The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has announced the creation of a separate office which would be tasked with overseeing the EB-5 immigrant investor program. Yesterday, July 18, 2012, USCIS Director Mayorkas announced that his agency has and will continue to increase the number of staff dedicated to the EB-5 immigrant investor program. This [...]
Our office has actively monitored the Visa Bulletin developments for the past several months, not only by analyzing each Visa Bulletin but also by seeking input from other sources such as demand data, economy and unemployment and, most importantly, by consulting with Mr. Charles Oppenheim (Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is set to begin accepting H-1B visa applications pursuant to its Fiscal Year 2013 (FY2013) quota. The first day on which USCIS will accept new, cap-subject H-1B petitions, is Monday, April 2, 2012. About the H-1B Program and the Annual Cap The H-1B visa category was created in [...]
The Department of State has enabled the Status Check website which allows participants in the "green card lottery" to check whether their entry has been selected. At the same time, we wish to note that the Department of State does not notify winners by email so any email notifying of a winning green card lottery [...]
As many of our readers and clients are aware, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) provides some tools for applicants to obtain case processing information. The online case status check is one of them. In addition, USCIS posts each month a schedule of the standard processing times for most of the types of cases [...]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") has proposed a change to the relevant regulations requiring all employers who wish to file for an initial H-1B cap petition to preregister with USCIS. The proposal is for an electronic registration program for petitions subject to numerical limitations for the H-1B nonimmigrant classification. In the future, other classifications [...]
On November 23, 2010, the pre-announced increase in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") filing fees went into effect. All applications and petitions filed must now include the new and correct filing fee, or the filings will be rejected. We have written in the past about the need of this fee increase and our [...]
Our office continues to handle an increasing number of naturalization and citizenship applications so it is interesting to share with our clients and readers some recent numbers on the citizenship statistics for Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009). During FY2009, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) received 743,715 applications for naturalization (in comparison to the 1,046,539 during [...]
On Tuesday, July 20th, AILA filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) seeking the release of records concerning agency policies and procedures for the H-1B visa program. AILA had attempted to obtain these documents under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which had been denied [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is set to begin accepting H-1B visa applications pursuant to its Fiscal Year 2011 (FY2011) quota. The first day on which USCIS will accept new, cap-subject H-1B petitions, is April 1, 2010. About the H-1B Program and the Annual Cap The H-1B visa category was created in 1990 [...]