Covid-19
On April 22, 2020. President Trump issued a proclamation "Suspending Entry of Immigrants Who Present Risk to the U.S. Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the COVID-19 Outbreak." This proclamation is effective at 11:59 pm (ET) on April 23, 2020. The proclamation will expire 60
Covid-19
This is just an update on what is and is not happening with USCIS, DOS and SEVP during the Covid-19 pandemic. First, it is important to remember that things are changing so current USCIS policy may change very soon. To keep updated with current policies, you can go to the
National Interest Waiver
A big question that many people have, before even asking if they would qualify for a National Interest Waiver application, is can I even file one considering that I am a [fill in the blank with your profession]. You may be surprised that, for the most part, the answer is
Adjustment of Status
Not everyone realizes but there are huge backlogs of cases for employment based immigrant visas. For about 1 year now the EB-1 category (Extra-ordinary Ability, Outstanding Professor and Researchers and Intra-Company Transferees) category has been backlogged about 1 year for most of the world and several years for China and
Adjustment of Status
For those who may have missed this in my last blog post (See here), there is a potential that the EB-2 category, which includes the National Interest Waiver may no longer be current for ANY country come January 2020. What does this mean? In order to file the I-485 application,
Adjustment of Status
USCIS just released a proposed rule that would increase most fees for USCIS benefits, some by quite a bit. I will go through some of the proposals below. I-485: Adjustment of Status Currently, there is a general fee for the I-485 that covers filing the I-485, and the filing of
Adjustment of Status
Before discussing the visa bulletin for November, I just wish to apologize for the absence of posts in the last couple of months. In the future I shall make sure that there are no more long pauses such as the one that occurred and will ensure that I am able
AAO
Back in. we wrote an article about the Department of State adopting a new rule on inadmissibility called the 90-day rule. This replaced their previous 30/60 rule. For a full rundown on the change in the regulation and what it means, see the article we wrote here. Basically, the
Immigration
When looking specifically at the H-1B visa, there have been many news stories over the last two years - some claiming that the H-1B is primarily used to displace US workers (especially in the IT area), and that it is used to artificially keep wages lower. Others claim the exact
Adjustment of Status
Many of you have probably noticed the increase in processing times at USCIS lately - I-140s are taking a long time, H-1Bs and other changes of status applications are talking almost a year to process, and I-485s are now well over a year to process as well. Well, the American
Adjustment of Status
Recently, the Department of State and Charlie Oppenheim released the new March 2019 Visa Bulletin. Below is a summary of the movement in each category. Family-Based cases: F1: Final Action dates moved forward to about a month for most countries - October 22, 2011 for All Other Areas, China and
EAD
USCIS has submitted its proposed regulation to rescind the H-4 EAD regulations that have been in place since February 25, 2015. While this is not a huge surprise, as USCIS has had this on their agenda since the new Administration has been in power, it is still somewhat of a