Lawsuit About H-1B Process

The American Immigration Council (Council) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have teamed up on a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The suits is requesting information about the government’s administration of the H-1B lottery.

USCIS typically receives  more applications than H-1B numbers available, so it conducts a lottery from the cases that it receives in the first 5 days of filing.  CIS selects a number of petitions to be processed  - taking into account that some of these  will be denied, withdrawn, or otherwise rejected.

USCIS has never been open in describing the selection process. Attorneys, employers and H-1B applicants will be watching this case closely, hoping to get answers.

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Despite the Obama Administration’s public commitment to the values of transparency and accountability, frankly, our attempts to see into this process have been resisted...Instead of responding to our requests for information about how the lottery is conducted, how cap-subject petitions are processed, and how the numbers are estimated and tracked, USCIS has kept the process entirely opaque. This litigation is intended to shine a necessary light on an important process in America’s business immigration system.”
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AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson

“When petitions are submitted to USCIS in April, it’s as if they disappear into a ‘black box....This suit is intended to pry open that box and let the American public and those most directly affected see how the lottery system works from start to finish, and to learn whether the system is operating fairly and all the numbers are being used as the law provides.”
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Melissa Crow, Legal Director of the American Immigration Council.