Washington, Dec 24 (IANS) After months of tardy response, applications for US H-1B visas for highly skilled workers coveted by Indian professionals have reached the Congress-mandated cap of 65,000, thanks to a sudden spurt in the last couple of months.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Wednesday announced that it has received a sufficient number of applications to reach the mandated cap of 65,000 for working professionals for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010.

“USCIS is hereby notifying the public that Dec 21, 2009 is the final receipt date for new H-1B speciality occupation petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2010,” an official media release said.

Unlike previous years when the cap was reached within a couple of days of the USCIS starting to accept H-1B petitions on April 1, this year it had received no more than 45,000 applications till the middle of May.

Thereafter it took nearly seven months to fill the rest of the 20,000 slots, a sizeable number of which, in fact, were received in the last few weeks.

USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption.