H1B filings, LCA problems & Timing
The icert system isn’t great to say the least but to file for an H1B visa you must have an approved LCA. Many employers are not in the system and it can take up to or over a week to find that out, a week to fix it, and a week to get an LCA approved. So that potentially adds 21 days to the that didn’t used to exist before.
So what to do? Since it’s unlikely that the H1B cap will be hit on April 1 (the day that H1B visas can first be filed) it probably won’t be an issue.
But if one is worried about the cap being reached quickly it’s possible to file the LCA before April 1 using a date before October 1 (the first day new visa numbers become available) as the start date. You can do this even if you put the earliest date (10/1) on the I-129 petition. Only drawback is that the end of the I-129 will be the end of the LCA and that will be three years from the date you applied at the latest. That means the H1B visa might get shorted a little bit but better that than no H1B visa right?
Cap exempt petitioners don’t have to worry about all this silliness of course.
