The Department of Labor (”DOL”) has provided some updates on their operations and processing during the annual AILA conference. DOL Priorities DOL is working on (1) increasing the amount of supervised recruitment from the Atlanta National Processing Center by October 1, 2009; (2) centralizing the processing of all prevailing wage determinations; and (3) centralizing all help desk [...]
In a Memorandum dated June 17, 2009, Donald Neufeld, the Acting Associate Director for Domestic Operations, has provided some guidance on the employment-based fifth preference (EB-5) green card category reserved for entrepreneurs willing to invest a substantial capital into the U.S. and create at least 10 full-time jobs. About EB-5 Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality [...]
Our firm has developed an unique expertise in processing expedited reentry permit and travel document applications. Such applications are processed by the Nebraska Service Center (”NSC”) and in our experience, if the expedited processing request is granted, the biometric appointment may be scheduled in as little as 10-14 days. However, even with these expedited processing [...]
We wrote last week about the “grim” predictions by Charles Oppenheim (who is with the Department of State) about the future of the visa numbers for green card employment-based preference categories. We have received many comments and reactions from readers and clients and we share many of the concerns raised following Mr. Oppenheim’s comments. We read [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of Friday, June 12, USCIS has received approximately 44,400 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. USCIS will continue to accept petitions subject to the general cap. Additionally, USCIS has received approximately 20,000 petitions for aliens with advanced degrees; however, [...]
During the annual AILA conference, Mr. Charles Oppenheim of the Department of State Visa Office (he is the person who is largely involved in the movement of visa numbers) provided some thoughts and predictions on the movement of visa numbers for the remainder of the fiscal year 2009 (FY2009 the end of which is September [...]
The July 2009 Visa Bulletin was released today. Unfortunately, as expected, the only change is the EB-2 China category which changed from February 15, 2005 to January 1, 2000. All other categories remain unchanged. Here is a summary of the July 2009 Visa Bulletin: EB-1 remains current across the board. EB-2 remains unchanged for all categories except [...]
We have been informed by USCIS that some legal permanent residency (”green card”) applicants may experience an eight-week delay in receiving their green card. The stated reason is that USCIS is upgrading its card production equipment. For applicants who need to obtain evidence of their permanent residency, the local USCIS offices can issue temporary Form I-551 [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has proposed a change to the way it monitors how employers use E-Verify, the government’s employment verification system. The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on May 22, 2009, exempts portions of the Department of Homeland Security’s Compliance Tracking and Management System from the Privacy Act of 1974 [...]
Last week we provide a number of updates from the Nebraska Service Center. This week we provided some updates from the Texas Service Center (”TSC”). The TSC updates come from the senior management and are as of May 19, 2009. Processing Numbers. TSC has shown improvement in the processing numbers. Previously, TSC was processing between 3,000-4,000 [...]