United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) have adopted a new rule designed to address complaints that some companies are filing duplicate H1B applications.
According to the new H1B rule, USCIS will deny or revoke multiple petitions filed by an employer for the same foreign employee and will not refund filing fees submitted with multiple or duplicated petitions.
About 500 duplicate applications were received last year, according to associated press report.
This year, “to ensure a fair and orderly distribution of available H-1B visas,” USCIS will deny all multiple petitions filed and will not refund the $320 filing fee, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
However, related employers, such as a parent company and its subsidiary, can still apply for the same H-1B worker for different petitions, based on a “legitimate business need“.
Last April 1, 120,000 applications came in, nearly twice the annual limit of 65,000. The Congress has set a limit of 65,000 for most H-1B workers for the fiscal 2009, the window for H-1B allotments opens on April 1 2008.