The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported today that it will continue to accept H-1B visa applications the Fiscal Year 2011 (FY 2011) cap.

So far, the USCIS received about 13,500 H-1B applications towards the  65,000 quota mandated by Congress. Meaning a little over 1/5 of the quota has already been reached in the nine (9) days the application period has been open.

We must wait and see how the USCIS will handle the processing of the visas.  For example, in FY 2010, the USCIS accepted applications until December 21, 2009 .  The downturn in the economy resulted in employers not filing a large number of applications early in the application period.  Applications were filed throughout the year and the quota was reached at the end of 2009.

On the other hand in FY 2009, the application period was kept open for 7 calendar days, then a lottery system was implemented, and on June 2, 2008, the applications that were not selected were returned to the employer.

For the FY 2011 application period, it is too soon to tell whether the USCIS will have a lottery like it did in FY 2009 or, will it simply accept applications as they are filed and see how long the application period will remain open like it did in FY 2010.

We will monitor the developments as the application period progresses and determine whether or not the USCIS will have an H-1B visa lottery this year.