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Many of our clients and readers are by now aware of the delays associated with the Department of Labor (DOL) processing requests for prevailing wage determinations. Unfortunately, DOL has confirmed that they have temporarily suspended the processing of all regular prevailing wage determination requests until DOL meets its obligations under a court order to re-process [...]
The USCIS Ombudsman office has released a report and a recommendation to USCIS regarding changing policies with respect to I-765 Application for Employment Authorization Document (EAD) cases. The Problem Many employers and individuals who rely on EAD cards for employment find it frustrating that there are no reliable processing times for the EAD cards. For [...]
USCIS has just announced that they are launching a new website which is intended to provide new data reports covering agency performance in a number of areas. The website can be accessed at http://www.uscis.gov/data/. Data Reports Available Currently, there are ten data sets available on the website. Four of the data sets will be updated [...]
What is BALCA? The Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) is an administrative body which reviews mainly denials of PERM labor certification cases but it also handles a number of Department of Labor review cases. With respect to PERM denials, BALCA is the appellate body which reviews appeals for PERM denials. BALCA currently has [...]
It is not a secret that USCIS' processing times of I-765 work permit documents ("EAD") and I-131 advance parole travel documents ("AP") have increased over the past few months. Our office has experienced some of these delays and our office is increasingly approached by EAD/AP applicants who have either expiring EADs or need to travel [...]
Starting December 2009, USCIS started implementing changes on the way I-131 reentry permit applications are receipted and processed. Previously, I-131 reentry permit applications were filed directly at the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) which issued receipts and, where appropriate, issued expedited processing biometrics notices. The NSC processing of expedited processing reentry permit biometrics allowed us to [...]
The Department of Labor (”DOL”) has released some numbers about their pace of PERM processing. There are about 58,000 applications currently pending of which 54% are under final review, 38% are in audits, 6% are on appeal and the remaining 2% are subject to employment verification checks or othe. DOL also reported that cases which are under [...]
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 [...]
The USCIS has provided an updated chart of its processing time goals and the current progress towards meeting these goals. The report also provides a very useful update on the current average processing times for certain petitions and the number of petitions in backlog status. The goals are intended to be met by the end of [...]
We have mentioned previously in some of our articles the planned replacement of the current PERM and LCA filing systems. Although the replacement of these two systems does not necessarily affect employees and employers as much as it affects immigration attorneys (as immigration attorneys prepare these filings most often), it is helpful to monitor the [...]