The U.S. State Department has just released the April 2015 Visa Bulletin which is the seventh Visa Bulletin for the FY2015 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the significant eight-month forward movement in EB-2 India and the seven-month forward movement in EB-2 China. EB-3 also moves forward nicely with [...]
As our office is gearing up for May 26, 2015 when the first H-4 Spouse EAD applications under the new rule can be filed, we are receiving many questions and concerns as to what kind of employment would be permitted by the H-4 Spouse EAD, once the actual work permit is approved. The quick answer [...]
As we are going into the peak of the H-1B cap season, our office receives many inquiries about the duration of the H-1B filing season this year or, in other words, when will the H-1B cap be reached? So far we have been able to compare demand with prior H-1B filing seasons and we knew [...]
Our office just completed participation in the very-busy USCIS conference call to discuss and answer questions about the upcoming H-4 Spouse EAD rule. We are happy to share our immediate notes and reactions from the call to our readers. We also have upcoming engagement options for our attorneys to provide more information and answer further [...]
Since the H-4 Spouse EAD rule announcement yesterday, our office has been receiving a number of questions and inquiries about the rule. the rule. For example, many people are interested to know whether the approved I-140 petition, which is one of the eligibility factors, must be from a current employer or it can be from [...]
After months of waiting and anticipation, USCIS has finally announced that effective May 26, 2015, USCIS will begin accepting applications for I-765 Employment Authorization Document (EAD) applications by certain H-4 dependent spouses of H-1B nonimmigrants who are seeking employment-based lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. Who is Eligible to Apply for EAD? H-4 spouses who are [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the March 2015 Visa Bulletin which is the sixth Visa Bulletin for the FY2015 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is the significant (16-week) forward movement in EB-2 India and the continued forward movement in the EB-3 preference category (even though some slowdown [...]
One of the main areas of expertise of our firm is handling H-1B petitions for a number of organizations around the United States. Our readers are aware that the H-1B petition allows the election of a premium processing service which, for an additional government filing fee of $1,410 (was $1,225), guarantees that the government will [...]
Spring and early summer are generally busy period for recent foreign college graduates as far as employment immigration is concerned. On one hand, foreign college graduates are either applying for their initial term OPT, their 17-month STEM extensions (if they qualify) or their H-1B work visas under the H-1B cap. Our office fields many questions [...]
The Department of Labor has provided some updates for the first quarter of the Fiscal Year 2015 (October 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014) on their processing of PERM, H-1B LCA and prevailing wage determination cases and we are happy to share them with our clients and readers. DOL Processing Statistics (First Quarter, 2015 Fiscal [...]
