Summary

GAO reviewed the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) new rule on allocation of additional H-1B visas created by the H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004. GAO found that (1) the rule implements changes made by the Omnibus Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 to the numerical limits of the H-1B nonimmigrant visa category and the fees for filing H-1B petitions; contains the procedures USCIS will use to allocate, in fiscal year 2005 and in future fiscal years, the additional 20,000 H-1B numbers made available by the exemption created pursuant to the Act and the process to allocate all petitions subject to the numerical limitations of the Immigration and Nationality Act; and announces the additional fees that must be filed with certain H-1B petitions; and (2) USCIS complied with applicable requirementsin promulgating the rule.