U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today a preliminary number of nearly 163,000 H-1B petitions received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008.  More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree category. 

USCIS expects that next week it will conduct the computer-generated random selection process, beginning with the selection of the 20,000 petitions under the advanced degree exemption.  Those petitions not selected under the advanced degree category will join the random selection process for the cap-subject 65,000 limit.   

USCIS will reject, and return filing fees for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, unless found to be a duplicate.   

We will provide additional updates at www.bashyamspiro.com when they become available.