Dear Clients:
The H-1B Cap lottery season is rapidly approaching. This year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is implementing its new registration system beginning on March 1st. The Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal is accepting new H-1B cases for the registration period now.
The New H-1B Registration System
Under this new process, employers seeking H-1B workers subject to the cap, or their authorized representatives, will complete a registration process that requires basic information about their company and each requested worker. As part of the registration, Petitioners are required to attest that the filing is not frivolous and that they have a bona fide job offer available on 10/1 for a Beneficiary that qualifies for the position. USCIS has further announced that they will have safeguards in place to monitor frivolous registration filings.
Please note that a petitioning Employer may register the same H-1B Beneficiary only one time (i.e. the Employer cannot submit multiple registrations for the same person. The Beneficiary though can have more than one petitioning employer register that person.) A selected registration is not transferrable to another prospective employee after filing.
Filing Period for Electronic Registration: March 1 – March 20, 2020
USCIS will open an initial registration period from March 1 through March 20, 2020. We once again anticipate that there will be a lottery, as it is likely that more applications will be filed than are available slots. USCIS will then conduct its lottery selection between March 21-31, 2020. The results of the lottery will be posted in the registration system by March 31, 2020. Only those with selected registrations will be eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.
USCIS Filing Fee for Electronic Registration: $10
Each registration has a nominal government filing fee of $10.
Filing H-1B petition if selected: 90 days to file if selected
USCIS will notify those selected through the USCIS case account portal. Thereafter, Petitioners have 90 days to file the petition.
USCIS Account Set Up
USCIS requires each party to the registration process to set up an account through the USCIS case account portal. Employer registration accounts can be created beginning on February 24, 2020, but the H-1B registration portal will not be accessible or available until March 1, 2020.
Employer Registration instructions and step-by-step filing guidelines can be found here. Beginning February 24th, Employers should start the process of creating the registration accounts. Please note that even though the Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will assist you in the H-1B filing process for each employee, this does not eliminate the requirement for the Employer to set up their own USCIS account. Registrants who will use an attorney for preparation of registrations will not have to enter any data beyond e-mail, password and security questions to create the account. Once this data is entered, the next screen is the “File a Registration” or “Enter Representative Code” screen. If an attorney is preparing registrations, the Registrant will always enter the passcode and review data entered by the attorney.
Important Dates
- February 24th, Prospective petitioners may begin creating H-1B registrant accounts (account creation will remain open throughout the entire registration period).
- March 1-March 20, 2020: Registration Period
- March 21-31, 2020: Lottery Period
- April 1-June 30, 2020 (estimated): 90 day filing period for selected H-1B petitions
Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal Services
This is the first year that this registration process is taking place and we are unsure of the system’s stability. Because of the new registration process, we are offering three options for this year’s lottery:
- Option 1: Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal to engage with clients in 2 steps:
- Step 1: Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will do partial document collection, pre-hire analysis and complete registration on behalf of the Beneficiary. Our professional fee for assisting Employer for each Beneficiary/H-1B would be $500.
- Step 2: If case is selected, Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will file H-1B petition within allotted filing period. This would only be charged if the case is selected (this does not include USCIS required filing fees). Our professional fee for assisting Employer for each Beneficiary would be $2200.
- Option 2: Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will prepare full petition for case brought to firm post registration (registration is not done by Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal). Our professional fee for each H-1B for which our office has not conducted prior due diligence and registration would be $3000.
Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal as always will provide a complete pre-hire analysis. This includes:
- Reviewing the Beneficiary’s qualifications. Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will confirm the accreditation of the university from which the Beneficiary has received his/her qualifying degree to ensure that it meets the regulatory requirements, or in the alternative, confirm equivalencies based on a combination of education and work experience. Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will accomplish equivalencies by liaising with our 3rd party education providers who work with professors who have the authority to grant college credit and such equivalencies.
- Reviewing the proffered position. Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will also review Petitioner’s proffered position and confirm occupation and degree alignment to ensure that there are no issues with filing a petition upon selection.
- Reviewing Petitioner details. Law Offices of Sweta Khandelwal will review corporate documents to ensure that our clients support the strongest H-1B filing possible for their candidates.
Please contact our office if you are interested in filing an H-1B petition in this year’s cap lottery.
