The Department of State will open the DV-2014 Diversity Visa (a.k.a. “green card”) lottery on Tuesday, October 2, 2012. The entries for this year’s lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 2, 2012, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Saturday, November 3, 2012. Applicants may access [...]
Our office has established a reputation as one of the leading practices for handling appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries not only about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal but also about the current processing times for AAO cases. The AAO processing times are published monthly, at the [...]
The United States Embassy in India announced modifications to the U.S. visa application procedures effective September 26, 2012. The U.S. Embassy is introducing a new process to be followed by all U.S. visa applicants; these include H-1B and L-1 visa applicants as well as individuals applying for other type of visa for entry to the [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2012 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2013 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the availability of a number of categories, including EB-2 India and China, in addition to the significant retrogression in the EB-2 India category [...]
Our office has been handling an extraordinary amount of inquiries by clients and readers with respect to the upcoming October 2012 Visa Bulletin. We wanted to share some information with our clients and readers as we wait the release of this highly-anticipated Visa Bulletin. Why is the October 2012 Visa Bulletin So Highly Anticipated The [...]
We are very pleased to announce that Ms. Aleksandra Michailov, Esq. has joined the Capitol Immigration Law Group team as Immigration Attorney. Aleksandra brings with her a wealth of immigration knowledge and more than eight years of immigration experience that will greatly benefit all of our clients and friends. The focus of Aleksandra’s practice is [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the September 2012 Visa Bulletin which is the last Visa Bulletin for the FY2012 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the continued unavailability in the EB-2 India and China categories (which is expected to become available in next month's visa bulletin), the unchanged [...]
Many of our clients and readers who have had to call USCIS, including us in our office, know that sometimes it is difficult to speak to a customer service representative, especially during certain peak hours during the day. Partly as a result of customer feedback, USCIS has announced that its National Customer Service Center (NCSC) [...]
The U.S. House of Representatives passed yesterday (August 1, 2012) by a voice vote a proposed bill which seeks to restrict the ability of certain schools, colleges and universities to sponsor students' F-1 visas. H.R. 3012 (bill tracker, text of bill) was introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and seeks to amend the F-1 student [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed substantial revisions to Form 9035 (and its instructions), Labor Condition Application, which is used to support a number of employment-based visas, including H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3. The proposed changes to the form are significant in many respects -- the government now requires all LCA beneficiaries (up to 10 [...]