The U.S. State Department has just released the January 2014 Visa Bulletin which is the fourth Visa Bulletin for the FY2014 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the expected lack of movement in EB India, the significant (six months) forward movement in EB-3 ROW, China and Mexico and the [...]
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) pursuit of employers who violate federal immigration compliance laws is expected to be moving full speed ahead in 2014, and in some instances accelerating in comparison to prior years. As a result of both substantially increased funding for enforcement actions and an outcome of the public debate about illegal [...]
Are you looking to replace your error-prone I-9 paper process with an electronic system in 2014? Companies that are considering transitioning to electronic I-9s should be aware that there are significant issues related to legal liability, security, functionality, and cost. There are benefits and disadvantages to both approaches. Some advantages of using electronic I-9 [...]
IMAGE (the ICE Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers) is a voluntary partnership initiative between the federal government and private sector employers. The initiative is designed to foster cooperative relationships and to strengthen overall hiring practices. ICE developed the program as a new concept for employer self-compliance within the worksite enforcement program, through which employers can [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the December 2013 Visa Bulletin which is the third Visa Bulletin for the FY2014 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the major (over 3.5 years) retrogression in EB-2 India, the significant (1 year) forward movement for EB-3 ROW and the fact that [...]
A recent article for Yahoo Finance entitled, Can a Bad Debt Get You Deported? discusses the implications of bad credit or unpaid bills to the immigration process. Founder and principal attorney Dimo Michailov was consulted for article and quoted throughout the article. “Normally, the United States does not look at credit” when considering visa applications, [...]
USCIS has circulated a proposed draft of a redesigned and revised Form I-129 and has opened a public comment period on the proposed changes. The new form features a new design layout where most of the questions are the same but laid out slightly differently. There are some changes to the wording of some questions, [...]
Anyone who has ever filed a petition of some sort with USCIS has wondered, "How long would I have to wait to get a response from USCIS on my application?" Chances are that such an applicant has used the online status check and has also checked the “normal” processing times for the type of a [...]
The large Indian technology company Infosys has agreed to pay $34 million in a civil settlement after federal prosecutors in Texas alleged it had committed "systemic visa fraud and abuse" when bringing temporary workers to the U.S. on H-1B and B-1 visas. This kind of settlement is the largest ever in a visa case and [...]
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 [...]