In recent years, despite the U.S.’s rich history as a haven for ambitious immigrants, many foreigners looking to work in the U.S. have had to cope with increasingly restrictive immigration policies. As a result, the number of immigrant-founded startups in Silicon Valley, to take an example, has declined from 52.4% in 2005 to 43.9% in [...]
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 person by a U.S. consular officer. Under this program, holders of B, J-2, H-4, L-2, C, D [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed substantial revisions to Form 9035 (and its instructions), Labor Condition Application, which is used to support a number of employment-based visas, including H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3. The proposed changes to the form are significant in many respects -- the government now requires all LCA beneficiaries (up to 10 [...]
The Department of Labor has provided some updates (as of July 2012) on their processing of employment-based cases and we are happy to share them with our clients and readers. This kind of information is generally available, but is rarely combined in one place while it is still fairly recent information. DOL Processing Statistics [...]
We have been monitoring developments around the H.R. 3012 legislation aimed at removing the per-country annual limits for the immigrant visa categories. We have written extensively in the past and many of our clients and readers are very interested in any developments with H.R. 3012 because of its wide (and significant) impact on employment-based immigrant [...]
The Brookings Institute has completed and released an interesting report (PDF document, accompanied by interactive charts) on the H-1B program. The report aims to provide a deeper analysis of the H-1B program and to understand the issues and the competitive advantages (or lack thereof) of one of the H-1B work visa which is the most [...]
Our office closely monitors developments here in Washington, DC on the proposal to lift the per-country limitations on immigrant visas (green cards). Throughout the past couple of weeks, there have been significant developments on this proposal and we wanted to update our clients and readers. H.R. 3012 Background H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants [...]
Many of our readers are aware that as of June 11, 2012, USCIS has received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota. All cap-subject new H-1B petitions received by USCIS on or after June 12th will be rejected. Throughout the entire H-1B cap season, our office was providing weekly [...]
The H-1B season may be just starting its third month today, but we see that the H-1B is about to be reached for this year in a 7-10 days. As of June 1, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 55,600 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap, an increase of 10,200 for the past reported week [...]
The H-1B season may be still only in its second month, but we are starting to see the end of the H-1B caps for this year. As of May 25, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 48,400 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap, an increase of 6,400 for the past reported week. This suggests an [...]