USCIS announced last week that it has published a proposed rule that will save US businesses more than $23 million over the next 10 years by establishing an advance H-1B registration process for U.S. employers seeking to file petitions for foreign workers under the H-1B specialty occupation category.  The proposed electronic system would minimize administrative burdens and expenses related to the H-1B petition process—including reducing the need for employers to submit petitions for which visas would not be available under the visa cap.

USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas the opening of a 60-day comment period that will allow businesses and the general public to provide input on the proposed system in order to ensure it best meets the needs of employers that rely on H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers for specialty occupations.  Mayorkas expressed that “Improving the H-1B petition process is part of USCIS’s ongoing efforts to leverage new ideas and innovation to streamline our operations and enhance customer service.”

The employer would go through an online, electronic a process that would take an estimated 30 minutes to complete.  Before the petition filing period begins, USCIS would select the number of registrations predicted to exhaust all available visas. Employers would then file petitions only for the selected registrations. USCIS states that the registration system would save employers the effort and expense of filing H-1B petitions, as well as Labor Condition Applications, for workers who would be unable to obtain visas under the statutory cap.

This regulation seems completely unnecessary as the chief complaints of U.S.C.I.S. - that it costs the agency money and manpower to intake and handle the "lottery" process of H-1B petitions and that employers are put to great effort and cost in filing cases for which there are no cap numbers - are not well taken, especially in these two past fiscal years, FY-2010 and FY-2011, in which the H-1B cap numbers have not been exhausted in the first few days of April as in previous years, but have lasted until December and January respectively. At this point, the planned regulation just appears to be wasteful with overburdened controls on employers. We see no need for such a regulation to be put in place at the onset of a new H-1B filing season, particularly in this economy. However, the program would make sense if it was implemented at a particular juncture in the H-1B filing season when the cap is nearly exhausted, to assist with the lottery selection process.

The proposed rule, which posted to the Federal Register for public viewing last week, contains complete details about the registration system and estimated cost savings. USCIS encourages formal comments on the proposed rule. 

We link to the following additional information: Fact Sheet - News Release

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::