4/11/2019 – USCIS announced that it has received enough cases to meet the FY 2020 H-1B quota and has completed the computerized selection process.
When USCIS receives more petitions than it can approve, two lotteries are conducted to select petitions for adjudication. Starting this fiscal year, USCIS reversed the order of the two lotteries so that the 65,000 petitions for the regular cap were selected first and the 20,000 petitions for the Master's cap were selected last. USCIS expects that this "will result in an estimated increase of up to 16% (or 5,340 workers) in the number of selected petitions for H-1B beneficiaries with a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education."
NOTE: As employers, institutions of higher education -- such as the University of Michigan -- are exempt from the H-1B cap. They can file H-1B petitions any time of the year and are not subject to the numerical limit, so this announcement does not apply to U-M.