new employees starting work prior to April 1, 2008. The Immigration and Nationality Act allocates a total of 66,000 H-2B visas during each fiscal year (October to October).

Although returning workers previously counted toward the numerical limitation in fiscal years 2004, 2005, and 2006 were not subject to the FY2007 numerical limitation, Congress has not offered this same accommodation to returning workers for FY2008. Therefore, the USCIS counts all H-2B petitions on behalf of new workers against the cap. Petitions for workers in current H-2B status will not be counted toward the Congress-mandated cap.

USCIS will select petitions for adjudication based on a computer-generated random selection process, which will include all petitions received through September 27, 2007. All petitions not selected will be rejected and associated fees returned.

Please contact your Hodgson Russ immigration professional for additional information.

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