The U.S. State Department has released the April 2025 Visa Bulletin which is the seventh Visa Bulletin for the fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the continuing minor (1-1.5 months) forward movement in Final Action dates for [...]
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) rules require every nonimmigrant visa applicant between ages of 14 and 79 to apply in person and be interviewed by a consular officer (see 9 FAM 403.5-2 , the “FAM”). But there are certain specific exceptions [...]
Spring and early summer are generally busy period for recent foreign college graduates as far as employment immigration is concerned. On one hand, foreign college graduates are either applying for their [...]
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14156, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," aiming to redefine the application of birthright citizenship in the United States. Jan 23, 2025 Update: A judge has temporarily blocked the executive order, pending further litigation. Key Provisions of the Executive Order The executive [...]
The Edakunni settlement pursuant to which USCIS agreed to bundle and approve at the same time concurrently-filed I-539/I-765 applications for H-4/L-2 and H-4 EAD with an underlying I-129 H-1B or L-1 petition is set to expire on January 18, 2025. We anticipate that USCIS will stop the bundling of concurrently-filed H-4/L-2/EAD applications with H-1B/L-1 [...]
The U.S. State Department has released the February 2025 Visa Bulletin which is the fifth Visa Bulletin for the fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack movement in any of the preference categories with the exception of EB [...]
USCIS has just released the December 18, 2024 final rule “Modernizing H-1B Requirements, Providing Flexibility in the F-1 Program, and Program Improvements Affecting Other Nonimmigrant Workers” which seeks to “modernize” the H-1B program [...]
The U.S. State Department has released the January 2025 Visa Bulletin which is the fourth Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the month’s Visa Bulletin is the minor forward movement in employment final action dates. We expect a trickle of pending I-485 [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) have recently changed their policy and starting December 2, 2024 they will require Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record to be submitted at the same time with [...]
The new H-1B work visa “cap” season is set to begin by using the same lottery process introduced and used over the past five years. The lottery registration window will open on Friday, March [...]
