On September 11, 2020, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals limited the scope of the preliminary injunction on the USCIS new public charge rule issued by the New York State District Court. The Court of Appeals changed the injunction from nationwide to only applying to New York, and two other states in the jurisdiction of the Court (it was a little more complicated than that, but this was the result). When the New York District Court first entered its nationwide injunction, USCIS immediately stopped enforcement of the new rule and no longer required the new I-944 form. Because of the ruling of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, there was speculation that USCIS would re-implement that rule. It took two weeks, but USCIS has finally re-implemented the public charge rule. In a statement put out yesterday, USCIS indicated that any case filed since the new rule was put out and before October 13, 2020, that did NOT include the I-944 and/or supporting documents would be issued a Request For Evidence for the documentation. Come October 13, 2020, however, any case received by USCIS without the I-944 and supporting documents would be rejected.
For those not familiar with the new rule, USCIS changed its longstanding public charge rule to expand the types of public support that could affect the ability of someone to show that they would not likely become a public charge. In addition, USCIS greatly expanded the documents required for it to make a determination on whether someone would become a public charge. Under the new rule, a new form, the I-944 form, was required for immigrants which required information on all assets and liabilities for each applicant as well as proof of health insurance, marketable skills, language skills, and credit score and report. Once USCIS had all the required information and documents it would balance the positive and negative factors to determine if it felt someone would likely become a public charge. In addition to the above, many of the non-immigrant forms also now include certain questions on public charge issues as well.
We will update you with any other changes or update to this rule. And remember, as always, this blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog. Thank you.
Charlie Oppenheim updated his predictions on the movement of immigrant visa numbers for the foreseeable future. I will detail some of the highlights below, however, please do remember that these are just predictions from Mr. Oppenheim and they can change depending on what the actual demand in any given category actually materializes.
Charlie Oppenheimer and the Department of State have determined that, because of increased usage of the EB-1 immigration visas that, come April 1 they will have to backlog this category for both India and China. Both have been backlogged to January 1, 2012 (a date for which there will be no demand). This action was taken to make sure that worldwide usage for this category stays within the numbers allowed.
It appears that USCIS is preparing to release a new rule by June, 2018 to remove the provision that allows certain H-4 spouses of H-1B visa holders to apply for work authorization. If you have been following this issue, you know that the new administration has been looking at revoking these rules since it came into power. It appears now that they are getting ready to act. According to the administration, allowing such people work authorization is taking away potential jobs from US Citizens. In further of this view, USCIS just released a report on the H-4 EAD process, including statistics on the number of cases, etc. According to this report, there are over 104,000 people taking advantage of this law.
The Department of State released the visa bulletin for October 2016 recently. Below is a summary of movement and changes.
The August 2016 visa bulletin was released by the Department of State yesterday. It features backlogs for ALL countries in the EB-2 category and other changed. However, readers should understand, that while certain countries (India and China) have regular backlogs in the EB-2 category, those for other countries in the EB-2 category and those in the EB-1 category are temporary. I will discuss this more in depth below as we look at the specifics of the Visa Bulletin:
Immigration Briefs 