It is only Tuesday and this week has already been full of immigration proposals. After yesterday's announcement for a blueprint for a comprehensive immigration reform, today a group of Senators has released an actual draft bill which picks up where yesterday's proposal left off with respect to employment-based immigration. Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah, Amy [...]
The Brookings Institute has completed and released an interesting report (PDF document, accompanied by interactive charts) on the H-1B program. The report aims to provide a deeper analysis of the H-1B program and to understand the issues and the competitive advantages (or lack thereof) of one of the H-1B work visa which is the most [...]
Among increased scrutiny and often long waiting period to obtain an H-1B (and sometimes even H-4 for their dependents) visa stamp, a number of US-based IT consulting employees are understandably nervous about traveling abroad and attending the H-1B visa stamp interview. Our office handles a substantial number of such H-1B petitions and H-1B visa stamp [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As November 14, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 56,300 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 7,100 over the previous two weeks). Similarly, as of November 14, there were 20,000 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of October 28, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 49,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 3,000 over the previous week). Similarly, as of October 28, there were 20,000 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
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 with H-1B work visa petitions where there is a change of the job location once the H-1B [...]
In a September 2011 audit report on the use of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) by H-1B temporary workers, the Office of Inspector General (OIC) claims that a substantial percentage of H-1B cases may involve some amount of irregularity or fraud. OIG based its review on a random sample of 200 H-1B cases from the 38,546 [...]
Our office receives a number of inquiries from current and prospective clients, employers and individuals, as to whether an H-1B worker who is beneficiary of a pending H-1B transfer petition can be readmitted into the U.S. based on the valid H-1B visa stamp and the pending H-1B transfer petition. Reported Incidents of Refused H-1B Admissions [...]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published a January 2011 report on the H-1B program. The GAO has produced a a comprehensive, 118-page, report which is intended to provide guidance to Congress with respect to amending or tweaking parts of the H-1B program. The conclusion of the report is that certain reforms are needed for [...]
We have previously written extensively about the January 2010 Neufeld Memorandum and the lawsuit filed earlier this year challenging its validity. This lawsuit has been of great interest to most of our clients as the Neufeld memorandum created some new requirements applicable not only to IT consulting companies but to most, if not all, H-1B [...]