Business Immigration Insights

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released additional details about the FY 2024 H-1B electronic registration that ran in March 2023. One item of interest is that the number of registrants (individuals) with only one submission saw a relatively modest increase from 309k to 350k, while the number of registrants with multiple submissions more than doubled from 165k to 409k. In contrast, the first year of the H-1B Cap Registration program (FY2021) saw only 28k individuals with multiple submissions - an increase of 1,454% in just three years.

Most significantly, USCIS reminded the public about the employer attestations required for each registration and states that it has undertaken "extensive" fraud investigations involving multiple submissions for the same individuals. Further, USCIS states that it has already denied and revoked some of these petitions and is in the process of initiating law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution. 

It is unknown if these developments will result in a second selection round, but one media outlet is reporting that this could happen. 

We will continue to follow these developments and update this article as new information becomes available. 

This chart shows registration and selection numbers for fiscal years 2021-2024 (as of April 24, 2023). 

*The count of eligible registrations excludes duplicate registrations, those deleted by the prospective employer prior to the close of the registration period, and those with failed payments. 

**The number of selections was smaller in FY 2024 than in prior years primarily due to (a) establishing a higher anticipated petition filing rate by selected registrants based on prior years; and (b) higher projected Department of State approvals of H-1B1 visas, which count against the H-1B cap. 

Source: H-1B Electronic Registration Process | USCIS