After a summer break, the immigration live chat returns next Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 9 pm eastern time. Please join us on Thursday to ask questions or discuss recent developments relating to immigration. Thursday's chat will be of general nature, meaning that we will be able to have a discussion on a number of [...]
As the new school year is underway at many colleges and universities across the U.S., it is interesting to share some statistics and profiles relating to the F-1 foreign student visa program. The data has been released from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) as of June 30, 2011. As of June 30, [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of August 26, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 22,700 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 6,300 over the previous four weeks). Similarly, as of August 26 , there were 15,800 H-1B visas filed subject [...]
USCIS has provided some interesting statistics relating to the processing of Form I-140 petitions for classification of foreign nationals under the employment-based first (EB-1) category. The statistics reflect the number of receipts, approvals, denials and RFEs issued during a fiscal year and are helpful in understanding general EB-1 adjudication trends. The EB-1 Statistics Texas Service [...]
Many of our clients and readers are by now aware of the delays associated with the Department of Labor (DOL) processing requests for prevailing wage determinations. Unfortunately, DOL has confirmed that they have temporarily suspended the processing of all regular prevailing wage determination requests until DOL meets its obligations under a court order to re-process [...]
The U.S. State Department just released the September 2011 Visa Bulletin which is the final Visa Bulletin for the FY2011 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s bulletin is the lack of any movement in the EB-2 China and EB-2 India categories, which have moved significantly over the past few months. Also, FB2A [...]
USCIS just released the information on the numbers of cap-subject FY2012 H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of July 29 5, 2011, USCIS has received approximately 22,700 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 2,200 over previous two weeks). Similarly, as of July 29 , there were 13,800 H-1B visas filed subject [...]
USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas just announced a number of initiatives intended to boost the ability of immigrant entrepreneurs to obtain immigrant benefits for themselves, as part of the Obama administration's goal to boost hiring and jobs. Director Mayorkas has announced a number of initiatives and "clarifications" of existing temporary and permanent work visas which should [...]
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 [...]