Federal Express: On Your Mark, Get Set, GO!

Federal Express is gearing up for what may be the biggest day of the year for dropping off applications at the US Citizenship and Immigration Service Centers (USCIS). 

H-1b visas are professional-level temporary work visas issued to college graduate-foreign nationals to work on a temporary basis in the U.S.  For instance, Marco may have graduated from the University of San Diego with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering and has been offered a position with an IT San Diego firm, ABC Company, to work temporarily for 3 years, before he returns to his home country of Argentina. 

H-1b visas are issued starting on October 1st each year, because that is the first day of the new fiscal year for USCIS.  However, H-1b visas can be applied for as early as six months prior to the date of issuance.  This means that April 1, 2014 is the first day that ABC Company can apply for the H-1b visa for Marco.

There are 65,000 H-1b visas issued each year to foreign nationals with undergraduate degrees.  There are an additional 20,000 H-1b visas issued each year to foreign nationals with Masters/Doctorate degrees; for a total of 85,000 visas issued each year.

Last year, the USCIS received 124,000 applications on April 1, 2013, meaning that many companies that applied did not even have their applications accepted.

This year, USCIS expects to receive approximately 160,000 H-1b visa applications on April 1, 2014.  These applications cannot be filed even one day early, or they will be rejected.  If they are received even one day later, on April 2, 2014, there will be no visas left for this fiscal year.

ABC Company wants to be sure that its application is received by Immigration exactly on April 1, 2014; so ABC Company will be sending out its application by Federal Express on March 31, 2014. 

SO WILL ALL THE OTHER 159,000 COMPANIES IN THE U.S.  And the Federal Express trucks are gearing up and getting ready.  Federal Express expects to have trucks lined up outside the USCIS Centers en masse on April 1, 2014.  So, if you were thinking of sending out a package by Federal Express on March 31, 2014, you may want to think again.

If ABC Company misses the one application filing date of April 1, 2014 (for a visa to be issued on October 1, 2014) then ABC Company will have to wait an entire year until April 1, 2015 before it can file again. 

USCIS says that if it receives the expected 160,000+ applications on April 1, 2014, then it will impose a “lottery system” in order to select only the permitted 85,000 visa applications. 

H-1b visas are issued to the best and brightest minds in the world; they include scientists, engineers, mathematicians, IT technology specialists, etc.  If the United States is to keep its competitive edge in the global economy, is this the way that we really want our immigration system to function?