On May 13, 2024, the State Department announced record breaking milestones including the issuance of a whopping 5.2 million nonimmigrant visas at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide in the first half of fiscal year 2024 – more than any previous year over the same period. In the past six months…
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has published the June Visa Bulletin. In this blog post we breakdown the projected movement of the employment-based and family-sponsored categories in the month of June. USCIS Adjustment of Status For employment-based preference categories, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) confirmed that…
In this blog post, we cover the newly released Immigrant Visa Backlog Report published by the Department of State. April’s report provides the latest data and statistics relating to the processing of immigrant visa applications at the National Visa Center. This data includes information about the number of documentarily complete…
The long-awaited May 2024 Visa Bulletin has arrived! If you’d like to know all about the projected movement of the employment-based and family-sponsored categories in the month of May, we’ve got you covered. Highlights of the May 2024 Visa Bulletin Dates for Filing Chart For the family-sponsored preference categories, the Dates for Filing Chart…
The Department of State has published the April 2024 Visa Bulletin, bringing significant advancements in the final action dates for most employment-based categories, and modest advancement for the family-sponsored categories when compared to the previous month. Highlights of the April 2024 Visa Bulletin Dates for Filing Chart For the family-sponsored preference categories,…
Recently, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) requested an update from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding the delayed adjudication of Form I-829 petitions filed by EB-5 investors seeking to remove their conditions on permanent residence. AILA suggested two alternatives for providing evidence of continued lawful permanent residence…
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…
Newly released data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has shown that thanks to policy guidance released in January 2022, more foreign nationals working in the STEM fields are receiving O-1A visas than ever before. In just the first year of issuing its revised guidance for example, issuance…
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…