They are playing a political game and we are all just pawns.
Obama is trying to get immigration reform done (which it’s self is a good thing). part of that reform is increasing the H1B cap (upto 200K or more). The only way to get support for this is by “showing” that there is a scarcity of H1Bs now under the current cap. The best way to do this is to have a lottery so that they can say something like “under our currently broken system many US companies who wanted to fill important positions could not do it since only a % of those who applied got through and the cap was reached in record breaking time”. So the USCIS is doing the dirty work for the administration by pressuring everyone to file eary hence going for a lottery (hence their statement).
I am not against of raising the cap, I think this is that MUST be done. But I am sad to see how we’ve become pawns in this game. I am on OPT and if I don’t get through this time I will not have another chance next year, so I am sad about this. 