Visa Lawyer Blog

Articles Posted in Family Visas

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The news we have all been waiting for is finally here. The Democratic controlled House of Representatives has taken a colossal step toward making comprehensive immigration reform a reality. On Thursday evening, members of the House voted along party lines to approve two legislative proposals that would create a pathway to citizenship for an estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, including Dreamers and farmworkers. These proposals are known as (1) the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021 and (2) the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021.

What is the American Dream and Promise Act – H.R. 6?

The American Dream and Promise Act, also known as H.R. 6, creates an earned path to citizenship for more than two million Dreamers who were brought to the United States as children, as well as beneficiaries of certain temporary humanitarian programs including recipients of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This proposal consists of

Title I: Dream Act of 2021

Title I of the Act would allow certain long-term residents who entered the United States as children to apply for conditional permanent resident status. Those who would obtain conditional permanent resident status would be considered lawfully admitted for permanent residence under the law.

Requirements

The American Dream and Promise Act would grant Dreamers conditional permanent resident status for 10 years, and cancel removal proceedings if they:

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The Law Offices of Jacob J. Sapochnick is proud to honor our managing attorney Marie Puertollano’s most recent accomplishment in the field of immigration law, becoming a board-certified immigration specialist with the State Bar of California.

Originally from France, Marie Puertollano joined our law office in 2012 and quickly became a rising star handling complex immigration matters in our private practice. Throughout the years, Attorney Marie Puertollano has been at the forefront of many of our firm’s successes touching on all areas of immigration law, including family immigration, employment immigration, investment visas, nonimmigrant visas, and representing clients before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She provides direction for all divisions within our practice and is the go-to attorney of our firm.

With this new honor, Marie becomes one of a very limited number of attorneys in the state of California who have been designated as Certified Specialists in the field of immigration law by the State Bar of California. Marie is now one of only 24 immigration attorneys in San Diego to accomplish this feat and joins a small circle of 233 attorneys who have received this honor in the entire state.

Marie’s accomplishment comes as a product of her hard work and dedication. After taking an extensive written examination offered only once every two years, she was able to successfully pass and meet other stringent criteria to gain this honor. Specifically, Marie had to prove her substantial involvement in the area of immigration and nationality law having participated as a principal attorney in 150 cases involving immigrant and nonimmigrant cases, and hearings before immigration judges. Marie was also required to demonstrate participation as a principal attorney in six broad immigration categories including court and bond hearings, appeals, immigrant visas, nonimmigrant visas, consular cases, and PERM petitions.

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Happy Friday! We bring you an exciting new update about the public charge rule. On Thursday, March 11, 2021, the Biden administration formally rescinded the Trump era “public charge rule,” which has been responsible for causing great headaches among adjustment of status and immigrant visa applicants.

The public charge rule was first announced by the Department of Homeland Security on October 10, 2018, bringing with it a new set of regulations that made it more difficult for certain adjustment of status applicants to gain permanent residence in the United States.

Specifically, it was announced that the public charge rule would apply to all adjustment of status (green card) applications postmarked on or after February 24, 2020. In addition, the public charge rule of inadmissibility was applied to:

  • Applicants for an immigrant visa abroad
  • Applicants for a nonimmigrant visa abroad
  • Applicants for admission at the U.S. border who have been granted an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, and
  • Nonimmigrants applying for an extension or change of status within the United States

Individuals applying for a green card or immigrant visa based on family sponsorship were most affected by this rule.

Further, a slew of special types of immigrants were allowed to be excluded from the rule including asylees, refugees, VAWA, TPS, DACA, Special Immigrant Juveniles, T nonimmigrants, U nonimmigrants, and such special types of immigrant classifications.

As a result of this rule, USCIS introduced a mandatory form to be submitted with all green card applications, known as Form, I-944 Declaration of Self Sufficiency, to determine whether a green card applicant would likely become a public charge on the United States government.

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Happy Monday! Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! In this blog post, we bring you a recent success story and share with you how our office was able to expedite our client’s fiancé visa to help him reunite with his U.S. Citizen fiancé, despite the suspension of routine visa services at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia.

As you may recall, during March of last year, in an unprecedented move, the Department of State made the decision to suspend all routine visa services at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide, in response to significant worldwide challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thereafter in July of 2020, U.S. Embassies and Consulates began a phased resumption of routine visa services, but only on a post-by-post basis as resources and local conditions would allow.

In reality routine visa services at the majority of U.S. Embassies and Consulates have remained suspended with posts granting appointments only for emergency and mission-critical services.

Due to these visa suspensions, K visa applicants have been unable to proceed with visa issuance, with many applications sitting idle at the National Visa Center (NVC) waiting to be forwarded to the local Consulate for interview scheduling.

Most recently K visa applicants expressed their frustrations by filing a class action lawsuit known as Milligan v. Pompeo in an effort to force visa interview scheduling.

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We are pleased to report that the Department of State has issued new guidance following President Biden’s rescission of Presidential Proclamation 10014, entitled “Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Present a Risk to the United States Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak.”

As you may recall, President Biden issued an executive order rescinding Proclamation 10014 on February 24, 2021.

The Department of State is now providing instructions for immigrant visa applicants who were previously impacted by the Proclamation.

Instructions for Immigrant Visa Applicants

Those Not Yet Interviewed:  Immigrant visa applicants who have not yet been interviewed or scheduled for an interview will have their applications processed according to the existing phased resumption of visa services framework being followed by the Department of State.

How will the resumption of visa services be prioritized?

According to DOS, the resumption of routine visa services, prioritized after services to U.S. citizens, will occur on a post-by-post basis, consistent with the Department’s guidance for safely returning personnel to Department facilities.

At the moment, U.S. Embassies and Consulates are providing emergency and mission-critical visa services and will continue to do so. As post-specific conditions improve, each mission will decide when it can begin to provide additional services. Eventually each mission will gradually restore a complete resumption of routine visa services. However, Consular posts have not provided any specific date as to when they will resume normal operations.

Those Previously Refused:  Immigrant visa applicants whose petitions remain valid and who were previously interviewed but refused visas due to P.P. 10014 should wait for instructions from the U.S. embassy or consulate where they were interviewed.  According to DOS guidance, Consulates will reconsider cases that were previously refused because of P.P. 10014 and will inform applicants if additional information is needed from them.

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Source: Flickr Creative Commons License, Gage Skidmore

In this blog post, we bring you some long-awaited news. In a much-anticipated move, the Biden administration decided on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, to immediately revoke Presidential Proclamation 10014, a controversial order passed under former President Donald Trump that halted the issuance of most U.S. visas at Consulates and Embassies worldwide.

Our office has known since early January that the Biden administration was planning to revoke this Proclamation, and yesterday the rumors were finally put to rest.

Presidential Proclamation 10014 is no more.

What was Presidential Proclamation 10014 about?

P.P. 10014 essentially imposed a 60-day ban on the issuance of visas for most immigrant and nonimmigrant visa categories. The Proclamation began on April 23, 2020 and was set to continue by President Trump until March 31, 2020.

P.P. 10014 proved to be exceedingly harmful given the wide variety of immigrants to which it applied.

Specifically, the order halted the issuance of U.S. visas for the following classes of immigrants at U.S. Consulates and Embassies worldwide as of the date of the proclamation (April 23, 2020):

  • Spouses and children of green card holders (US citizens were not affected) applying at the consulate
  • Parents of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Brothers and sisters of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of US citizens applying at the consulate (children under 21 years old of US citizens were not affected)
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of green card holders applying at the consulate
  • EB1A extraordinary abilities and their family applying at the consulate
  • PERM EB3, PERM EB2, NIW employment based and their family applying at the consulate
  • EB4 religious workers immigrants applying at the consulate
  • H1B and H4 dependents applying at the consulate
  • L1 and L2 applying at the consulate
  • J1 applying at the consulate  

Individuals residing in the United States and those who had a valid visa or travel document to enter the United States, on or before the date of the proclamation, were not impacted.

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Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! In this post, we are breaking down Biden’s new immigration reform proposal which was recently introduced before Congress. The new proposal, also known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, is groundbreaking because it creates an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States on or before January 1, 2021.

While this piece of legislation is still just a bill, it is opening the door for further dialogue from members of Congress and provides a unique window into what a final bill on immigration reform might look like.

How exactly does one “earn” their citizenship with this bill?

Undocumented immigrants who came to the United States on or before January 1, 2021, who can prove that they do not have a criminal record, and are not otherwise ineligible, would be eligible to secure something called “lawful prospective immigrant status” or “LPI” under this new bill.

Essentially, “LPI” would be a provisional temporary type of status that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States lawfully for a six-year period of time. This provisional status would act as a “gateway” to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for permanent residence and citizenship in the future.

Under the bill, eligible applicants would be granted “LPI” status for a 6-year period, and within that period of provisional status, immigrants would then be eligible to apply for permanent residence after 5 years. After 3 years of being in green card status, such immigrants would then be eligible to apply for U.S. Citizenship.

All applicants would be required to pass background checks and pay taxes under the law.

Would LPI immigrants be able to travel in and out of the country?

Yes. LPI immigrants would be eligible to receive employment authorization and advance parole that would allow them to work and travel in and out of the country.

Additionally, LPI immigrants would be protected from deportation while their applications for LPI would be pending with immigration.

Are there special provisions for DACA recipients, TPS eligible immigrants, and farm workers?

Yes. Under the bill, those with DACA, individuals eligible for TPS, and farm workers with a demonstrated work history would be exempted from the “LPI” provisional status and would be permitted to apply for permanent residence directly without having to wait 5 years to apply for permanent residence, through an expedited “fast track” type of processing.

All others, however, would need to first obtain LPI status and then after 5 years apply for a green card.

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Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! We kick off today’s post with very exciting news. Yesterday, February 18, 2021, President Biden unveiled new legislation that will create an 8-year earned path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States who were brought to this country as children.

While the bill faces an uphill battle in Congress, it is the start of the administration’s efforts to create new momentum to push parties on both sides of the aisle to fix our broken immigration system once and for all.

What does the new bill propose?

The new piece of legislation is based on the President’s immigration priorities as outlined during his first day in office.

While President Biden has been in office for less than one month, he is already moving forward with his most ambitious effort yet – introducing viable immigration proposals before Congress, that will counteract the past four years of harmful policies passed by his predecessor.

In a nutshell, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, as it is known, seeks to create (1) an eight-year pathway to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants (2) a shorter process to legal status for agriculture workers and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and (3) establishes an enforcement plan that includes deploying technology to patrol the Southern border.

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The nation awoke with a new President of the United States, and although President Joe Biden has been in office for less than one day, his administration is already planning sweeping immigration reforms and policy changes that will unfold throughout the coming months.

This is just the start of President Biden’s plan to reverse the numerous damaging policies and executive orders passed by the Trump administration during the past four years.

This morning, the White House issued a press release outlining President Biden’s commitment to modernize the U.S. immigration system by way of a legislative bill that will be introduced before Congress in a matter of days.

The new bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, proposes to overhaul the current immigration system to more effectively manage and secure our country’s border.

According to the Biden administration, the purpose of the bill is to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system….” providing “hardworking people who enrich our communities every day and who have lived here for years, in some cases for decades, an opportunity to earn citizenship.”

The bill will prioritize family reunification, address root causes of mass migration from Central America, and among other things ensure that the United States remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution.

Most importantly is the bill’s commitment to create a path to citizenship for eligible undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers and essential workers who have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Happy Friday! Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! In this blog post, we bring you a recent success story and share with you how our office was able to expedite our client’s fiancé visa to help him reunite with his U.S. Citizen fiancé, despite the suspension of routine visa services at the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai, India.

As you may recall, during March of last year, in an unprecedented move, the Department of State made the decision to suspend all routine visa services at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide, in response to significant worldwide challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thereafter in July of 2020, U.S. Embassies and Consulates began a phased resumption of routine visa services, but only on a post-by-post basis as resources and local conditions would allow.

In reality routine visa services at the majority of U.S. Embassies and Consulates have remained suspended with posts granting appointments only for emergency and mission-critical services.

Due to these visa suspensions, K visa applicants have been unable to proceed with visa issuance, with many applications sitting idle at the National Visa Center (NVC) waiting to be forwarded to the local Consulate for interview scheduling.

Most recently K visa applicants expressed their frustrations by filing a class action lawsuit known as Milligan v. Pompeo in an effort to force visa interview scheduling.

Continue reading