The Department of Homeland Security has just released a proposed rule seeking to amend (increase) most of the Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) application filing fees. The weighted average of the increase is 21 percent and USCIS is adding one new fee. The [...]
Many of our readers are aware that as of April 7, 2016, USCIS had received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota. As USCIS has been issuing receipt notices for the H-1B cap cases which are being selected for processing, we wanted to provide an update as to how [...]
Our office just learned that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has completed the intake and processing of all of the fiscal year (FY2017) H-1B cap petitions. According to USCIS, there were over 236,000 H-1B cap petitions filed during the April 1st-7th filing period. This indicates that the number of H-1B cap filings this [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the May 2016 Visa Bulletin which is the eighth Visa Bulletin for the FY2016 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa [...]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that, as of today, April 7th, they have received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the annual H-1B cap for the 2017 fiscal year (FY2017). According to USCIS, they have received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed for beneficiaries with U.S. master’s degree and more [...]
As we are going into the peak of the H-1B cap season, our office receives many inquiries about the duration of the H-1B filing season [...]
With the approaching H-1B cap filing season, one of the most common concerns we are hearing from both prospective H-1B employers and candidates is about the H-1B cap lottery and the fact that the random lottery does not provide a great chance of an H-1B application being selected for review. Our office has handled thousands [...]
On April 1, 2016 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will start accepting applications for one of the most popular U.S. work visas, H-1B, for fiscal year (FY) 2017. Our intelligence and past [...]
On November 17, 2016, USCIS released the final version of this rule. On December 31, 2015 USCIS released a draft of the proposed and long-awaited rule seeking to improve certain aspects of the employment-based [...]
In response to the changed H-1B petition amendment requirements following the Simeio decision, the U.S. State Department has circulated a cable to U.S. Consulates worldwide with specific guidance to consular officers on how to address H-1B visa stamping petitions where there is change of employment. While the cable does not create new policies, it specifically [...]
