USCIS announced today that premium processing would resume for ALL H-1B petitions tomorrow, March 12, 2019. Finally! The announcement was silent on whether premium would be available for the upcoming H-1B visa lottery. We recommend giving USCIS a week to clarify its position in this regard.
Read MoreThe United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will release a new Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, on March 8, 2019, which will require all accompanying dependents (“co-applicants”) in the application to pay for and complete biometrics services (fingerprinting and taking photo) with USCIS. This includes children. Each accompanying dependent also will need to sign an updated Supplement A of the Form I-539. Effective March 21, 2019, USCIS will only accept the new version of the Form and will reject any applications using prior versions.
Read MoreThe Department of Homeland Security formally moved to rescind the H-4 EAD last week by sending a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on February 20, 2019. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), the text of the proposed rule has not been made available to the public yet.
Read MoreThe Department of State (DOS) has issued its March 2019 Visa Bulletin. Overall, movement in all categories has slowed down. EB-1 for most nationals advanced by one month while Chinese and Indian nationals advanced by only fourteen days. For the EB-2 category, Chinese nationals advanced by three months while Indian nationals advanced by only three days. Lastly, EB-3 for Chinese nationals moved forward by seven days, while Indian nationals advanced by one month, and Philippine nationals advanced by four months.
Read MoreThe U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela stopped processing visas on January 25, 2019, due to diplomatic tensions. Although the State Department has not yet formally designated an alternative consulate for visa processing, the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru confirmed its availability for processing immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applications.
Read MoreUSCIS has announced that it will resume premium processing on Tuesday, February 19, 2019, for all H-1B petitions (transfers, extensions, amendments, etc.) filed on or before December 21, 2018.
Read MoreNow that the federal government's most recent shutdown has ended and E-Verify has resumed operations, please remember to create cases in E-Verify for all employees hired during the shutdown. The deadline to create these cases is February 11, 2019.
Read MoreUSCIS confirmed this morning through publication of a final rule that it would change the order in which it runs the annual H-1B visa lottery to maximize selection of candidates with US Master's degrees.
Read MoreU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that applicants who have a pending affirmative asylum application with USCIS can now check the status of their applications online at uscis.gov/casestatus. Only asylum applicants with an application pending with USCIS will be able to use this new feature to check their case status online. It will not cover defensive asylum applicants whose cases are pending in immigration court.
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