The Department of State (DOS) has issued its March 2021 Visa Bulletin. Both employment-based and family-based priority dates are detailed below.
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Democrats have introduced an ambitious and comprehensive immigration bill in both houses of Congress titled the US Citizenship Act of 2021. While the bill is predicted to pass the House of Representatives, the likelihood of it passing the Senate is unclear because this would require every single Democratic Senator and 10 Republican Senators to vote for the bill. These are tough odds to achieve, especially because this bill has controversial elements that have failed to pass before.
USCIS has announced that the online registration period for this year’s H-1B lottery will open on March 9, 2021, and run through March 25, 2021. During this period, employers seeking to file H-1B petitions in this year’s lottery must first complete an online registration process that requires basic information about their company and each prospective foreign national worker, and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee. USCIS will notify employers of selected registrations by March 31, 2021, after which employers will have 90 days to file the H-1B petition.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has just announced that it will not rank H-1B registrations by salary in this year’s H-1B visa lottery. Instead, it will continue with the previous method of randomly selecting the H-1B registrations in the annual lottery.
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The Department of Homeland Security has extended Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for nationals of Syria for a period of eighteen months until September 30, 2022. TPS designation for Syria was scheduled to end on March 31, 2021.
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As many businesses continue to operate remotely in response to COVID-19, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) has once again extended the ability of employers to remotely verify a new employee’s identify and employment authorization documents for Form I-9 purposes through March 31, 2021.
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The Department of State (DOS) has issued its February 2021 Visa Bulletin. Both employment-based and family-based priority dates are detailed below.
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In an ongoing effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, President Biden has issued a Proclamation, which maintains the restriction on travelers from Brazil, Ireland, the Schengen Area, and the United Kingdom (excluding overseas territories outside of Europe). The previous administration had planned on lifting these travel restrictions on January 25.
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Within hours of his inauguration on January 20, 2021, President Biden took several important steps to reverse the previous administration’s restrictive immigration measures. As detailed below, President Biden signed several critical Executive Orders, released a summary of immigration legislation (the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021) he will present to Congress, and put a hold on all regulations the previous administration tried to implement after his election but before he formally took office.
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