The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secreatary Napolitano announced that DHS will designate Greece as a Visa Waiver Program (VWP) yesterday, March 9, 2010. As a result, Greek nationals will be able to travel visa-free to the United States effective April 10, 2010. The VWP will enable citizens of Greece to travel to the [...]
During a recent AILA conference, the Vermont Service Center (VSC) Director Dan Renaud told the audience that the performance review structure for adjudicating officers has recently changed. Pursuant to the new performance review structure, officers get credit for issuance of Requests for Evidence (RFES), in addition to issuing approvals and denials, under the previous performance [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is set to begin accepting H-1B visa applications pursuant to its Fiscal Year 2011 (FY2011) quota. The first day on which USCIS will accept new, cap-subject H-1B petitions, is April 1, 2010. About the H-1B Program and the Annual Cap The H-1B visa category was created in 1990 [...]
The NPR ran a story yesterday, March 5th, on the EB-5 investor visa program. While the story is intended for a general audience and is fairly general in nature, it is interesting to read (or listen to the podcast) a mainstream media story about this growing in importance and profile program. One of the points [...]
Our office handles a fair amount of appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries not only about about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal but also about the current processing times for AAO cases. About the AAO The AAO is an appeals office which handles appeals of certain decisions [...]
As our office continues to handle an increasing number of citizenship application, we thought it would be interesting to share some naturalization statistics, grouped by decade, for the past four decades. According to numbers provided by USCIS, the period between 2001 and 2010 noted a slowdown in the number foreign nationals becoming U.S. citizens. The [...]
The Department of State (DOS) announced recently that it is changing the procedure for K-3 (spouse) visa applications filed at U.S. consulates abroad. The procedure is effective February 1, 2010, and applies in cases where the I-130 immigrant petition and the I-129F K-3 petitions are both approved and sent to the National Visa Center (NVC). [...]
Our office has handled many cases where a specific USCIS benefit or application must be approved on an expedited basis. Also, we have received numerous inquiries from applicants who seek to expedite the processing of a pending application due to long processing times. It is helpful to describe the criteria which USCIS (and our office, [...]
Among our clients and readers, we have many entrepreneurs and start-up companies which may be interested in a recent development in Congress. Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN) have introduced a new bill in Congress seeking to drive job creation and increasing America's global competitiveness by helping immigrant entrepreneurs secure visas to the United States. [...]
USCIS released, on January 28, 2010, a recent report conducted by an outside research firm, Westat, on the accuracy of E-Verify with respect to identifying illegal workers, among other classes of workers run through the E-Verify system. The E-Verify evaluation is part of an ongoing effort to evaluate E-Verify's accuracy. The Report's Findings The report [...]