On Friday August 14th, attorneys and employers were surprised to find emails from their myUSCIS account notifying them that action had been taken on their case. Upon logging in, it became clear that USCIS performed a second H-1B lottery for those H-1B registrations that were submitted, but not previously selected.  We began hearing rumors of a second lottery earlier this week via social media, but those rumors were never corroborated.  This second lottery is unprecedented and is likely due to the fact that many companies did not file H-1B petitions for previously selected registrations as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employers will have between August 17, 2020 and November 16, 2020 to file an H-1B petition based on the selected registration. If your H-1B registration was selected in the second lottery, contact your attorney immediately for instructions on how to move forward.

Krystal Alanis

713-457-5703

[email protected]