The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that employers should expect a delay in the data entry and receipt notice issuance for fiscal year (FY) 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitions due to COVID-19 (coronavirus). USCIS announced that it would not begin to perform intake processing on these cases until at least May 1, 2020.
Once USCIS commences data entry, the cases will undergo intake processing in the order they were received at USCIS Service Centers. USCIS has also noted that this intake and data entry delay will also result in a delay in adjudication for FY 2021 cap cases. Although USCIS has stated that it is aware that some H-1B cap petitions are time-sensitive and will try to process these as quickly as possible, they have not yet offered any projection dates for completion of these time-sensitive adjudications.
USCIS has also announced that there will be no extension to the 90-day H-1B cap filing window that ends on June 30, 2020.