USCIS Clarifies H-1B Master’s Cap Degree Must be Obtained While University is Accredited
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has issued a memorandum adopting the AAO decision in Matter of A-T-, Inc. and establishing policy guidance which will apply to and bind all USCIS adjudicators. USCIS clarifies that in order to be able to qualify for an H-1B cap exemption based on a U.S. master’s or higher degree, the institution which [...]
Check-in with DOS’s Charlie Oppenheim: Visa Bulletin Predictions as of May 19, 2017
Employment-Based Preference Categories. Increased demand across the employment based preferences, including EB-4 and EB-5, has significantly decreased the “otherwise unused numbers” which have traditionally trickled up to EB-1 and potentially down to EB-2. For example, in FY 2016, Special Immigrant Juvenile cases used more than 50% of the entire EB-4 annual limit, thus preventing many of those 5,200 numbers to [...]
USCIS Issues a Multitude of RFEs on Pending I-485 Applications – Mid-2017 Edition
Many of our clients and readers are already aware of the move by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) to issue what are hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, of very similar, if not identical, requests for evidence (“RFE”) on pending employment-based Form I-485, Application to Adjust Status, cases. Our office has been receiving such RFEs and we have been [...]
June 2017 Visa Bulletin – EB-1 China and EB-1 India Cutoff Date Introduced
The U.S. State Department has just released the June 2017 Visa Bulletin which is the ninth Visa Bulletin for the FY2017 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is introduction of a cutoff date for EB-1 India and EB-1 China. Because this cutoff date may remain in effect for the next several months, we call on all EB-1 [...]
USCIS Starts Issuing Redesigned Green Cards and EADs
Starting May 1, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) will start producing and issuing redesigned Permanent Resident Cards (also known as Green Cards) and the Employment Authorization Document (EADs). […]
USCIS Completes Data Entry and Receipting of H-1B Cap Petitions for FY2018
Many of our readers are aware that as of April 7, 2017, USCIS had received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota. As USCIS has been issuing receipt notices for the H-1B cap cases which are being selected for processing, we wanted to provide an update as to how long will H-1B petitioners and [...]