The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) launched earlier today Preparing for the Oath: U.S. History and Civics for Citizenship, a Web-based learning tool designed to help immigrants prepare for the civics portion of the naturalization test. Designed as a self-study tool, Preparing for the [...]
The H-1B season is not only well underway but we are starting to see the end of the quota in this seventh weekly update on the FY2013 cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 2 for both the Vermont and California Service Centers. As of May 18, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 42,000 H-1B petitions counting toward [...]
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced on May 11, 2012, that they have expanded the list of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) degree programs. New STEM-Designated Programs Until this revision, CIP degree codes ending in "99" were not designated as STEM degree programs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now proposing [...]
The H-1B season is well underway and we have received the sixth update on the FY2013 cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 2 for both the Vermont and California Service Centers. As of May 11, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 36,700 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. This suggests a rate of filings of approximately [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the June 2012 Visa Bulletin which is the ninth Visa Bulletin for the FY2012 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the unavailability in the EB-2 India and China categories, the significant (four months) advancement in EB-3 China, the continued forward movement in FB-1 [...]
The H-1B season is well underway and we have received the fifth “official” update on the FY2013 cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 2 for both the Vermont and California Service Centers. As of May 4, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 32,500 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. This suggests a rate of filings of [...]
Our office has established a reputation as one of the leading practices for handling appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries not only about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal but also about the current processing times for AAO cases. The AAO processing times are published monthly, at the [...]
The summer has traditionally been a busy traveling season and as the summer start to approach and many of our clients and readers start making international travel plans, we see an increased flow of inquiries and consultations regarding travel and passport expiration dates. Most often the question is, What should be the duration of the [...]
The H-1B season is well underway and we have received the fourth “official” update on the FY2013 cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 2 for both the Vermont and California Service Centers. As of April 27, 2012, USCIS has received approximately 29,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap. This suggests a rate of filings of [...]
Our office has been able to confirm what we have suspected for a few weeks. Many of our readers are aware that the significant forward movement in the cutoff dates for the EB-2 India and China categories over the past few months has caused a significant number of demand and I-485 filings. USCIS has been [...]