Now that the H-1B quota has been reached (as of December 21, 2009), we are receiving an increasing number of inquiries by both cap-subject employers and prospective employees about the alternatives for work authorization between now and October 1, 2010, when the new fiscal year's H-1B quota would begin (as a reminder, April 1, 2010 [...]
Our firm handles a fair amount of appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries not only about about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal but also about the current processing times for AAO cases. About the AAO The AAO is an appeals office which handles appeals of certain decisions [...]
In a November 2009 AILA meeting, Mr. Charlie Oppenheim, who is Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division at the Department of State (or also known as the person who determines the visa bulletin dates), has indicated some ways in which the visa bulletin numbers will move over the next few months. Mr. Oppenheim’s [...]
The December 2009 Visa Bulletin was released today by the State Department. The third visa bulletin for the fiscal year 2010 does not bring much movement. In fact, the only movement in the EB categories is a one week only forward movement in EB-3 India. All other categories, including EB-3 Rest of World (ROW) remain [...]
Most of our clients and readers remember the summer of 2007 when USCIS raised the filing fees for certain services by a substantial amount (in all fairness, USCIS decreased the fees for certain services) (see the archived May 29, 2007 USCIS press release). One of the motivating forces behind this fee increase was the collection [...]
The October 2009 Visa Bulletin which is the first visa bulletin for the new FY2010 fiscal year was released earlier today by the State Department. This October 2009 Visa Bulletin has been widely expected not only to see the EB-3 category go back to some availability of visas but also to use the movement in [...]
The H-2B filing period for fiscal year 2009 (FY2009) has been reopened by USCIS due to insufficient applications filed under the cap. Accordingly, USCIS accepts immediately new H-2B petitions under the FY2009 cap for starting work date before October 1, 2009. FY2009 H-2B Numbers Are Under the Quota On January 7, 2009, USCIS announced that it has [...]
The September 2009 Visa Bulletin was released by the State Department. The only change, in comparison to the August 2009 Visa Bulletin, is the forward movement in the EB-2 China and India categories which changed from January 1, 2003 to January 8, 2005. All other categories remain unchanged. Here is a summary of the September [...]
The August 2009 Visa Bulletin was just released by the State Department. The only change, in comparison to the July 2009 Visa Bulletin, is the forward movement in the EB-2 China and India categories which changed from January 1, 2000 to October 1, 2003 . All other categories remain unchanged. Here is a summary of [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of Friday, June 26, USCIS has received approximately 44,800 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. USCIS will continue to accept petitions subject to the general cap. Additionally, USCIS has received approximately 20,000 petitions for aliens with advanced degrees; however, [...]