H-4 EAD Update: Draft Program Rescission to be Announced in June 2018
February 2018 was a month which was highly anticipated by all following the H-4 EAD litigation which sought to challenge the H-4 EAD rule and, specifically, the anticipated introduction by USCIS of the proposed H-4 EAD rescission regulations. USCIS has filed an update to the court in the Save Jobs USA litigation where they essentially ask the court to [...]
USCIS Appears to Question Immediate F-1 CPT Validity for Second Degree Students
Our office has been seeing cases and reports that USCIS is changing their approach and starts to question the validity of F-1 CPT work authorization especially in cases where the F-1 foreign student has used more than 12 months of combined CPT and OPT at the same degree level. Most often this issue is raised during an H-1B petition [...]
March 2018 Visa Bulletin – Continued Very Slow Forward Movement Across Most Categories
The U.S. State Department has just released the March 2018 Visa Bulletin which is the sixth Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the continued very slow forward movement in EB-2/3 India. EB-3 China advances but appears to slow down compared to recent months. […]
H-1B Cap 2018 Work Visa Season Is Underway – Opens for New Filings on Monday, April 2, 2018
On April 2, 2018 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will start accepting applications for one of the most popular U.S. work visas, H-1B, for fiscal year (FY) 2019. Our intelligence and past experience suggest that the H-1B cap 2018 season will be very short — five business days. Our office is already preparing a number of H-1B [...]
February 2018 Visa Bulletin – EB-2 India Slow Movement; EB-3 China Advances Significantly; Cutoff Date Predictions
The U.S. State Department has just released the February 2018 Visa Bulletin which is the fifth Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the continued anemic forward movement in EB-2/3 India. EB-3 China advances significantly by 5 months and continues to have a more favorable cutoff date than EB-2 China and this [...]
USCIS Starts Rulemaking Process to Take Away H-4 EAD Work Authorization
After months of speculation and discussion, USCIS has taken the initial steps in the rulemaking process in order to take away the H-4 EAD work authorization for certain H-4 spouses which had been available since 2015. It should be noted that this is an initial step in the rulemaking process and until and unless a new rule is [...]