The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that the number of visas for specialized workers requested for the year 2024 rose more than 60% compared to 2022, which generated “serious concerns” that it is being manipulated. the system to gain advantage.
According to a report revealed by USCIS on Friday on H-1B visas, regularly used by US technology companies, it showed that at the close of the registration period last March it received 780,884 visa applications for 2024, which represents a 61.97% more than the 483,927 submitted last year.
Of the 780,884 applications, 758,994 were found eligible, which is 59.98% more than the eligible visas filed in 2022 (474,421).
USCIS said it found a large number of beneficiaries with multiple eligible records submitted, a number “much higher than in previous years.” Of the 758,994 eligible registrations, 408,891 were for recipients with multiple registrations.
The figure “has raised serious concerns that some may have sought to gain unfair advantage by filing multiple registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary,” USCIS warned in the report.
H-1B visa applications are processed by employers or third parties that serve as intermediaries. On average, the US issues 85,000 of these visas each year.
The agency indicated that multiple registrations may have unfairly increased applicants’ chances of selection.
“We remain committed to preventing abuse of the registration process and ensuring that only those who comply with the law are eligible to file an H-1B petition,” the agency emphasized.
The number of multi-registration applicants grew dramatically compared to those filed in 2020, when the agency registered just 28,125 eligible registrations for multiple-registration applicants, representing 10.4% of the 269,424 eligible registrations submitted that year.
USCIS reminded H-1B visa applicants that at the time a registration is submitted, each petitioner must sign a certificate, under penalty of perjury, that the information is complete, true, and correct, and that no intent to mislead to the lottery system by submitting multiple applications.
With information from EFE
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