The U.S. State Department just released the December 2011 Visa Bulletin which is the third 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 (four and a half months) and the continued forward movement in FB1. Summary of the [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of October 28, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 49,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 3,000 over the previous week). Similarly, as of October 28, there were 20,000 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
The Department of State (DOS) has announced that effective December 1, 2011, the U.S. Consulate in Chennai will become the only acceptance center in India for all applications for intra-company transfers under the blanket L category. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and U.S. Consulates in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad will no longer accept or [...]
Due to the significant number of PERM-based green cards and H-1B work visa applications (including the required Labor Condition Application, or LCA), our office constantly monitors developments at the Department of Labor (DOL) which controls the review of PERM and LCAs. As of October 5, 2011, DOL has shared some important statistics about their processing [...]
Our office just came back from a discussion session here in Washington, DC with Charles Oppenheim. Mr. Oppenheim is the Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State. For many, he is simply known as the person responsible for the monthly and annual visa number allocations for family- and [...]
USCIS has announced that effective October 30, 2011, it would issue redesigned Employment Authorization Document Cards (also known as “EAD” or "work permit" cards ) The redesign is mainly driven to incorporate new security features to deter counterfeiting, tempering and document fraud, generally. Design Samples of the front and back are shown below: No Changes [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of October 21, 2011, USCIS has received approximately46,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 2,900 over the previous week). Similarly, as of October 21, there were 20,000 H-1B visas filed subject to the U.S. [...]
Our office handles a substantial number of H-1B work visa petitions for a variety of U.S. employers and we often share our direct experiences with the H-1B work visa program. This article is intended to share our experience with H-1B work visa petitions where there is a change of the job location once the H-1B [...]
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced yesterday that for the fiscal year 2011 (FY2011) which ended September 30, 2011, ICE has deported a record number of individuals. In FY 2011 ICE's Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations removed 396,906 individuals — the largest number in the agency's history. Of these, nearly 55 percent or [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of October 14, 2011, USCIS has received approximately43,300 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 2,300 over the previous week). Similarly, as of October 14, there were 19,500 H-1B visas filed subject to the U.S. [...]