The H-1B visa cap hits in less than a week

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the H-1B cap has been hit in under a week and over 300,000 applications were filed. This is the record breaking number and the competition for obtaining the H-1B visa is expected to be very difficult.

According to the Department of Labor, the current status of Labor Condition Application (LCA) reached 420,000 and the approved applications are 384,953 which goes beyond pre-submitted applications.

It is not possible to submit the H-1B application without the prior approval of the LCA and this is why the number of LCA significant because it enables to estimate the total number of H-1B applications.

The Department of Labor data shows, approved number of LCA for the first fiscal quarter of 2016 was 80,109 and the second quarter which is right before the prior accepting period was 304,844.

Therefore, approved LCA reached 380,000 over the past 6 months and the majority of this number was for the extension of the H-1B visa. But even excluding the number of extension of the visa, which is 80,000, over 300,000 applications were submitted for the prior submission.

Experts claim that although the USCIS has not revealed the accurate number of applications submitted yet, over 300,000 applications are expected. More than 230,000 applications have been submitted during the second fiscal quarter of 2016 compared to the first quarter.

The annual cap for H-1B visa is 85,000 and the USCIS is expecting over 210,000 applicants to be dropped out of the random lottery which records the greatest competition for the H-1B visa.

<Sang Mok Kim – The Korea Times Staff Reporter>