USCIS issued an announcement that it will begin accepting H-1B petitions for the fiscal year 2016 on April 1, 2015.

At the annual conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in June, the U.S. Department of Labor released statistics about the Labor Certification applications in process and Labor Condition Applications filed in preparation for submitting H-1B petitions. Interesting points include:

Members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have indicated that they are not receiving email notifications that Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) have been certified through the Department of Labor's Icert Portal. However, the status of an LCA can be verified and a certified LCA may be printed by logging into the Icert portal. The LCA must be certified before an H-1B petition can be filed. April 1st is the first day to file H-1B petitions and petitions may only be filed until the fiscal year cap is reached. The cap is often reached in the first 1-2 weeks, so it is important for those preparing to file H-1B petitions to log into Icert to check the status of their LCAs.