The most important season for immigration law not winter, spring, summer, or fall. Rather, it is “H-1B Season.”
As of April 1, 2013, USCIS will start accepting H-1B applications for the next fiscal year with an effective date of October 1, 2013. USCIS will continue accepting applications until the H-1B cap numbers have been exhausted (65,000 regular H-1B numbers and 20,000 numbers for applicants with a master’s degree or higher).
In 2007, during the first week of April, USCIS received approximately twice as many applications as there are H-1B cap numbers. In subsequent years, due to the recession, H-1B numbers lasted as long as January of the following year. The numbers ran out quite quickly in 2012 and we expect that they will run out even faster in 2013. Therefore, employers should start the process of preparing H-1B applications for appropriate candidates in the near future . We want to make sure that our clients have sufficient time to prepare the applications to have them ready to file by April 1, 2013.