US Citizenship and Immigration Services streamlined the process by which certain nonimmigrant dependent spouses are able to secure employment and announced updates to the H-1B and H-2B visa programs.

Spouse work authorization. The USCIS last week agreed to streamline the process by which certain nonimmigrant dependent spouses are able to secure employment, reverting to a previous method that should reduce processing times and accelerate job authorizations, JD Supra reported.

In March 2019, USCIS stopped its practice of bundling the adjudication of H-4, L-2 and EAD petitions with their accompanying H-1B and L petitions. The policy change was challenged in court by Deepthi Warrier Edakunni, saying they led to long processing times, significant delays in the adjudication of employment authorization applications and significant job loss.

H-1B registration window. The initial registration period for the fiscal year 2024 H-1B cap will open at noon Eastern on March 1 and run through noon Eastern on March 17. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives will be able to complete and submit their registrations using the online H-1B registration system.

Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives are required to use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.

If enough registrations are received by March 17, USCIS will randomly select registrations and send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts. If enough registrations are not received, all registrations that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. Account holders will be notified by March 31.

An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary who is eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process.

H-2B cap reached; select allotments still available. USCIS has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 18,216 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the first half of fiscal year 2023 with start dates on or before March 31, under the recently announced H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule.

USCIS will continue to accept petitions for H-2B nonimmigrant workers for the additional 20,000 visas allotted for nationals of Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Petitioners whose workers were not accepted for the returning-worker allotment are encouraged to file under the Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras allotment while visas remain available; an additional 20,000 visas had been allotted for workers from those countries.

In addition to petitions for workers under the Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras allotment, USCIS is accepting petitions for workers who are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap. This includes petitions for:

• Current H-2B workers in the United States petitioning to extend their stay and, if applicable, change the terms of their employment or change their employers;
• Fish roe processors, fish roe technicians and/or supervisors of fish roe processing; and
• Workers performing labor or services in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and/or Guam (through 2029).