Recently, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the number of H-1B applications in the lottery for fiscal year 2024, which will start in March this year, has reached the upper limit of 85,000.
This means that there will be no third round of the draw for H-1B visas in the United States this year!
At the same time, USCIS also announced that they will start the notification of unsuccessful online registration, and all unsuccessful applications will be checked in the H-1B online registration system, and the status of all registered but unsuccessful applications will be displayed as "not selected".
At the end of April this year, USCIS officially announced the first round of H-1B petitions and lottery data: a total of 780,884 H-1B online registrations, with 758,994 valid registrations.
A total of 110,791 valid registrations were sampled by USCIS, with a winning rate of about 142%, and the effective winning rate is 146%, the lowest ever since the H-1B lottery was in place.
Three months later, on July 27, USCIS completed the second round of H-1B petitions in this year's lottery, which completed online electronic registration and again drew 77,600 registrations from unsuccessful petitions in the first round.
As a result of these two rounds of drawing, USCIS screened a total of 758,994 valid registrations out of 780,884 online electronic registrations this year, a total of 188,400 registrations were drawn in the two rounds, and finally 85,000 H-1B quotas for 2024 were used.
Of all H-1B online registrations this year, 350,103 were from petitions from a single employer and 408,891 were petitions from multiple employers.
USCIS also voluntarily disclosed that there was a shocking record in this year's round of applications: there was a beneficiary and 83 so-called different employers registered them online
Last year the record was 41, and the year before that it was 18.
This has also attracted the attention of the USCIS, in order to put an end to this"Cheating" by repeating lotsIn October, USCIS announced that the H-1B visa would be reformed, with major changes including its cancellation"One person draws more"simplifying eligibility requirements, expanding the scope of exemption draws, and strengthening integrity measures.
Among them, the much-criticized "one person multiple draws" will be abolished and the lottery will be replaced by a capitation lottery.
This really relieved many applicants, especially Chinese students.
However, judging from the comprehensive data, applicants who did not win the lottery this year will continue to apply for H-1B next year, and the competition is still very fierce.
And even if they break through many obstacles and are lucky to win the H-1B, international students want to stay for a long time, and the issue of identity is still imminentLater, you still need to apply for a U.S. employment-based immigration green card to solve the long-term status of staying in the United States.
There are 85,000 H-1B visas per year, of which 20,000 preference places are for beneficiaries of graduate or higher degrees, and the other 65,000 places are for undergraduate students or other beneficiaries who do not have a preference seat.
It is precisely because the number of H-1B visa applicants has exceeded the annual quota in recent years that the lottery system has reappeared.
But it is undeniable that H-1B, as one of the main work visas in the United States, is one of the only ways for Chinese students to stay in the United States to work and obtain a green card.
This visa must be approved by USCIS if the employer sponsors the applicant and proves that they are unable to find a suitable U.S. citizen or permanent resident at the time of recruitment.
Although H-1B visa holders can work in the U.S. for three years, which can be renewed, it cannot exceed six years.
After the expiration of the 6-year period, if the visa holder's status has not been changed (e.g., EB-2, EB-3, or other employment-based visas).You have to leave the United States.
Therefore, even though many people now hold F-1, H-1B, L-1, B-1, or B-2 visas, it is still a "rigid need" to obtain legal U.S. status in order to live, study, Xi, or work in the United States for a long time.
Nowadays, many parents send their children abroad so that they can see the wider world.
As everyone knows, it is difficult for international students who do not have "green card status" to stay in the United States legally and for a long time to work and live after graduation.
If they have U.S. status, their children are free to choose to work or study Xi after graduation
Without U.S. status, the child will need to find an employer who can sponsor them to apply for an H-1B visa, and at the same time, they will need to participate in the USCIS lottery (the winning rate in 2023 is only 11%).
Then apply for immigration to obtain a labor certification and participate in the waiting list. In this process, if there is a problem in any link, you will face problems such as being forced to return to your home country because you cannot renew your visa.
If parents plan a U.S. green card for their children in advance, they can not only let their children stay in the United States legally after graduation, but also make their children's future job search in the United States more secure.
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