USCIS Filing Fee Increase Blocked by Federal Court
On September 29, 2020, a district court blocked the effective date of the August 2020 Final Rule, which sought to increase the fees (significantly in many cases) for many immigration services in addition to requiring revised forms. See ruling. As a result, the current fee schedule and the current version of the relevant forms continue to remain in effect. It [...]
October 2020 Visa Bulletin – Major Movement for EB-2 and EB-3 India and China
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2020 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2021 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the major forward movement in employment Dates for Filing and smaller but still notable forward movement in the Final Action dates. There is no movement at all in [...]
EB-2 to EB-3 India Downgrading to Benefit from Earlier Priority Date – How and When to Do It? (Updated)
For many years, it has been a true fact of life that an Indian-born applicant can obtain a green card faster under the higher EB-2 preference category (requiring master’s degree or bachelor’s degree and five years of experience) compared to the EB-3 preference category (requiring bachelor’s degree). While we expect this to continue to be the case, we are observing [...]
September 2020 Visa Bulletin – Last for Fiscal Year; Not Much Forward Movement
The U.S. State Department has just released the September 2020 Visa Bulletin which is the last Visa Bulletin for the FY2020 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of much movement in the last Visa Bulletin for the fiscal year. […]
August 2020 USCIS Staff Furlough Called Off
USCIS has just made an announcement to its staff and external stakeholders that the administrative staff furlough which was scheduled to begin on August 30, 2020 has been cancelled and the current USCIS staffing levels would remain unchanged. Cost Cutting Measures Means Fewer Contractors and Processing Delays According to USCIS's Deputy Director of Policy, the agency's financial situation has improved [...]
Second H-1B Cap Lottery Completed; Newly Selected Petitions Must Be Filed by November 16
On Friday, August 14, 2020, USCIS completed the second round of the H-1B cap selection lottery and notified the selected applicants. The August 2020 selection round was due to the fact that a (significant) number of H-1B cap registrations selected under the first round did not file an H-1B petition before the June 30th deadline; as a result, USCIS is [...]