MUMBAI: The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a notification released on Tuesday night, has proposed a minimal fee of $10 for each electronic registration that employers sponsoring H-1B cap visas will submit.
“The level of this fee appears rational,” says a legal consultant attached to an IT Consulting company, which typically sponsors several H-1B employees each year. “Last August, the fees for premium processing had been revised significantly to $1,410 from $1,225,” he pointed out. Premium processing, if available, enables sponsoring employers to request adjudication of their application by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) within 15 days. The basic filing fee for an H-1B visa is $460, but various other fees (excluding premium processing fees) bring the total up to upward of $3,000 per application. Fees payable to immigration attorneys are an added cost.
Public comments are open for a month, as regards this proposal, and will be accepted up to October 4. TOI in its editon of August 21, had pointed out that electronic pre-registration is likely to be introduced for the coming H-1B cap filing season in April 2020.
The final rules for the electronic pre-registration requirement were announced in January, however its implementation was kept in abeyance for H-1B applications that were filed in April, 2019.
In other words, sponsoring employers would be saved from filing extensive documentation for all applications just for entry into the lottery, as is being done currently. The documentation is exhaustive, especially for employers, such as IT service companies, who place their H1B employees at client sites. The applications are then subject to a random lottery process, selected applications are then further processed and approved or rejected.
