The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") has announced that effective February 1, 2013, USCIS will begin collecting an additional USCIS Immigrant Fee of $165.00 from foreign nationals seeking admission as permanent residents to the U.S. The fee will apply to immigrant visa applicants who have received their visa approval from a U.S. Consulate abroad [...]
A significant policy change has narrowed dramatically the interview waiver eligibility. See the updated alert. Some of our clients and readers are aware that in March 2012, the U.S. Embassy in India introduced the Interview Waiver Program (IWP) which allows eligible individuals to apply for certain types of visa without being interviewed in [...]
Created in 2002, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is used to track and monitor foreign students (F-1 visa holders) and exchange visitors (J-1 visa holders), as well as their accompanying dependents (F-2 and J-2 visa holders). While SEVIS has streamlined many formerly cumbersome data reporting requirements and improved information accuracy, there are [...]
Over the past months we have written extensively about the issues raised by today’s Wall Street Journal article “Slump Sinks Visa Program” but it is still an interesting read. Most of our readers are aware of the current H-1B quota and the fact that a substantial number of H-1B visas still remain available (for comparison, [...]
In many areas around the U.S. driving is as essential as being able to read. In our practice we face constantly foreign nationals who have been denied (correctly or incorrectly) a driver’s license due to their inability to show a certain document. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (”ICE”) division has released a guide targeted to [...]