H-1B e-registration begins April 1

The employers will have to pay a fee of $10 at the time of registration, give only basic information about their company and each requested worker.

US employers planning to hire foreigners on H-1B visa for the upcoming 2021 fiscal will be required to register themselves electronically first, the US citizenship and immigration services (USCIS) announced Friday, implementing a change in the process a year after it was first intended to go into effect. The country’s immigration agency would start accepting the H-1B petitions from April 1, 2020 for the next fiscal year.

US employers planning to hire foreigners on H-1B visa for the upcoming 2021 fiscal will be required to register themselves electronically first

The employers will have to pay a fee of $10 at the time of registration, give only basic information about their company and each requested worker. They will not be required to file the whole application along with whatever documents are required as this time, contrary to the practice thus far.

But petitions selected through an electronic lottery draw, if needed, will then be required to do the necessary paperwork.

“By streamlining the H-1B cap selection process with a new electronic registration system, USCIS is creating cost savings and efficiencies for petitioners and the agency, as only those selected will now be required to submit a full petition,” said USCIS deputy director Mark Koumans in a statement.

“The agency completed a successful pilot testing phase, which included sessions with industry representatives, and implementation of the registration system will further the goal of modernizing USCIS from a paper-based to an online-filing agency,” Mark said,

The United States allows its companies and those based in the US, including subsidiaries of Indian companies such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS, to hire 85,000 foreign workers including those enrolled in American institutions of advanced degrees evert year.

More than 70% of these views have tended to be given to Indians, hired by both US companies such as Facebook and Google and and Indian Information Technology companies.

The H-1B visa programme has come under close scrutiny under the Trump administration, which has vowed to prevent it from being used to displace American workers, or shut them out.

The visa programme has been tweaked and changed to ensure, among other things, only highly skilled workers are hired under the programme and not simply those that can work at lower remunerations to cut costs.