On September 29, 2020, a district court blocked the effective date of the August 2020 Final Rule, which sought to increase the fees (significantly in many cases) for many immigration services in addition to requiring revised forms. See ruling. As a result, the current fee schedule and the current version of the relevant forms continue [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2020 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2021 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the major forward movement [...]
For many years, it has been a true fact of life that an Indian-born applicant can obtain a green card faster under the higher EB-2 preference category (requiring master’s degree or [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the September 2020 Visa Bulletin which is the last Visa Bulletin for the FY2020 fiscal year. The headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of much movement [...]
USCIS has just made an announcement to its staff and external stakeholders that the administrative staff furlough which was scheduled to begin on August 30, 2020 has been cancelled and the current USCIS staffing levels would remain unchanged. Cost Cutting Measures Means Fewer Contractors and Processing Delays According to USCIS's Deputy Director of Policy, the [...]
On Friday, August 14, 2020, USCIS completed the second round of the H-1B cap selection lottery and notified the selected applicants. The August 2020 selection round was due to the fact that a (significant) number of [...]
In an August 12, 2020 news alert, the Department of State (DOS) has issued extensive set of clarifications and exemptions to the June 22, 2020 Trump H-1B, H-2B, L-1 and certain J-1 work visa ban (see our article). The DOS clarification provides much needed and welcome guidance of how to make the arguments for national [...]
The Department of Homeland Security has just released the final rule that significantly changes the USCIS fee schedule, including adding new fees, establishing multiple fees for nonimmigrant worker petitions and increasing the premium processing time limit. The rule and the new fees [...]
Update August 26, 2020: USCIS has called off the scheduled furlough. See update. Update July 24, 2020: USCIS has announced that they have agreed to delay the start of the staff furlough until August 31st (from August 3) due to funding estimates showing surplus for the fiscal year and not the previously-projected $571 million deficit. [...]
Many of our clients and readers have recently experienced delays in production of Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) cards (also "green cards") or Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) and many have attributed these delays to the COVID-19 closures. There is another reason having to do with vendor and staffing issues at USCIS. Green Card/EAD Production Vendor Contract [...]
