WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on March 15, 2013 that it will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 cap on Monday, April 1, 2013. Cases will be considered accepted on the date that USCIS receives a properly filed petition for which the correct fee has been submitted; not the date that the petition is postmarked. The cap (the numerical limitation on H-1B petitions) for FY 2014 is 65,000. In addition, the first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of individuals with U.S. master’s degree or higher are exempt from the fiscal year cap of 65,000. Based on feedback from a number of stakeholders, USCIS anticipates that it may receive more petitions than the H-1B cap between April 1, 2013 and April 5, 2013 . USCIS will monitor the number of petitions received and notify the public of the date on which the numerical limit of the H-1B cap has been met. This date is known as the final receipt date. If USCIS r
USCIS Announces Changes to Stand-Alone I-130 Filing Locations Published Dec. 23, 2011; revised Jan. 1, 2012 WASHINGTON – On January 1, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed the filing locations for Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. Domestic petitioners will now mail their stand-alone I-130 applications to either the Chicago Lockbox or the Phoenix Lockbox, depending on their residence in the United States. Updated filing addresses are available at this link: Form I-130 Direct Filing Locations . This effort will balance workloads between the two locations and provide more efficient and effective processing of Form I-130. There will be no change in filing locations when submitting Form I-130 along with Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. Individuals filing these forms together will continue to mail them to the Chicago Lockbox facility. Petitioners filing from overseas addresses in countries witho