Federal District Court Blocks Temporarily USCIS Unlawful Presence Policy for F, J and M Nonimmigrants
A district court judge for the Middle District of North Carolina has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, effective immediately, enjoining USCIS's memo titled "Accrual of Unlawful Presence and F, J, and M Nonimmigrants," (see our article and analysis on the initial memorandum) originally issued on May 10, 2018, and updated on August 9, 2018, that went into effect on August [...]
CBP Introduces Alphanumeric Format to I-94 Numbers
Starting May 2019, CBP is introducing some minor changes to the I-94 number format by making them alphanumeric. I-94 numbers are 11 digits long and until now they only contained numbers; however, starting this month, CBP is starting to use alphanumeric I-94 numbers. At this time the length will still be 11 characters but the first nine will [...]
Alert: FY2020 H-1B Cap Demand Very Strong; Random Lottery Completed
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has announced that they have completed the intake and processing of all of the fiscal year (FY2020) H-1B cap petitions. According to USCIS, there were over 201,011 H-1B cap petitions filed during the April 1st-5th filing period. This indicates that the number of H-1B cap filings this year is slightly higher than the number of [...]
May 2019 Visa Bulletin – EB-1 India and China Unchanged and Future Does not Look Promising; Slow Movement Elsewhere
The U.S. State Department has just released the May 2019 Visa Bulletin which is the eighth Visa Bulletin for the FY2019 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the extremely slow forward movement in almost all employment-based categories. EB-1 India and China remain unchanged (with no forward movement and even retrogression expected) and EB-3 India remains [...]
Alert: FY2020 H-1B Cap Reached on April 5th
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that, as of Friday, April 5th, they have received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the annual H-1B cap for the 2020 fiscal year (FY2020). According to USCIS, they have received more than 65,000 general H-1B cap petitions. As a result, any cap-subject H-1B petitions received by USCIS after April [...]
Premium Processing Allowed for Certain H-1B Cap Cases; What are the Anticipated Cap Timelines?
USCIS has announced that they will allow premium processing for new FY2020 H-1B cap cases to be filed on April 1, 2019; however, this will be done in a two-phased approach. H-1B cap petitions requesting change of status can be filed concurrently with a request for premium processing on April 1, 2019. Premium processing for H-1B cap cases [...]