The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on that it has reopened its window to accept petitions for H-2B visas with immediate effect for the year 2009.

In a statement USCIS said about 25,000 of the Congressional mandated 66,000 H2B visas are still left to be filled out for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009.

On January 7, 2009 USCIS had announced to have received enough applications to fill Congressional mandated cap of 66,000 H2B visas. However, the Department of State received far fewer than expected requests for H-2B visas and as a result, has issued only 40,640 H-2B visa for the fiscal year 2009.

Since there is much less time left between now and September 30, before which all these visas have to be used, USCIS has advised prospective employees and applicants to submit their petitions in the premium processing by depositing an additional fee of USD 1,000.