The Department of State has confirmed that as of January 1, 2012, the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, India will no longer accept and process immigrant visa (IV, or green card) applications. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and U.S. Consulate in Mumbai will become the only acceptance centers in India for immigrant visas. The change [...]
USCIS has released an interesting report from its field offices on the processing times and statistics of N-400, Application for Naturalization, filings for the fiscal years 2010 through 2012 (or, October 2011). Number of N-400 Applications The report breaks down, for each field office processing N-400 applications, the number of receipts, approvals, denials and pending [...]
A few days ago, on December 29, 2011, the USCIS Ombudsman has issued a report and set of recommendations urging USCIS to take proactive steps to ensure clear, consistent and predictable standards are applied to immigrant visa applications under the first employment-based preference category (EB-1) for aliens with extraordinary ability (EA). Background on the Current [...]
When clients and readers speak, we listen! Due to a number of comments and requests, we are changing the time of our immigration chat from 9 pm to 3 pm (eastern time). Please join us this week and in the future for our immigration chat. The main reason for the new time is simply that [...]
The U.S. State Department just released the January 2012 Visa Bulletin which is the fourth Visa Bulletin for the FY2012 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the significant forward movement in EB-2 India and China (by nine and a half months) and the continued forward movement in FB1. Summary of [...]
There has been a considerable amount of discussion, excitement and, unfortunately, some incorrect rumors over the past few weeks regarding possible changes to the way employment-based immigrant visas are allocated. Our office has been receiving many requests to comment on and speculate on what may happen with the proposed legislation. To avoid fueling rumors, we [...]
USCIS has issued an alert that a number of key online systems will be unavailable due to system maintenance from Friday, December 2nd at 7pm (EST) until Monday, December 5th at 9am (EST). As a result, there will be no access or service to the following USCIS online systems and tools: Check My Case Status [...]
Many of our readers are aware that as of November 22, 2011, USCIS has received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota. All cap-subject new H-1B petitions received by USCIS on or after November 23rd will be rejected. Throughout the entire H-1B cap season, our office was providing weekly [...]
The U.S. Department of State has announced that all U.S. embassies and consulates will expedite the processing of F-1 student visa stamp applications to ensure that qualified foreign students are able to begin their studies on time. According to the Department of State, the maximum wait for a student visa appointment (for all posts) is [...]
Throughout the H-1B cap filing season (which opened back in April), we have been providing updates on the available H-1B cap numbers. Over the past few weeks, we have been also issuing alerts (on our website, via our newsletter and through our twitter and facebook pages) on the upcoming H-1B cap limit. Partially as a [...]