The U.S. State Department has just released the November 2013 Visa Bulletin which is the second Visa Bulletin for the FY2014 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is that there is no movement for any EB India categories and the fact that FB-2A remains unchanged with a (relatively) recent cutoff [...]
We wrote extensively in the past for the planned and the announced USCIS fee increase which is set to take effect on November 23rd for all applications filed or postmarked on or beyond this date. For some filings, the fee increase is very minor (and for some there is even a fee decrease!). However, due [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of November 13, 2009, USCIS has received approximately 55,600 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 900 in a week). USCIS will continue to accept petitions subject to the general cap. U.S. Masters Degrees Quota Reached USCIS has received [...]
Two weeks ago we wrote about the USCIS Ombudsman recommendation to modify the LCA/H-1B filing process to avoid negative consequences associated with delayed LCAs. As a response, USCIS just announced a temporary change in policy pursuant to which it will temporarily accept H-1B petitions filed without Labor Conditions Applications (LCA) that have been certified by the [...]
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 made by [...]
The Department of Labor has provided an update on the current PERM processing dates as of July 31, 2009. They are as follows: Regular processing: November 2008. Unfortunately, there is no movement in comparison to the April 30, 2009 report which also reported November 2008, resulting a net additional delay of three (3) months for regular [...]
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 [...]