Receipt Notice Of H-1B Lottery Starts Arriving

Within a week of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the completion of the H-1B selection process for year Fiscal Year 2020, there are reports of first I-797 receipts being received. An I-797 is a notice of action USCIS uses to communicate to the petitioner when an application or petition is approved.

The USCIS has already begun sending emailed notifications of H-1B petitions that were accepted in the FY 2020 cap. The process started soon after the agency’s announcement that it has completed the lottery selection process and reached the master’s degree cap.

The news of receiving emailed receipts was also shared by many immigration lawyers. Attorney Jennifer Burk of the San Francisco-based Bertoni-Law remarked on April 12 Today, we received our first H-1B receipt emails for premium processing cap cases. I’m happily shocked at the speed and efficiency.

However, in case one have not yet received the receipt, it is still too early to get discouraged. According to most immigration attorneys, the receipting process can take up to a few weeks. This year the USCIS still received applications that were about 5 percent more than the previous year.