The US government has temporarily suspended issuing premium H1B visas with effect from April 3, 2017. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notification, however, said the pending applications for premium H1B visas and the ones filed before April 3 will be processed.
This suspension may last up to 6 months.
“The temporary suspension applies to all H1B petitions filed on or after April 3, 2017. Since FY18 cap-subject H1B petitions cannot be filed before April 3, 2017, this suspension will apply to all petitions filed for the FY18 H-1B regular cap and master’s advanced degree cap exemption,” noted in the USCIS ruling.
This means that the IT services firms cannot send their employees on urgent project requirement after April 3, thereby impacting their quarterly business numbers.
“With this, all the employers want to send employees on H1B visas have to plan for even longer delay,” said Poorvi Chothani of LawQuest, a global immigration and employment law firm.
Indian IT services firms send thousands of their employees to work on projects on-site with H1B visa and a large chunk of those applications are applied in the premium category because of shortage of time for certain works.
