We have many confirmed reports that yesterday, July 28, 2011, the University of Northern Virginia's (UNVA) campus in Annandale was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents, seeking and seizing documentation relating to UNVA's issuance of F-1 foreign student visas and UNVA's compliance in the F-1 visa program. [...]
The USCIS Ombudsman office has released a report and a recommendation to USCIS regarding changing policies with respect to I-765 Application for Employment Authorization Document (EAD) cases. The Problem Many employers and individuals who rely on EAD cards for employment find it frustrating that there are no reliable processing times for the EAD cards. For [...]
The Department of State has enabled the Status Check website which allows participants in the "green card lottery" to check whether their entry has been selected. At the same time, we wish to note that the Department of State does not notify winners by email so any email notifying of a winning green card lottery [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of July 15, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 20,500 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 3,100 over previous three weeks). Similarly, as of July 15 , there were 12,800 H-1B visas filed subject to [...]
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 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 [...]
As many of our readers and clients are aware, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) provides some tools for applicants to obtain case processing information. The online case status check is one of them. In addition, USCIS posts each month a schedule of the standard processing times for most of the types of cases [...]
The U.S. State Department just released the August 2011 Visa Bulletin which is the eleventh Visa Bulletin for the FY2011 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the continued significant forward movement in EB-2 China, EB-2 India, Other Workers and FB2A categories. Summary of the August 2011 Visa Bulletin – Employment-Based [...]
The USCIS Ombudsman office has released their 2011 report to U.S. Congress, as required by law. About the USCIS Ombudsman Office The USCIS Ombudsman office was created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and was tasked to assist individuals and employers in resolving problems with USCIS. The Ombudsman's office addresses individual case inquiries and [...]
USCIS released the weekly information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of June 24, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 17,400 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 2,200 over previous 10 days). Similarly, as of June 24, there were 11,300 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
USCIS released the weekly information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of June 13, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 15,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 1,600 over previous 10 days). Similarly, as of June 13, there were 10,200 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]