The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has just announced that it received approximately 17,400 H-1B petitions under the regular H-1B cap of 65,000, and that around 8,200 have been counted toward the 20,000 advanced U.S. degree cap. This means that USCIS continues to accept applications for initial H-1B status a week after the H-1B filing season opened up on April 2nd.
This seems to be a reflection of the economy as it continues its slow improvement. Last year, after one week USCIS had received 5,900 H-1B petitions under the regular cap and 4,500 under the advanced U.S. degree cap.? Graham Adair projects that the regular H-1B cap will be exhausted sometime this summer.