Pre-registration for the H-1B visa application for the financial year FY21 may start from April 2020. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) earlier this month completed its review of a proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulation regarding a filing fee for H-1B cap registration. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has also obtained approval from the OBM for the new rules. However, the fees have not been announced yet.

Typically, the USCIS opens a window for filing of the H-1B cap applications in the first few days of April each year. The annual quota of 85,000 usually gets filled in the first few days only. Successful applicants will be able to work in the US from October 1 of 2020.

For FY20, the final rules for the electronic pre-registration requirement were announced in January. But according to a report in a leading daily, its implementation was kept in abeyance for H-1B applications that were filed in April 2019. A group of 15 associations comprising the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association, thinktanks such as Fwd.US (which has as its founding members Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates), US chamber of commerce and others have sought certainty on the timelines, the daily said.

A representation made by them on August 16 states: “USCIS should publicly confirm by September 15 if, and when, the electronic registration system will be rolled out for the H-1B cap filing season for fiscal 2021 (which refers to applications to be filed in April 2020).” This is essential as sponsoring employers commence preparation for the filing season as early as August.

Under the proposed system, petitioners will no longer submit a full H-1B petition with full filing fees to USCIS. Instead, they will be required to submit a registration for each qualified H-1B visa beneficiary whom they wish to sponsor in the H-1B cap lottery. During the registration process, companies/petitioners will be required to provide a number of critical pieces of information about each H-1B beneficiary. If the number of registration submissions exceeds the 85,000 limit, USCIS will conduct a computer-generated lottery to determine which registrations to select.

This process will save sponsoring employers from filing extensive documentation for all applications just for entry into the lottery, which is currently the case. The daily citing USCIS estimates said the resultant cost savings for sponsoring employers would be more than $47 million. “These savings will not be forthcoming without a prompt confirmation from USCIS”, states the representation.

But there is a downside to the pre-registration process. “Labour Condition Forms, that are filed prior to H-1B filings, require employers to indicate whether H-1B workers will be placed at third-party client work sites,” the daily quoted David H Nachman, managing attorney at NPZ Law Group as saying.

“Preregistration has a potential for abuse, because the fair and random H-1B lottery may be relegated to a closely guided and criteria-driven process. The data available may be filtered to choose only those H-1B registrations which do not require third-party placements, or to select applications of sponsoring companies that only have a certain number or less of foreign employees. It could r