The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has proposed a change to the way it monitors how employers use E-Verify, the government’s employment verification system. The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on May 22, 2009, exempts portions of the Department of Homeland Security’s Compliance Tracking and Management System from the Privacy Act of 1974 [...]
Effective May 28, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (”DHS”) began collecting biometric digital fingerprints from non-U.S. citizens departing the U.S. We wrote last April about the possibility of exit fingerprinting and it seems that DHS is underway to test the system and to implement it throughout other points of departure from the U.S. within [...]
The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students on F-1 visa to work for 12 (or up to 29 months, for holders of STEM degrees). The 12 (or 29) month period allows many students to apply for an H-1B work visa. Many employers (and OPT holders alike) are unaware of what happens when the [...]
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics has released its annual U.S. Permanent Residents: 2008 report. The report provides a summary of the approvals of the various types of legal permanent resident (LPR) petitions. According to the report, in 2008, a total of 1,107,126 persons became LPRs. Of these, 58% already lived in [...]
A recent decision from the Administrative Review Board (ARB) held that when an H-1B employer fails to terminate H-1B employee and notify USCIS of such termination is liable for payment of back wages. ARB held: Under the INA’s “no benching” provisions, the employer is obligated to pay the required wage even if the H-1B nonimmigrant is [...]
We have written about this requirement in the past, but it is now a final rule. Starting January 15, 2009, federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to begin using the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ E-Verify system to verify their employees’ eligibility to legally work in the United States. Federal contracts awarded and solicitations issued [...]
The Department of Homeland Security has released a report with a number of statistical breakdowns of admissions into the U.S. of nonimmigrants for 2007. According to the DHS, there were 171 million nonimmigrant admissions into the U.S. in 2007. The numbers show entries in the U.S. broken down by visa type, port of entry, age [...]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a report about the green cards obtained by foreign nationals during 2007. The report provides breakdown by preference category and sub-category, by type of petition, by country of origin, and by U.S. state of residence. Please open the full article to read the report.
In a Memorandum of Understanding, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is one step closer to adding Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania as Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries. This comes after DHS signed similar agreements with Estonia and Latvia earlier in March 2008.