Archives for June 2016

On April 7, 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the H1B 2017 lottery was officially completed. U.S. businesses use the H1B program to employ foreign workers in occupations that require highly specialized knowledge in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming.

During the filing period, which began April 1, 2016, USCIS received over 236,000 H1B petitions including petitions filed for the master’s cap. To screen the 236,000 petitions, USCIS uses a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 master’s cap.

[Read more…] about H1B 2017 Lottery | The Results Are In

On March 11, 2016, The U.S. Department of Homeland Security published amended F-1 non immigrant student regulations on Optional Practical Training (OPT) for certain students with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees from U.S. institutions of higher education.

The initial OPT period was 12 months but the amended regulation provides a STEM OPT extension of 24 months which will go into effect on May 10, 2016. With this new regulation, there will be new submission requirements for students, schools, and employers.

[Read more…] about STEM OPT Extension | Do You Qualify?