U.S.C.I.S. announced on May 2, 2014, that data entry of all H-1B cap petitions had been completed and that it would now begin returning all H-1B cap petitions that were not selected in the lottery. That was sobering news to many H-1B petitioners and beneficiaries who have waited for weeks in the hope that their petitions would be selected. U.S.C.I.S. received approximately 172,500 cap petitions and by this writer’s count, could have selected approximately 94,000 counting the approximate number of petitions that could have been waitlisted based on the average percentage of waitlisted cases from FY-2009 to FY- 2012.
So does it mean that all hope is lost of being selected if the petitioner or attorney did not receive the receipt by this time? On parsing the language in the notice that “data entry has been completed”, that does not mean that people are completely out of luck if they did not receive a receipt by May 2d.
However, it does seem to mean that all receipts have probably been sent out and so this next week will likely be critical in determining whether some petitions have been selected. Of course, given the reliability of regular mail which is used by U.S.C.I.S. to deliver receipts instead of priority or express mail, it could take even longer for receipts to reach petitioners than one week or even to reach a few petitioners at all. The writer would also suggest that petitioners and/or beneficiaries who have given checks for the filing fees to U.S.C.I.S. verify with their banks whether the checks have been deposited, another sign that an H-1B case has been receipted.