Home » US Immigration - Visas » H1B Visa » USCIS H1B 2021 Registrations Denied by Mistake – Issue info, FAQs

USCIS H1B 2021 Registrations Denied by Mistake – Issue info, FAQs

As most of you know USCIS received 275k Registrations for H1B FY 2021 Season and they were all submitted and processed in their New Online H1B Registration Tool. Most of the systems go through rigorous testing and are launched only after they are close to perfect…but, at times, mistakes happen due to the way system was tested. It seems like such mistakes crept in with the new USCIS H1B registration system. AILA reported that many attorney have raised errors and the same was covered by Forbes as well. We will look at what it means and what can we expect from this situation.

As a background, if are not aware, AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association) represents American immigration attorneys and usually works with various government agencies like DHS, USCIS, State Department for various immigration related regulations, issues faced by attorneys, etc..

What’s was the Issue with Mistakenly Denied H1B Registration ?

In general, as per H1B Duplicate Filings Rule by USICIS, you cannot file duplicates for same beneficiary, if they are for same job or if it for related companies. This is no different for H1B registrations too. As per the new H1B registration system a registration is considered “duplicate”, if there are more than one registration submitted for the same beneficiary or applicant by the same employer. If the system detects duplicates, it will automatically set the status of the registration as “Denied” and will not make it as part of the H1B Visa Lottery. See below screenshot on how it looks.  It is reported to AILA by many immigration attorneys that USCIS has mistakenly denied their submitted registrations as “denied”, even though they are not duplicate registrations. The denials reported to AILA by attorneys add up to at least over 100 H1B Registrations, and maybe more.   You can check AILA Practice Alert ( you need AILA login). As per AILA, there are at least 31 immigration attorneys, who indicated that over 100 H1B registrations were mistakenly classified as duplicates and technically rejected in Lottery.  This was originally reported by AILA on March 31st, when the H1B Registrations results came out.

H1B Denied Registration Status

Is it only 100 or more H1B registrations were Mistakenly Denied by USCIS?

Well, this is hard to know. Unless someone reports it, it would not come out. In this context, many of the attorneys verified after the practice alert issued by AILA and reached out to them reporting the details. So, we do not know exactly how many were mistakenly classified as duplicate and denied in the lottery. It could be any number…If you look at the total H1B registration or applications filed for this, they are staggering 275,000, even if there was 1 percent error, that would amount to 2,750 that were wrongly classified. These could be big numbers considering the H1B cap and demand.  

What could be the reason for Duplicates ? Deleted and Resubmitted ?

At this point, we do not know the exact reason. One of the attorneys from Fragomen indicated that they had to update some info , so they deleted a registration and then re-submitted a new one.  Now, that registration is denied. So, it could be that the deleted and re-submissions are impacted…maybe, in the system they never delete the history and used that for duplicates detection…Again, these are guesses….There could be other reasons as well such as Payments that were processed on second run, but the registration status still had the payment confirmation that was rejected from first time…so, there are all possibilities. USCIS needs to do a root cause analysis on this and update everyone.

Has USCIS given any guidance on the mistakenly Denied H1B Registrations?

Nothing yet. Many attorneys and AILA has reached out to USCIS Indicating the issue, but so far we do not have any update on this from USCIS.

If you are an Employer, and have Denied Status what should you do ?

The first thing you need to do is check your submitted registrations, if there were duplicates submitted by you…if there were none, and still you see denied status, then you should reach out to your immigration attorney, who plan to file H1B for your company or you can directly reach out to USCIS and also inform AILA, if you are a a member and raise the issue.  Hopefully USCIS will come back with a solution.

Is there anything that you can do as H1B Applicant for this Mistake in Selection ?

If you were told by your employer that it was denied, then you can ask them to re-check everything and then ask them to reach out to USCIS or their attorney to work with USCIS. This is a difficult situation for many, but we do not have any update at this point.

FAQs

Will USCIS re-run the entire Lottery again as it was a System issue

Well, we do not know at this point.  They may or may not do it, depending on the issue and how many were impacted.  USCIS has discretion to do few things, if they believe, it was a mistake…

What would USCIS do, if they really realize that there was an issue with their system ?

Well, at this point we do not have any guidance from USCIS on this. If they confirm that it was a bug, maybe they can run lottery again on the erroneously denied registrations…But, we do not know how it will work…

Will there be lawsuit by AILA and Other attorney against USCIS for this mistake ?

Only a Lawsuit comes into picture, if there is something that is not addressed by USCIS properly. At this point, there is nothing planned by anyone. All of the parties have reached out to USICS and there is no new update yet. If the issue is not resolved properly, then there could be a lawsuit, it is a possibility…We need to wait and see.

What do you think of the mistake by USCIS ? Were you impacted ? Share your thoughts in comments.

   

Other Articles

31 Comments

  1. I have valid L1A & I94 till August,2021. This year my H1B picked. My 6th year complete in US in August,2020. Shall I convert my L1A to H1B within US and H1B extenstion with approved I-140?

    Is there any issues 6th year completed 1 month ago (Oct 1st,2020)?

    if this is issue, the suggest me how can I active my H1B.

    Please advice.

    Reply
    • H1B – FY2021,
      Yes, it could be an issue, you need to take some strategic vacation or something to discount that one month and be out of the country. This has to be carefully planned, discuss with an attorney and then act accordingly.

      Reply
  2. Hello All,

    Still am quite ferocious to know, whether the lot results have been really announced, in a pandemic sitaution. As I checked with my employer, they also didn’t get any info on the results.
    Would be happy to know it, if there is any way to check it out. Any suggestions plz.

    Reply
    • Ram,
      The initial results are out. If the status is still submitted for your employer related to your submission, then you were not picked in the first round of lottery. Only your employer can check, you cannot.

      Reply
  3. Hi,
    I am on my H1B and have started my PERM process as an Indian citizen for a US green card. I recently received a Canadian PR and now I am a permanent resident of Canada. I am wondering what is the best course of action for me. Should I get my I140 approved as an Indian citizen and then relocate to Canada, as a PR, get Canadian citizenship and can again move back to the US on approved I140 in the future? Will getting an I140 approved as an Indian Citizen expedite my green card process with Canadian citizenship? Also will having an I-140 approved now cause any problems in the future? I wanted to keep the option open for me in the future if I want to relocate to the US

    Reply
    • Having i-140 just means you are in queue for Green card. Thats it. No other benefits attached to it . Whether you want to relocate to US at a future date depends on your employer. Some employer has to sponsor the visa then

      Reply
  4. Please sign this petition whoever feels the current h1b system is prone to fraud. Unfortunately this website does not let me post the link. Please search as whitehouse h1b fraud petition.

    Reply
    • All,

      Lot of people pin hopes on this lottery system and everyone would like it to be fair. May be few are really highly skilled that they are able to get multiple offers which I dont deny. But there are lot of consultanices who take money from applicants and add them to the lottery and this year it was made way easier for many fraudulent consultancies to do that. We need to weed out such things and only genuine applications need to be submitted. We can only raise voice and bring to the attention of USCIS but, it is up to USCIS to figure out how they want to handle that. There is no point arguing among us on the policies set by them. we just dont want people exploiting the system.

      Please sign the white house petition. May be it will bring it to their attention.

      Thanks

      Reply
      • I feel that due to the COVID-19 situation, perhaps the majority of H1B filings next year would actually come from people who don’t really have real offers from real companies

        Reply
      • Unlucky One,
        Unfortunately, the WhiteHouse petition will only get one liner response telling it is DHS task. Check example response . Better thing is to work with congress, create a bill or lobby for it using them.

        Reply
        • Hello Kumar,
          Thanks for letting us know. But, I have no idea how to work with Congress or even initiate this. Any suggestions or references to who can help us on this would be really helpful.

          Thanks

          Reply
          • Unlucky One,
            You can reach out your congressman and indicate your issue. You can check their details on congress website. You can reach out to non-profit orgs that focus on immigration like Immigration Voice and others too.

  5. Hi Kumar,
    I had done 3 registrations from different employers.Unfortunately, None of them got picked for this year H1B 2021. Will this be considered as duplicate??.

    Thanks
    Raghu

    Reply
      • I am not sure why USCIS dont make rule of having only one petition per passport number and deny all the petitions if filed more than once, If we had this rule, we would get way less petitions and it will be equal chances for everyone and a stronger way to prevent fraud as well. I would like to get other thoughts as well. I have heard about cases people applying 6 cases and 6 of them were picked. Serious issues with this new system.

        Reply
        • GenuineCase,
          Well, there are some genuine cases with offers from genuine companies like Google and Microsoft…in that cases, this will not help…Also, it does not help companies, in this case who want to hire the best talent…So, it is slightly tricky…But, as you know there are many bad actors from IT bodyshop companies that abuse the system… In the end, USCIS is setting up all these traps to weed out bad actors…

          Reply
      • GenuineCase,
        I have been hurt for the past five years since i am filing for past five years and i am also not in masters cap quota. Still, I don’t understand and what is the logic of the algorithm to select the 65000 quota. Bad Luck seems to be ruining my career. I am confused now whether my filings are being treated as duplicates.

        Reply
        • i do understand the pain of not being selected. I am under matsers quota. Did my masters from a very good top ranked university in US and still i am not getting picked in lottery from 4 years. I had to move out of US post my stem opt, still i always submit single petition in the lottery hoping for best. I still believe if USCIS had stopped allowing people for submitting more than one petition, we will never see these huge numbers like 275k petitions. And fraud is done from both sides, masters as well as regular cap candidates. And its very easy now with just 10$ registration fee. Not sure how or when USCIC will take this into consideration.

          And regarding your cases being considered as duplicates, you can always ask your employer to what is the current status of your registration. If is says denied, then yes it was considered as duplicate, or else it was not picked in lottery.

          Reply
    • Are these IT companies as Kumar talks about ? If yes then there is a good chance it was considered as duplicate. I would like to know the names of the companies you filed from. All three bonafied non related companies ? No client vendor relation among the three that applied for you ?

      3 registration means your chances were close to 100 percent of getting selected in the lottery if you applied in maters quota because your name will circulate in the lottery 6 times, 3 for masters pool and 3 for bachelors and masters combined pool.

      I feel like you tried to game the system and unfortunately USCIS won this slick move you played. Next year petitions will rise just like every year with such a low entry barrier because of $10 fees, so chances will be much less next year. You played yourself dude.

      Reply
      • Yes you are right. Cannot imagine the number of petitions next year. All the students MS petitions which didnt make it this year (126K -49K = 77K, assuming zero dups) + the next year’s rush is gonna be crazy. With such low entry fee of 10$ , its would be good to watch next year. This year was the first in electronic submissions. So people were bit pessimistic. Next year every applicant is gonna have multiple submissions.

        Reply
      • Hey Bad Move,

        Before you accuse people of gaming the system, at least make an effort to do those probability calculations. After all, you’re applying for a “specialty occupation”.

        The approximate probability of getting picked in the general pool was 23.63% this year. This gives a combined probability of (1-(1-0.2363)^3) or 55.5% for getting at least one registration picked.

        The probability for somebody in the advanced degree pool (taking into account the two stages of the lottery) works out to be 39.44%. The combined probability for three applications works out to 77.8%, still a far cry from the near 100% you mentioned. (If these calculations are off, please feel free to correct me)

        Why did I bother to do all this? Because I had also managed to get three employers to apply for me. They were all genuine companies, each of which believed that I would be a great addition to their team (they are all full-time positions, and do not involve going to a client’s site). And I successfully managed to get one picked.

        If I am able to use my talent to convince multiple companies to offer me a position and apply for me, that certainly shouldn’t count as gaming the system. It is a lottery, and I managed to buy more than one ticket when that is normally a hard thing to do.

        Genuine Case,
        Are there people out there defrauding the system? Sure. However, do not forget that genuine cases do exist, and limiting applications to one per passport will only hurt the US’ ability to hire smart people. Right now, highly talented professionals have a shot at getting multiple petitions in, and is the only semblance of merit in this probability-driven nightmare.

        I don’t mean to attack you personally, but I do intend to discuss the basis of your ideology with which you’re making claims and accusations, using facts and numbers to make my argument. I hope you understand the intend, and don’t take my comments personally.

        Reply
        • Hey Scientist,

          i hear you. All i mean to say that i myself can convince multiple employers for filing petitions for me based on my skills. But i still believe having a single petition for everyone is fair for everyone, not just you or me. It creates way less application in the system. I am not against genuine multiple offers. But having only 10$ as the registration fee invite a lot of fraud and its easy for people who want to do fraud can have way more application submitted in this system. You know how people just need a loophole in the system to bring odd in their favour. And yes i dont mind having a healthy debate, so no offence taken 🙂

          Reply
          • Hey Genuine Case,
            I will respectfully disagree with your stance. I believe in a meritocracy, and don’t see a problem in a skilled individual being able to obtain an advantage by virtue of their skill. By saying that only one petition should be allowed per person, you’re essentially arguing that discrimination based on merit is not moral.
            While there are many bases of discrimination (race, gender identity, etc) that aren’t moral, I would argue that merit is not one of those.
            Additionally, if you choose to hold on to your belief and applied only once, in spite of being able to potentially apply multiple times, that’s up to you. I respect you for being able to stand true to yourself, but I don’t think that’s something you can expect from everybody. 🙂

        • Scientist – Ever heard of figure of speech, it wasn’t a claim. It was just a way of expressing how lucky you have to be to have 3 petition and still losing when it comes to luck.

          Also the comment was for Raghu to tell us if he applied through genuine companies or not. Why are you so butt hurt ? who was talking to you in the first place ? Who asked you to rub it in our faces that you secured offers from 3 genuine companies ? why did you have to jump the gun and show your superiority ? Showing off with numbers and probability ? did anyone ask?

          Half your comment was about self praise ? how self consumed are you ? From your comment it looks like you didn’t get lucky this year and for some reason h1b selection defines your life at this point. You know there is lot more to life than h1b.

          Respectfully
          Bad Move

          Reply
          • Hey Bad Move,

            I presented facts, backed by numbers. You retorted with slander. I think it’s very clear who’s butt-hurt here. 🙂

        • @Scientist,
          Lol dude calling yourself a scientist and bragging about having 3 companies to apply for your registration doesn’t make you any smart. And yeah neither does the probability calculations you did when you can’t accept to the fact that this isn’t fair. Dont you think one registration for all where you list out all the companies that wish to hire an emotionally intelligent person like you (If you don’t get this I’m being sarcastic) would be much fairer, foolproof system. Once you have the registration picked you could pick the company you would like to file with.

          Reply
          • Everyone,
            It is getting heated with discussion.. We are all in it together as community, there would be someone winning, someone losing….and we cannot change the USCIS rules with our discussion here….so, let’s focus on helping each other and let’s not pick on each other…

    • Raghu,
      Well, if they were done through related companies, it could be, but hard to know…Usually, at this point, they usually may not look at the related companies, but you never know…

      Reply

Leave a Comment