The Vermont Service Center (VSC) has issued a practice pointer on the circumstances under which VSC will transfer a priority date to a subsequent petition. Retaining an earlier priority date is possible when: If the same petitioner (employer) and beneficiary (employee) are parties to both the original and the subsequent petitions (under 8 C.F.R. 204.2(h)(2)) and: the subsequent [...]
The February 2009 Visa Bulletin is out. It brings some good forward movement for some employment-based categories. Unfortunately, EB-3 ROW and EB-3 India remain unchanged. EB-2 ROW remains current. EB-2 India and EB-2 China both move forward by approximately 6 months. EB-2 India is now at January 1, 2004 while EB-2 China is at January 1, [...]
USCIS has released the average processing times for cases pending at the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) as of January 8, 2009. Among the most notable AAO processing times: H-1B appeal takes 14 months; I-140 EB1 (Extrordinary Ability) takes 18 months while EB1(B) and (C) are current; I-140 EB2 (Advanced Degree) takes 20 months while EB2 (all others) are current; [...]
Today, January 12, 2009, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization becomes mandatory for all Visa Waiver Program (VWP) travelers. We wrote earlier about the mandatory cutoff of January 12, 2009. Effective today, VWP travelers coming into the U.S. may be turned away if they have not registered at least 72 hours before their travel to the [...]
The E-Verify program now has 100,000 employer participants, USCIS announced yesterday. In a press release celebrating the milestone, USCIS also updated some interesting statistics about E-Verify. Employers have run more than 2 million queries through E-Verify since October 2008, and employers have been able to automatically verify more than 18 million workers’ eligibility since 1997. As [...]
USCIS announced yesterday, January 8, 2009, that it has received sufficient number of applications under the congressionally mandated H-2B cap for the second half of Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009). USCIS is notifying the public that Jan. 7, 2009 was the “final receipt date” for new H-2B worker petitions requesting employment start dates prior to October [...]
The Government Accountability Office (”GAO”) has published a report, “Actions Needed to Address Vulnerabilities in Process for Granting Permanent Residency” which reviews the process of security review of applications for legal permanent residency. GAO’s recommends that USCIS establish a timetable for addressing the deficiencies noted in the report and establish procedures that would require some [...]
We wrote in December about the Custom and Border Protection (”CBP”) decision to include legal permanent residents (”LPR”) into the US-VISIT program. Effective January 18, 2008, CBP will subject all entering or exiting LPRS to biometrics processing at all air and seaports. LPRS entering through land ports of entry will not be automatically subjected to biometrics, [...]
With the current state of the economy, each day’s news of layoffs of thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees start to seem casual and routine. But many of these laid-off people are foreign workers on a visa or in some stage of their permanent legal resident process. And in addition to having to worry [...]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will designate Malta as a Visa Waiver Program (VWP) country on Dec. 30, 2008*. Maltese nationals will be able to travel visa-free to the United States effective Dec. 30th. The VWP will enable citizens of Malta to travel to the United States, beginning on Dec. 30, 2009, for 90 [...]