The United States has proposed a new rule prohibiting the employers from filing multiple applications for H-1B visa, widely sought by Indians, for the same employee to ensure a fair and orderly distribution of available visas.
"To ensure a fair and orderly distribution of available H-1B visas, USCIS will deny or revoke multiple petitions filed by an employer for the same H-1B worker and will not refund the filing fees submitted with multiple or duplicative petitions," the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in an announcement.
The Congress has set a limit of 65,000 for most H-1B workers for the fiscal 2009.
Additionally, the first 20,000 H-1B workers who have a US Master's degree or higher are exempted from the cap.
Under current procedures, which are not changed by this rule, once USCIS receives 20,000 petitions for aliens with a US Master's degree or higher, all other cases requesting the educational exemption are counted toward the 65,000 cap.
Once the 65,000 cap is reached for a fiscal year, USCIS will announce that the cap has been filled and reject further petitions subject to the cap.
The rule also stipulates that if USCIS determines the number of H-1B petitions received meets the cap within the first five business days of accepting applications for the coming fiscal year, USCIS will apply a random selection process among all H-1B petitions received during this time period.
"If the 20,000 advanced degree limit is reached during the first five business days, USCIS will randomly select from those petitions ahead of conducting the random selection for the 65,000 limit. Petitions subject to the 20,000 limit that are not selected in that random selection will be considered with the other H-1B petitions in the random selection for the 65,000 limit," the agency said.
The rule further clarifies that USCIS will deny petitions that incorrectly claim an exemption from any H-1B numerical limits and those filing fees will not be returned.
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