Many of our readers know that the H-1B visa is a critical and very common work visa used routinely by U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign nationals. The H-1B visa has an annual cap for first-time visas set at 85,000 per year and it [...]
The Department of State ("DOS") has announced and launched an online system which allows applicants who have cases pending with DOS to check the status on their applications. The system works for both Immigrant Visa (IV) and Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV) applications filed/pending at either the National Visa Center (NVC) or at a U.S. Consular Section [...]
It is very likely that anyone who has had a case filed and pending with USCIS has used the online status check and has also checked the "normal" processing times for the type of a case they have had filed. Many of our clients and readers are well aware of these two resources and we [...]
Many of our clients and readers may be aware that USCIS has an online status check system which allows applicants (and their attorneys and employers) to track the progress of a case and obtain case updates. In addition to allowing a single status case lookup, the system has an extremely helpful function which allows users [...]
The H-1B season is well underway and we have received the second “official” update on the FY2013 cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 2 for both the Vermont and California Service Centers. As of April 13, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 20,600 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. This suggests a rate of filings of [...]
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 [...]
Almost four months after USCIS launched its redesigned website, the USCIS Ombudsman office is setting up a conference call to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of USCIS' website, in general, and of the redesign, in particular. Our office will sit on this conference call to share our thoughts and comments with the [...]
In a report released this month, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) provides some estimates and analysis of the numbers and demographic composition of the legal permanent residents (“LPRS”) in the U.S. as of January 1, 2008 (yes, the data is 22 months old but the analysis is recent and should not have changed much [...]
USCIS has released a schedule of the inventory of pending Form I-485, Application to Adjust Status. The statistics are fairly recent - as of August 25, 2009 - and are very helpful to understanding the relative queue positions for adjustment of status applicants. How Can I Determine My Place in the AOS Queue? An AOS application’s preference [...]
The increasing unemployment rate inevitably affects foreign nationals living and working in the U.S. on a work visa. We have been happy to help many clients over the past months who have either been laid off or have decided to seek a better opportunity to attend school by changing their status to F, J or [...]
