On July 19, 2006, USCIS updated the current cap count with new data gathered as of July 18.  The number of approved and receipted pending petitions has now reached 16,991.  Approximately 360 H-1B Advanced Degree petitions have been received but have not yet been data-entered and receipted.  As of July 19, the combined approximate total is 17,351.  Data gathered on July 11 and posted to the USCIS website on July 12 showed that approximately 16,008 petitions had been approved, data-entered, or received but not yet processed as of July 11.  Thus, USCIS received a little over 1,343 petitions in the course of 5 business days.

H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption

The H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004, which took effect on May 5, 2005, changed the H-1B filing procedures for FY 2005 and for future fiscal years. The Act also makes available 20,000 new H-1B visas for foreign workers with a Master’s or higher level degree from a U.S. academic institution.

¹ Refers to the estimated numbers of beneficiary applications needed to reach the cap, with an allowance for denials and revocations. Each target is subject to revision later in the cap cycle as more petitions are processed.
² 6,800 visas are set aside during the fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool can be made available for H-1B use with start dates beginning on October 1, 2006, the start of FY 2007. USCIS has added the projected number of unused H-1B1 Chile/Singapore visas to the FY 2007 H-1B cap as announced in the H-1B Press Release, dated June 1, 2006.
³ The numbers on the table for H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption include only receipted petitions. As of July 18, 2006, an estimated 360 I-129 H-1B petitions seeking the Advanced Degree exemption had yet to be receipted. Several hundred of these petitions were received prior to July 18, 2006.