As discussed in prior posts, USCIS is taking steps to implement an electronic registration system for use in the upcoming H-1B cap lottery for government fiscal year 2021. More details were released this week in a USCIS webinar for “Registrants”—that is, the companies and organizations seeking to submit an H-1B petition.
In the webinar USCIS stated that Registrants will be able to set up accounts on February 24, one week before the registration window of March 1-20 opens. The agency confirmed that should the electronic system fail, it would require petitioners to submit full petitions as in past cap seasons; related filing deadlines will be announced later, should they become necessary.
USCIS released the following details related to how registrations will be submitted in the new system, if the Registrant is not represented by counsel. (Information for Registrants represented by counsel is expected within the coming days.).
Registrants set up an account (one per legal entity) at https://my.uscis.gov. The account will have one company email address associated with it that cannot be changed. It is therefore imperative that access to that address be retained by the Registrant, regardless of the associated employee’s employment status, or the Registrant may be unable to submit or check on lottery results. Petitioner account setup will require information such as legal name, FEIN, and address.
Beneficiary (employee) information required in the system includes name, gender, date of birth, country of birth, country of citizenship, and passport number. Up to 250 beneficiaries may be added to each registration.
Should a Registrant register the same beneficiary more than once, all such registrations will be deleted. “Affiliated” corporate entities such as parents and subsidiaries may not register the same beneficiary—those will be considered duplicate entries and deleted, too. (Unaffiliated and unrelated Registrants may submit entries for the same beneficiary without fear of deletion.)
To complete the submission process the Registrant is taken to the https://pay.gov portal to pay the fee—$10 per beneficiary. Successful payment leads to a confirmation page from the USCIS website.
A completed registration for a beneficiary cannot be edited, but it may be deleted. If a registration for a beneficiary is deleted, a new registration for the beneficiary will require a new fee.
USCIS stated that once the registration period is completed it will run the lottery by March 31, 2020. Confirmation of selection will be available on the USCIS website, and notifications will be available by SMS or email. Petitions must then be filed with USCIS, at the service center specified by USCIS in its selection notice, within a 90-day filing window. USCIS has not announced whether the Premium Processing Service will be available for selected petitions.
A PowerPoint presentation used by USCIS to provide this information is available here. Further information is expected from USCIS in the coming days.
© Jewell Stewart & Pratt PC 2020