As some of you may have heard, on September 25th the US Department of State made some additional changes to the October 2015 Visa Bulletin. These changes include new and earlier date of filing cut-offs than those initially released on September 9th. The date of filing chart released on September…
On Monday the Senate will be voting on a short-term spending bill introduced by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran. If passed, the bill will temporarily fund the government through December 11th of this year. If the bill is not passed, the country will face a government shutdown beginning on…
In a bulletin released on September 11th the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services explains conditions relating to prioritization of interview scheduling for affirmative asylum applications. According to CIS, affirmative asylum applications began to be prioritized as of December 26, 2014 which fall under the below mentioned categories. The categories…
On September 9th the Department of State and USCIS jointly announced new procedures that will allow family-based and employment-based applicants stuck in immigrant visa backlogs to apply for an immigrant visa (adjustment of status) before their priority date becomes current and an immigrant visa becomes immediately available to them. These…
In this blog we are answering 5 of your frequently asked questions in detail. Please remember that every case and every story is different and unique. You should not compare your situation to anyone else’s. We hope that our answers will provide you with further guidance while you embark on…
National Visa Center Blunders On July 30th the National Visa Center sent out a notification confirming reports that applicants had been receiving letters or emails from the NVC on July 29, 2015. These letters and/or emails stated that applications would be terminated or that their applications were in the process…
We would like to inform our readers that on July 21, 2015 the Department of Homeland Security issued a policy memorandum which provides guidance to employers and H-1B applicants regarding when to file an amended or new H-1B petition following the case law, Matter of Simeio Solutions, LLC, 26 I&N Dec. 542…
Presently, attorneys Jacob Sapochnick, Esq., Ekaterina Powell, Esq., and Yingfei Zhou, Esq. from our office are in attendance at the 2015 American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Conference on Immigration Law taking place in Washington, DC. Together, they have had the privilege of being present for an open forum where officials…
If a petitioner filed an FY16 H-1B cap petition in a timely manner for the fiscal year 2016 and has received notification from the delivery service used suggesting that there may be a delay or damage to the package, the petitioner may file a second H-1B petition. The second H-1B…
On March 4, 2015, the federal district court in the Northern District of Florida ruled in Perez v. Perez that the Department of Labor (DOL) lacks authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to issue regulations in the H-2B program. This decision vacated and permanently enjoined DOL from enforcing…