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 [...]
In a much-anticipated decision dated January 23, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with the Department of Homeland Security's request for extension to extend the vacatur of the current STEM OPT rule which was struck down on August 12, 2015. The current STEM OPT rule continues to remain valid until [...]
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 [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the February 2016 Visa Bulletin which is the fifth Visa Bulletin for the FY2016 fiscal year. The major headline [...]
In a sudden and surprising move, a number of immigration-related provisions were inserted into the must-pass government funding bill, titled “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016” The bill passed both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by President Obama on [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the January 2016 2015 Visa Bulletin which is the fourth Visa Bulletin for the FY2016 fiscal year. The major [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the December 2015 Visa Bulletin which is the third Visa Bulletin for the new FY2016 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin [...]
Many employers and F-1 STEM students have been anxiously expecting a draft of the proposed STEM OPT extension rule which had to be rushed as a result of the August 2015 District Court decision invalidating the existing 2008 STEM [...]
The last few weeks have brought a lot of attention to the way the Visa Bulletin cutoff dates are allocated and how USCIS uses the dates to accept I-485 filings. Starting with the initial version of the October 2015 Visa Bulletin in early September, and throughout the subsequent October 2015 Visa Bulletin revision and litigation, [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the November 2015 Visa Bulletin which is the second Visa Bulletin for the new FY2016 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the lack of any movement whatsoever in the Filing cutoff dates section of the Visa Bulletin, possibly caused by the October [...]
