USCIS Announces Proposed H-1B Electronic Registration System to Reduce Costs for U.S. Businesses

The Federal Register: March 3, 2011 (Volume 76, Number 42) has announced a proposed rule. Under the proposed rule, employers seeking to petition for H-1B workers subject to the statutory cap would register electronically with USCIS. Before the petition filing period begins, USCIS would select the number of registrations predicted to exhaust all available visas. Employers would then file petitions only for the selected registrations. The registration system would save employers the effort and expense of filing H-1B petitions, as well as Labor Condition Applications, for workers who would be unable to obtain visas under the statutory cap.

USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced the opening of a 60-day comment period that will allow businesses and the general public to provide input on the proposed system in order to ensure it best meets the needs of employers that rely on H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers for specialty occupations.
“The proposed rule would create a more efficient and cost-effective process for businesses interested in bringing workers in specialty occupations to the United States,” he said. “Improving the H-1B petition process is part of USCIS’s ongoing efforts to leverage new ideas and innovation to streamline our operations and enhance customer service.” (Read Report)

We will see how many of the proposed changes survive through the comment period. To me, this seems like another road block put up by the administration against H-1B visa holders. See News Item 3.