May 2025 Visa Bulletin – Stuck In the Mud and No Movement
The U.S. State Department has released the May 2025 Visa Bulletin which is the eighth Visa Bulletin for the fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of pretty much any movement across the cutoff dates for employment categories and very minor forward movement for some family-based categories. […]
H-1B Alternatives: What Are The Available Visa Options?
Many of our readers are aware that as of March 31, 2025, USCIS has received sufficient number of H-1B cap registrations to fill the annual H-1B quota and they have completed the random lottery to allocate the available visa numbers. Selected registrants should already have been notified. We wanted to provide an overview of the alternative visa options for those [...]
H-1B Cap Lottery Completed; Petitions Must Be Filed by June 30
USCIS has announced that they have received and selected sufficient number of H-1B “cap” registrations for the available 85,000 H-1B work visas. As a result, the H-1B cap registration selection period has been completed and all selected registrants have been notified via their employer or attorney. Not selected? See our alert for alternative visa options. […]
Understanding the New Alien Registration Requirements: Who Must Register, Penalties for Non-Compliance, and Parental Responsibilities
On March 12, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security published an Interim Final Rule (IFR) titled “Alien Registration Form and Evidence of Registration.” Under the new rule, starting April 11, 2025, non-U.S. citizens staying in the U.S. for 30 days or more must register with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (if they have not already been “registered” as part [...]
April 2025 Visa Bulletin – Continuing Minor EB2/EB3 Advancement
The U.S. State Department has released the April 2025 Visa Bulletin which is the seventh Visa Bulletin for the fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the continuing minor (1-1.5 months) forward movement in Final Action dates for India and China’s employment-based preference categories which will also allow a small number of new I-485 applications to be [...]
The Visa Interview Waiver Process and Eligibility Explained
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) rules require every nonimmigrant visa applicant between ages of 14 and 79 to apply in person and be interviewed by a consular officer (see 9 FAM 403.5-2 , the “FAM”). But there are certain specific exceptions allowing a waiver of the interview requirement. With the current long interview scheduling wait times at many U.S. [...]