International students seeking a STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension must be aware that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not yet published a replacement rule authorizing further STEM OPT extensions, this following a court decision prohibiting DHS from allowing 17 month extensions to be issued. The OPT program…
Last week, we reported to our readers that on September 25th the Department of State and USCIS re-issued the October Visa Bulletin and changed the date of filing chart drastically, rolling back the ‘Dates of Filing’ for heavily used visa categories, including employment based and family-sponsored petitions. The American Immigration…
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…
On August 12, 2015, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle vacated the Department of Homeland Security’s 17-month STEM OPT Extension program that has been in existence since 2008. But because an immediate vacatur of the STEM OPT program would cause “substantial hardship” to thousands of F-1 students and create a…
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…
On July 15, 2015 USCIS announced that it mistakenly issued approximately 2,100 employment authorization cards to DACA recipients that were printed with a three-year validity period instead of a two-year period, following a court injunction prohibiting USCIS from doing so. To correct the error, USCIS sent these recipients a notice…
On November 20, 2014 President Barack Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration designed to repair our country’s broken immigration system. Among its provisions, the executive actions on immigration outline plans to: strengthen border security, expand I-601A provisional waiver eligibility, modernize visa backlogs, expand eligibility for parole in…
On Monday May 4, 2015 a federal appeals court heard arguments in the case Joseph Arpaio v. Barack Obama, et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 14-5325. Back in November of 2014 in the wake of Obama’s executive actions, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio…
Today, April 28, 2015 the U.S. Department of Labor and Homeland Security announced two new rules governing the H-2B Visa Program. The first is a new interim final rule established for the purpose of reinstating and improving the H2B program and second, a final rule to establish the program’s prevailing…
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…