U.S. employers are vying for the chance to hire skilled foreign workers, but once again, the annual H-1B cap has been reached within five business days.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced it will halt premium processing of H-1B visa petitions on April 3, for up to six months. Through the H-1B visa category, employers can petition for highly educated professionals to work in specialty occupations that require at least a bachelors degree or the equivalent. This decision will not only disrupt the plans of thousands of foreign nationals who are recent graduates of U.S. universities, workers and businesses, but also could have a significant impact on the fee-funded agencys revenue.

In order to pry open that box and let the American public and those most directly affected see how the lottery system works from start to finish, and to learn whether the system is operating fairly and all the available numbers are being used, the American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association have teamed up on a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and USCIS, seeking information about the government s administration of the H-1B lottery.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 7 that the H-1B cap for fiscal year 2017 was reached, meaning that in five business days, U.S. employers filed more petitions for an H-1B visa to hire a skilled foreign worker than the entire year s allocation of visas available under current law. This means that USCIS will conduct a lottery to determine which employers will get the visas they need.

The documents reveal that the agency targets small businesses that participate in the H-1B visa program for increased scrutiny and fraud investigations precisely because they are small and emerging. People have suspected this for years. Now, here is the proof!