This article was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, of which Loan Huynh, Fredrikson Immigration Department Chair, is a member.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released tips to avoid common mistakes when filing an H-1B electronic registration. The agency said the top two user errors were creating the wrong type of account and entering the same beneficiary more than once.
USCIS noted that a prospective petitioner may only have one registration submitted per beneficiary per fiscal year. Once the initial registration period has closed, if the prospective petitioner has more than one registration submitted for the same beneficiary, USCIS will remove all registrations submitted for that beneficiary by that prospective petitioner. "This does not prevent other prospective petitioners or their representatives from submitting registrations for that same beneficiary, but they too need to ensure that each prospective petitioner only has one registration submitted for the beneficiary," USCIS noted.
The agency said that those who submitted more than one registration for the same person while the initial registration period is still open can delete the extra submission(s) from their account until there is only one registration for the beneficiary. USCIS does not refund the $10 fee for a deleted duplicate registration.
If more than one registration was submitted by the same prospective petitioner for the same person and the initial registration period has closed, there is no way to correct this error.
The initial registration period closes after noon ET on March 25, 2021.
