While few, if any, of our clients and readers spent too much time planning and celebrating, October 1st is an important date as it marks the beginning of the new government fiscal year. The beginning of [...]
October 1 is the first day of the government fiscal year and also the date when H-1B “cap” applicants in the U.S. have their status changed automatically to H-1B. This is a reminder that employees who may not have been [...]
Many of our readers know that the H-1B visa is a critical and very common work visa used routinely by U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign nationals. The H-1B visa has an annual cap for first-time visas set at 85,000 per year and it [...]
USCIS has updated the process for green card renewal applicants with a revised Form I-797, Notice of Action for Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card where applicants seek to renew an expiring green card. Starting September 2024, USCIS has extended the period during which a receipt notice will be valid for proof of lawful [...]
Applicants for U.S. immigration benefits have faced (or will face) at some point in the process the need to provide a birth certificate. Both U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) and the U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) require applicants to submit a birth [...]
Most non-U.S. citizens are required to report a change of their residential address within 10 days of moving within the U.S. or its territories. This requirement becomes even more important when there is an application pending with USCIS. The change of address notification is done by either USCIS online account or by submitting (on paper!) [...]
The U.S. State Department has released the October 2024 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the fact that despite [...]
This year’s busy H-1B cap season included many H-1B employee candidates who hold F-1 status and who are employed in the U.S. pursuant to F-1 optional practical training (OPT) status. Out of these F-1 visa holders, many [...]
USCIS has just completed the second round of the H-1B cap selection lottery and notified the selected applicants. The August 2024 selection round was due to the fact that a (significant) number of H-1B cap registrations [...]
Many of our readers, and especially those foreign students on F-1 status who are in a technical field, are aware of the regulations which allow holders of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) degrees to obtain an additional 24-month OPT work permit extension, in addition to the 12-month post-completion OPT work permit. Understanding the eligibility [...]
