Immigration
From AILA-DC: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2016RS/bills/hb/hb0950f.pdf AILA-DC has submitted written testimony in opposition to this Bill, as has the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and others. Nonetheless, support for this Bill appears to be growing. It is critical
Immigration
The Department of State has released their April Visa Bulletin. In addition Mr. Oppenheim from the Department of State has also updated AILA about future visa movement. I will summarize both updates for you below. April Visa Bulletin: Family Based: Final Action Dates: Most categories moved forward about 3-4
Immigration
USCIS published the final STEM rule discussed in this blog post. In publishing the rule, USCIS gave it an effective date of May 10, 1016. The only exception to this is 8 CFR 214.16 which is effective from May 10, 2016 until May 10, 2019 (when it sunsets). This
Immigration
USCIS has indicated that they are going to be publishing their final rule on OPT STEM extensions (per the court case that was discussed in this blog post) on March 11, 2016. Below is a summary of the pertinent provisions per the proposed rule. After the summary there is also
Extraordinary Ability
Invariably when working with scientists it becomes apparent that USCIS's definition of your "most important" work and our client's definition of their "most important" work are very different. This leads to issues over what findings should be discussed in the memo and
Visas
This month has seen the introduction in the Senate (by Senator Cruz (R)) and the House (by Rep. Mo Brooks) of a bill to several limit the H-1B visa. These bills would set a minimum salary of $110,000 for ALL jobs under the H-1B umbrella. In addition,
Immigration
Just a reminder to those looking to file an H-1B under the cap for this coming fiscal year. The filing deadline is most likely April 7, 2016. Generally, USCIS will accept all applications for H-1Bs under the cap for the first 5 business days of April. If they
F-1
The new STEM OPT rule that we discussed here, is in final review by USCIS. Expectations are that it should be published by March 10, 2016 with an effective date no later than May 10th, the last day of the hold issued by the Court. At this point we do
Adjustment of Status
The American Immigration Lawyer's Association (AILA) recently talked with Mr. Charlie Oppenheim of the Department of state about visa availability in the coming months. Mr. Oppenheim is the person in charge of the Visa Bulletin. Below are some of the highlights of his predictions: 1. EB-3 China:
Adjustment of Status
USCIS in the last couple of days, has updated their timeline processing reports for all service centers. Below is a summary of some of the Highlights. I-140s For I-140's, Nebraska, which was processing all I-140s in 4 months, now has a 5 month processing timeline
Adjustment of Status
The Department of State released the March, 2016 visa bulletin earlier today. Below I will go through both the family and employment based backlogs. After reviewing the current backlogs I will discuss the projections by the DOS for further movement. Family Based Backlogs Final Action Dates: Most categories saw little
Immigration
While we can point to many examples of USCIS process times lengthening significantly in the past year, perhaps one of the hardest to understand is that for H-1B renewals. In its September 30, 2015 processing time reports, USCIS stated that they were processing H-1B renewals filed as of