USCIS has released the average processing times for cases pending at the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) as of March 18, 2009. Among the most notable AAO processing times: H-1B appeal takes 13 months (compared to 14 months when last reported in January 2009); I-140 EB1 Extrordinary Ability and Multinational Manager or Executive categories both take 9 months while [...]
USCIS has released an updated Employer Handbook, Instructions for Completing Form I-9. The new handbook describes in detail the requirements imposed by Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. Note that the new handbook contains procedures which should be used only on or after April 3, 2009.
We wrote last week about the April 2009 Visa Bulletin and the significant retrogression of the visa numbers in EB-3 Rest of World (ROW) category. It is important to note that the April 2009 Visa Bulletin retrogression for EB-3 will be applied immediately, as opposed to as of April 1, 2009 (see last sentence of [...]
Our firm handles a fair amount of appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal. About the AAO As a short preliminary background matter, the AAO is an appeals office which handles appeals of certain decisions made by USCIS field offices and regional procssing centers. [...]
The National Service Center has provided some guidance on requesting expedited processing of re-entry permits (Form I-131) to clarify the reasons for requesting expedited processing. According to NSC, valid expedited reasons are humanitarian reasons, financial loss, medical need, etc. We have received many re-entry permits inquiries by permanent legal residents who are about to accept a [...]
The California Service Center (CSC) has issued guidance on what kind of documentation is satisfactory to show that an H-1B beneficiary has completed his or her degree requirements. It is important to note that an H-1B visa application must be filed only after all degree requirements are met, even if the diploma has not been [...]
The Department of State (DOS) has released a cable to its consular posts to begin using the 2009 poverty guidelines in calculating the levels of income and assets required by immigrant visa petitioners and joint sponsors. DOS requires that when processing immigrant visa cases subject to the Affidavit of Support (I-864) requirement, consular posts must [...]
The April 2009 Visa Bulletin has been released. Unfortunately, even though there is some forward movement in some EB categories, the progress is very small and in fact, the dates for some EB-3 categories have retrogressed significantly. EB-1 remains current across the board. EB-2 remains unchanged - EB-2 ROW (Rest of World) is current, EB-2 China remains [...]
CNNfn.com has an interesting article on the H-1B visas demand for this April’s H-1B quota. The article cites the weak economy, the H-1B restrictions imposed recently on TARP recipients and the bankruptcy of Satyam Computer Services (which filed ~2,000 H-1Bs in 2008) as one of the reasons that the H-1B demand will be weakest in [...]
The cap-subject H-1B filing deadline of April 1 is approaching quickly. USCIS has advised that similar to last April’s filing window, this year, in the event that there are more H-1B applications than there are available visas (i.e. there will be a lottery), the filing window would be five (5) days, from Tuesday, April 1 [...]