USCIS H-1B Crackdown: Relief or Another Nightmare?

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has slashed down on the H-1B fraud as evident by the 2026 lottery numbers. And now they are going one step further to find out people who tried to game the system unlawfully dating back to 2022.

Many H-1B applicants tried improving their odds by submitting duplicate entries through different companies. But now, those shortcuts are turning into legal nightmares.

USCIS has ramped up investigations into this “lottery manipulation,” targeting both employers and applicants. Even if your duplicate registration happened years ago, you’re not safe as FY 2025, 2024, and even 2023 cases are under fresh scrutiny.

After switching to a new selection system that focuses on individuals, duplicate registrations have dropped sharply this year. FY 2024 had over 400,000 duplicate entries; in FY 2025 it got slashed down to 47,314 followed by 7,828 in FY 2026.

And if you lied on those forms, claiming to have real job offers from multiple employers, when you didn’t, you could be banned from entering the US for life. If you think your name was part of multiple registrations, you must talk to a lawyer and don’t ignore official notices.

While this crackdown is aimed at H-1B applicants, this could help genuine Indian hopefuls who have been waiting for years to get their visas.

That is if this rule is implemented in the right spirit. As we have seen in the SEVIS crackdown where an automated system wrongfully flagged various innocent students and terminated their legal status; one would hope it would not be repeated here.