H-1B CAP REACHED FOR FY2013

The government's fiscal year FY 2013 did not start yet but the H-1B visa Cap was reached about 3.5 months before it started. USCIS just today updated its website with the following language: On June 11, 2012, USCIS received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY 2013. On June 7, 2012, USCIS also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject petitions subject to the cap for H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2013 that are received after June 11, 2012. USCIS continues to accept petitions exempted from the cap and DOD cooperative research worker H-1B petitions and Chile/Singapore H-1B1 petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2013.
New H-1B filings that are not cap-exempt will be accepted for FY2014 starting on October 1, 2014 (and presumably could be filed on April 1, 2014). This is a very long time away. Congress needs to get its act together and increase the quota on a permanent basis.