In a November 11, 2017 Policy Memorandum, USCIS has formally adopted a recent AAO decision in Matter of V-S-G Inc. and has provided guidance on its impact on AC21 beneficiaries where the underlying I-140 immigrant petition is being revoked. The new policy memorandum states that beneficiaries who have properly ported their green card process to [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the December 2017 Visa Bulletin which is the third Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the extremely slow forward movement in [...]
Our recent U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") processing times reports indicate that employment-based I-485 adjustment of status ("AOS") applications are taking over a year to adjudicate. The new requirement for in-person interview for certain I-485 cases will likely add to the processing time of a case. At the same time, the required I-693 [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2017 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2018 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is fact [...]
USCIS has just announced that they are expanding the requirements for interviews to employment-based I-485 adjustment of status applicants. Effective October 1, 2017, USCIS will phase-in interviews for (1) employment-based I-485 adjustment of status applications and (2) refugee/asylee I-730 applications who are in the United States and petitioning to join a principal applicant. Under [...]
Our office has recently learned that USCIS is changing their long-standing practice and have started denying Form I-131 Advance Parole applications due to abandonment in cases where the applicant has left the United States while the I-131 Advance Parole application was pending. USCIS has confirmed that this is their actual current policy going [...]
Many of our readers follow closely our reports of the monthly Visa Bulletin which provides cutoff dates for those immigrant visa (green card) applicants who are current and have immigrant visa numbers available (i.e. their actual permanent resident “green” card is assigned an available number and can be issued). The past several Visa Bulletins [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the August 2017 Visa Bulletin which is the eleventh Visa Bulletin for the FY2017 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the introduction of a cutoff date for the [...]
Earlier this year USCIS introduced a new Form I-485 Supplement J which is being used in connection with filings of new I-485 applications to adjust status or for porting of existing and pending I-485 applications to a new employer or a new job. The purpose of I-485 Supplement J is to provide a confirmation [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the July 2017 Visa Bulletin which is the tenth Visa Bulletin for the FY2017 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the significant 33-month retrogression in EB-3 [...]
