USCIS has announced that it will be closing all of its International Immigration Offices by March 10, 2020. As of June 30, 2019, USCIS has already permanently closed its field office in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and on July 5th, the office in Manila, Philippines permanently closed. By the end of…
We are happy to report that on July 10, 2019 the House of Representatives passed the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 (H.R. 1044), a bill that if enacted, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, and increase the per-country…
Spouses and minor children of Green Card Holders can file for I-485 Adjustment of Status starting July 1, 2019 The US Department of State (DOS) has released its July 2019 Visa Bulletin announcing that the Family 2A category, spouses and unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents, will become current…
Photo: JM Parrone In this post, we would like to keep our readers informed about Visa Bulletin projections for the coming months. Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State provides a monthly analysis of each month’s Visa Bulletin including discussion of…
Foreign nationals applying for a non-immigrant or immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy abroad are now required to disclose information relating to their social media presence on their online nonimmigrant and immigrant visa applications known as the DS-160 and DS-260 respectively. These changes were introduced early last week…
Photo: CafeCredit The Trump administration is mobilizing to strictly enforce laws that require the reimbursement of funds from an alien’s financial sponsor, where the alien has requested certain types of public benefits from a government agency. The White House has issued a memorandum stating that, “Financial sponsors who pledge to…
Ken Cuccinelli Photo by Gage SkidmoreSource: Flickr New developments in the world of immigration have just emerged. The director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), L. Francis Cissna, has been forced to resign. Cissna has served under the Trump administration since October 2017. During his tenure, Cissna…
On May 10, 2019, USCIS made important updates to its policy manual regarding public services which appear in PA-2019-03. USCIS has clarified its policy regarding responses to service requests. It is the goal of USCIS to respond to a service request within 15 calendar days from the date the service…
A new policy brief published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) analyzing USCIS processing times reveals that the agency has reached “crisis” level delays in processing immigrant and non-immigrant petitions. These delays have worsened during the Trump administration. According to the report the most vulnerable populations include immigrant families,…
A new report released by CBS news estimates that the immigration court system could face a staggering backlog of more than one million cases, if the government shutdown extends into February and March. According to the report, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky in particular will be the most affected, owing to…