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The first quarter of the fiscal year has witnessed a total of of 18,607 H-1B non- immigrant visas being rejected by the United States citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

It has been found an improvement when compared to the first quarter of fiscal year of the previous year where in 25,080 visas have been denied although the approval rate for the quarter was at 83.4% which is said to be lower than the average for the fiscal year 2019 which was at 84.3%.

The October- September financial year is being followed by the USCIS. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has said that 77,899 new petitions have been received during the quarter and a total of 93,637 had been approved.

Although the specific data regarding the country or company has not been made available, the H-1B work permit have been more beneficial to the Indian nationals with almost 70% is being awarded to the Indians. Therefore, this results in most of the visas of the Indian nationals being rejected especially the Indians who are working for Indian services firms at the third- party locations.

Poorvi Chothani who is the managing partner of LawQuest which is a US immigration firm which has its headquarters in Mumbai has said that the first half of the fiscal year 2019 has experienced more significant dip and the improvement in the approval rates have been observed in the recent months after there had been incidents where in some court cases went against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services regarding speciality occupation, relevance of education etc.

-Shrithika Kushangi