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 allowing a waiver of the interview requirement. With the current long interview scheduling [...]
One of the most exiting moments for a green card applicant is receiving the "New Card Produced" status update or the actual I-485 approval notice or green card in the mail. Congratulations! This article contains additional steps and considerations for new green card holders, with focus on employment-based immigrants. Travel or Employment While Waiting [...]
USCIS announced that as of August 23, 2022 they have reached the H-1B cap limit for fiscal year 2023 (FY 2023). This means that they will not be conducting additional lottery rounds of selection like they have been doing in past years; this also means that all H-1B cap registrants who were not selected under [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the June 2022 Visa Bulletin which is the ninth Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of movement across [...]
One of the key aspects of an I-140 immigrant petition is proving the employer’s ability to pay the offered wage not only as of the priority date (for most cases this is the date of filing of the PERM Labor Certification) but also until the beneficiary obtains permanent residence – a period that can span [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the April 2022 Visa Bulletin which is the seventh Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of movement across most categories [...]
Update: March 2024. Starting FY2025 H-1B cap season, USCIS will switch to beneficiary-centric selection process which will count each beneficiary only once for registration selection purposes. See more details about the new rule. Update: March 2022. Starting FY2023 H-1B cap season, USCIS requires H-1B registrant employers to make an additional attestation which reads, I further [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the March 2022 Visa Bulletin which is the sixth Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of movement across most [...]
On January 21, 2022, USCIS announced a revised procedure regarding the process of transferring the underlying basis of a Form I-485 to a different employment-based I-140 preference category (a process often called “interfiling”). If an I-485 applicant has [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the February 2022 Visa Bulletin which is the fifth Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of movement across [...]
