USCIS Concludes FY2023 H-1B Selections

Without much fanfare, USCIS has concluded selections for the FY2023 H-1B lottery.  Attorneys and companies that have registered individuals for the H-1B lottery in March of 2022 began to receive “not selected” notices around Saturday, August 20^th, and it does not appear that any individual who was not selected in the initial lottery received a selection notice at this time.  In other words, while most thought that a second lottery selection would be necessary, that does not appear to have occurred.

What remains to be seen is the actual number of H-1B visas used this fiscal year.  While there was a record number of registrations for the H-1B lottery this fiscal year, it has widely been speculated that many of these are multiple registrations for a single individual, and thus even if that individual is selected multiple times, only one of the 85,000 visas would be used.  USCIS’s announcement did not state that USCIS had used all available visas, but rather that it had received a “sufficient number of petitions” to reach the congressionally mandated cap.  We’ve seen a remarkable lack of transparency regarding the H-1B process this year—indeed non-selection notices were sent several days before any announcement had been made—and data regarding the number of visas used still remains unavailable.