As we noted in our Alert of August 5, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced last week that it had completed its second random selection process, or lottery, for the Fiscal Year 2025 65,000 H-1B quota or cap. The USCIS further announced that it has notified prospective petitioners with registrations selected in this second round of selections that they may now file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the selected registration application. If an employer that filed a registration application has not been notified that it is eligible to file an H-1B petition, the registration application was not selected in the lotteries. For registrations that have been selected, the cap-subject H-1B petitions can be filed during a period of ninety (90) calendar days and must include a copy of the selection notice with the petition.
USCIS has also provided updated information and statistics about the number of registration applications filed and selected for FY 2025. USCIS initially selected 114,017 beneficiaries, resulting in 120,603 selected registrations in the initial selection for the FY 2025 H-1B cap. In the second lottery, USCIS selected 13,607 additional beneficiaries, which resulted in 14,534 selected registrations.
A total of 127,624 unique beneficiaries were selected in the three FY2025 lotteries from the approximately 442,000 unique beneficiaries entered. These figures yield an overall selection percentage of approximately 29%. The selection rate for the 20,000 advanced degree or Master’s cap is significantly higher, although USCIS has not released statistics for this quota.
Since the number of registration applications selected in this second round is substantial, it is unlikely that a third round of H-1B cap registration selections will be made this year. USCIS notes that the number of initial selections for FY 2025 was lower than in previous years primarily because of the new beneficiary-centric selection process introduced this year and the higher-than-anticipated petition filing rate this created.
Finally, USCIS addresses the large number of registration applications filed last year for beneficiaries with multiple eligible registrations and the serious concerns that collusion may have occurred to gain an unfair advantage in the FY2024 registration application process. The USCIS states that the decreased filing rate for FY 2025 H-1B cap petitions and the decreased registration numbers for FY 2025 indicate that the beneficiary-centric selection process introduced this year, as well as the investigations embarked upon by the agency to combat such collusion, have been “effective integrity measures.” USCIS further comments that it is reviewing FY 2025 H-1B cap data to uncover attempts to gain an unfair advantage through the beneficiary-centric selection process, and, if necessary, will deny or revoke H-1B petitions and make law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution.
The attorneys of Tafapolsky & Smith LLP will monitor and analyze all developments affecting the FY2025 H-1B Cap process, including all statements made by USCIS with respect to a new lottery or random selection process, and will provide immediate updates on any significant developments.
