Business or pleasure travelers to the United States from a number of visa waiver program (VWP) are already familiar with the requirements of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and specifically that the ESTA questionnaire must be completed, paid for and approved before visa waiver program travel to the U.S. On November 3, 2014, [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the November 2014 Visa Bulletin which is the second Visa Bulletin for the FY2015 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the major retrogression in EB-2 India (February 2005) and the significant forward movement in EB-3 (except India). Summary of the November 2014 [...]
Our office handles a substantial number of H-1B work visa petitions for a variety of U.S. employers and we often share our direct experiences with the H-1B work visa program. This article is intended to share our experience and the current trends with respect to H-1B work visa petitions where there is a change in [...]
Our office just came back from a discussion session here in Washington, DC with Charles Oppenheim. Mr. Oppenheim is the Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State. For many, he is simply known as the person responsible for the monthly and annual visa number allocations for family- and [...]
While few, if any, of our clients and readers will be planning major celebrations, October 1st is an important date as it marks the beginning of the new government fiscal year. This has some immigration implications for many folks -- for example, H-1B cap petitions are becoming effective and the quotas for green [...]
The Department of State will open the DV-2015 Diversity Visa (a.k.a. “green card”) lottery on Tuesday, October 1, 2014. The entries for this year’s lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, October 1, 2014, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Monday, November 3, 2014. Applicants may access [...]
Many U.S. lawful permanent residents ("green card holders") who have to or choose to reside abroad are (or should be) aware that there are rules and restrictions on the time they can be outside of the U.S. and maintain their green card status. Specifically, a stay outside of the U.S. of more than one [...]
Mr. Charles Oppenheim, the Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State, just announced in a meeting in which our office participated that due to extraordinarily high volume of EB-2 India cases, the Department of State will make the EB-2 India category unavailable until the end of the fiscal [...]
Our office serves many first-time and returning reentry permit applicants and one of the most frequently asked questions or concerns related to the ability to extend a reentry permit after its initial term (of often two years) and about the validity of subsequent renewal reentry permit documents. The good news is that there is no [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2014 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2015 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of movement in EB-2 and the expectation of an imminent retrogression in this category. EB-3 advances nicely for everyone except [...]