Update (May 3, 2019): The Policy Memorandum has been blocked by a preliminary injunction. In a Policy Memorandum dated May 10, 2018 and effective as of August 9, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is changing the way it treats non-immigrants who are in the U.S. on F, J and M status and, specifically, [...]
Many of our readers are aware that as of April 6, 2018, USCIS had received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota (total of 190,000 cap applications). As USCIS has been issuing receipt notices for the H-1B cap cases which are being selected for processing, we wanted to provide [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the June 2018 Visa Bulletin which is the ninth Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of [...]
It is not a secret that the last several month have brought a great increase in the rate of RFEs and denials on H-1B petitions – mainly focusing on the specialty occupation and right to control issues. As a result, there has been a corresponding increase in the rate of denials and in a number [...]
Many USCIS immigration benefits require the collection of biometrics information from the applicant at an USCIS Application Support Center (ASC). The collection of biometrics is a routine part of the application process and in most cases involves taking digital fingerprints, photo and signature. Which Types of Applications Require Biometrics? At this time biometrics are generally [...]
Our office just learned that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has completed the intake and processing of all of the fiscal year (FY2019) H-1B cap petitions. According to USCIS, there were over 190,098 H-1B cap petitions filed [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the May 2018 Visa Bulletin which is the eighth Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that, as of Friday, April 6th, they have received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the annual H-1B cap for the 2019 fiscal year (FY2019). According to USCIS, they have received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed for beneficiaries with U.S. master’s degree and more [...]
USCIS has announced that effective April 2, 2018, they are temporarily suspending premium processing for H-1B cap petitions (only) until September 10, 2018. Please note that this suspension applies only to H-1B cap petitions filed under the annual H-1B cap season. All other H-1B petitions - such as extensions, transfers, amendments - continue [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the April 2018 Visa Bulletin which is the seventh Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is major [...]
