The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) announced recently that ICE would be issuing Notices of Inspection (NOI) to 1,000 employers across the United States associated with critical infrastructure. The NOIS will seek to determine the employers’ compliance with employment eligibility verification laws. What is Critical Infrastructure Employer? The announcement seems to focus on employers associated with [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of November 20, 2009, USCIS has received approximately 56,900 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 1,300 in the past week). The updated count means that as of November 20, 2009, there were 8,100 H-1B visas left [...]
We would like to remind our clients and readers that the Department of State DV-2011 Diversity Visa (a.k.a. “green card”) lottery is currently open but is scheduled to close at noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), on Monday, November 30, 2009. If you are planning to submit a DV-2011 entry, please do so well before the [...]
A recent report by Open Doors, a member of the Institute of International Education provides some numbers and statistics about the foreign students currently in the U.S. According to the report, there are more than 670,000 foreign students in the U.S. – an increase of about 8% over the past academic year. This rate of growth [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of November 13, 2009, USCIS has received approximately 55,600 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 900 in a week). USCIS will continue to accept petitions subject to the general cap. U.S. Masters Degrees Quota Reached USCIS has received [...]
In a shift in policy, the CDC has announced that effective Decemeber 14, 2009, the HPV vaccine will no longer be required for immigrants applying for immigrant visa or adjusting their status from within the U.S. Background About the Required Vaccinations Under Section 212(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), any alien who seeks admission [...]
USCIS released updated information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of November 6, 2009, USCIS has received approximately 54,700 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of 900 in a week). USCIS will continue to accept petitions subject to the general cap. U.S. Masters Degrees Quota Reached As we mentioned [...]
In an article today, the Washington Post reports on a speech made by the Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano and her prediction that in “[t]he first part of 2010, we will see legislation beginning to move.” The Post article is based on a speech made by Secretary Napolitano earlier today. She claimed that the Obama administration has [...]
Two weeks ago we wrote about the USCIS Ombudsman recommendation to modify the LCA/H-1B filing process to avoid negative consequences associated with delayed LCAs. As a response, USCIS just announced a temporary change in policy pursuant to which it will temporarily accept H-1B petitions filed without Labor Conditions Applications (LCA) that have been certified by the [...]
The Department of Labor (”DOL”) has released a quarterly report covering the second quarter of 2009 (ending on June 31, 2009) which report indicates the performance measurements for four categories of labor certifications performed by DOL: H-1B Labor Condition Applications (”LCA”). The target performance rate set by DOL is seven (business) days. For the second quarter, [...]