The March 2024 Visa Bulletin is finally here, and with it we have big advancements in the family sponsored preference categories, and minor advancements in the employment-based categories. Highlights of the March 2024 Visa Bulletin Dates for Filing Chart The Dates for Filing Chart remains unchanged from the previous month, for both…
On January 30, 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a final rule in the Federal Register making significant fee increases for various immigration applications and benefit requests. This fee increase will be the first major adjustment in the filing fees since 2016. The increase is meant to address…
In this blog post, we provide new insights recently shared by Charlie Oppenheim, the former Chief of Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting at the U.S. Department of State, who oversaw the monthly publication of the Visa Bulletin until his retirement in 2022. In a recent Chatting with Charlie webinar, he…
The February 2024 Visa Bulletin was recently published by the Department of State. While the Dates for Filing Chart remains unchanged from the previous month, the Final Action Dates Chart shows some modest advancements in some of the employment-based preference categories, specifically EB-1 worldwide continues to be current, EB-2 Worldwide will…
The past year saw big victories for worldwide visa operations. The Department of State recently provided statistics summarizing its visa processing capacity in the year 2023. The recent data shows tremendous advancement in visa processing capacity at Consular posts globally and provides a strong outlook for visa processing in the…
The January 2024 Visa Bulletin is finally here, and with it some big advancements for the employment-based preference categories in the New Year, specifically for India and China, and some promising forward movement in the Final Action Dates for EB-2 Worldwide and EB-3 Professional/Skilled Workers Worldwide. For family-sponsored categories, the…
A new family reunification parole process has been launched, this time for qualifying nationals of Ecuador. Who is eligible? Nationals of Ecuador petitioned by family members who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents and who have received approval on Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, to join their family…
The November Visa Bulletin has arrived! In this blog post we share with you the changes that you can expect to see in the visa bulletin for the upcoming month of November. Whether you are applying for an immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate overseas or applying for adjustment of…
In this blog post, we summarize the movement of the family-sponsored and employment-based preference categories of the October Visa Bulletin. This information will be helpful to those applying for an immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate overseas, and those applying for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the United…
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced the reopening of an international field office in Havana, Cuba. The Havana office will assist with U.S. immigration benefits and services, including conducting interviews, processing cases for pending Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) requests, and Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petitions, and other…