Visa Lawyer Blog

Articles Posted in I-129

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As the new year approaches, we have some unfortunate news to report for certain employment-based applicants who may wish to file their petitions with premium processing service in 2024, including those filing:

  • Form I-129 Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker
  • Form I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, as well as
  • Certain applicants filing Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization and
  • I-539 Application to Extend or Change Nonimmigrant Status with USCIS.

On December 28, 2023, USCIS published a final rule in the Federal Register that will increase the filing fee for Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service, to adjust for inflation.

The final rule states that starting February 26, 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will increase the premium processing fees USCIS charges for all eligible forms and categories to reflect the amount of inflation from June 2021 through June 2023 according to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.

Please note that not all petitions are eligible to request premium processing service. Applicants may only request premium processing if USCIS has specifically designated your classification as one that is eligible for premium processing service. To determine whether premium processing is available for your benefit request please review the USCIS webpage.

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Did you participate in the H-1B electronic registration for Fiscal Year 2024? If so, we have some exciting news for you.

On Thursday, July 27, 2023, USCIS issued a news alert informing the public that they will conduct a second H-1B lottery to select additional H-1B registrations to reach the fiscal year (FY) 2024 H-1B numerical allocations, including the advanced degree exemption.

As our readers may recall, USCIS conducted its initial lottery in March of 2023, selecting a total of 110,791 registrations to meet the annual H-1B numerical cap for fiscal year 2024. Registrants had about a 14.6% chance of being selected in the initial lottery.

When will the second lottery take place?

In its announcement, USCIS has said that it they will soon select from previously submitted electronic registrations to reach the FY 2024 numerical allocations through a randomized selection process, aka “the second lottery.” However, a date has not been disclosed.

This means that in the coming weeks, petitioners or their authorized representatives should keep an eye out on their myUSCIS online accounts to know if they were selected in the second lottery.

Once the second lottery has taken place, USCIS will make an official announcement on its webpage indicating the lottery’s completion. At that point, USCIS will notify all prospective petitioners with selected registrations that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration.

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The H-1B registration period is now in full swing. Employers will have the opportunity to complete the electronic registration process from now until noon Eastern Time on March 17, 2023.

The question on everyone’s minds is whether the massive tech layoffs in Silicon Valley will decrease demand for H-1B visa registrations. Tens of thousands of employees at Google, Amazon, and Meta, have been laid off since early January, leaving big tech companies to adapt to their changing circumstances.

However, demand for high-skilled foreign workers remains high. Companies across the United States will compete for a chance to win selection just as in past years. It is expected that demand for the H-1B visa lottery program will grow this year, because the labor market still demands highly skilled workers with skills in the STEM fields.

Once the H-1B registration period has closed on March 17th the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will complete a random lottery to reach the annual cap of 85,000 H-1B visas.

Since the implementation of the online registration process in 2020, H-1B registration submissions have far exceeded the number of available visas each year. As an example, in FY 2022 employers submitted roughly 308,613 H-1B registrations (selecting 131,970), and by 2023 this figure increased to 483,927 registrations (selecting 127,600).

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In this blog post, we give you an update on the status of the proposed rule increasing the filing fees for certain applications and petitions filed with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

As you may remember, on January 4, 2023, USCIS published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register proposing an increase in the filing fees of many types of applications, including but not limited to, the I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, N-400 Application for Naturalization, I-129F petition for alien fiancé(e), Form I-130 Petition for Alien Relative, Form I-751 Petition to Remove Conditions on Permanent Residence, Form I-129 Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker for H, L, and O classifications, Form I-526 Immigrant Petition for the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization, among many others.

The proposed rule also sought to do the following:

  • Incorporate biometrics costs into the main benefit fee and remove the separate biometric services fee
  • Require separate filing fees for Form I-485 and associated Form I-131 and Form I-765 filings
  • Establish separate fees for Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, by nonimmigrant classification.
  • Revise the premium processing timeframe interpretation from 15 calendar days to 15 business days
  • Create lower fees for certain immigration forms filed online.

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, before the government can implement a proposed rule they must abide by a mandatory notice-and-comment rule-making process. This includes offering a public comment period of at least 60 days from the date of the NPRM’s publication in the Federal Register.

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Welcpuzzle-g75f3e575f_1920ome back to Visalawyerblog! We hope you had a wonderful holiday break and wish you a prosperous new year ahead.

We kick off the new year with some important updates in the world of immigration.

Today, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officially announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that will be posted in the Federal Register tomorrow Wednesday, January 4, 2023 that will increase filing fees for certain types of immigration benefits. An unpublished version is already available in the Federal Register.

A 60-day public comment period will follow the publication of the NPRM on January 4, 2023 and will close on March 5, 2023.

Fees will not change until the final rule goes into effect, and only after the public has had the opportunity to comment and USCIS finalizes the fee schedule in response to such public comments. USCIS will host a public engagement session on the proposed fee rule on January 11, 2023.

According to USCIS, the proposed fee increases are necessary to ensure that the agency will have enough resources to provide adequate services to applicants and petitioners moving forward. The agency has said that after having conducted a review of current fees, it has determined that it cannot cover the full cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services without a fee increase.

The agency cited the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the factors leading the agency to increase its fees. As you may recall, the pandemic caused a dramatic reduction in the filing of new applications, leaving USCIS with a substantial decrease in revenues of 40 percent. This unfortunate drop in applications led USCIS to reduce its workforce accordingly.

With current resources, the agency has said it is incapable of adjudicating applications in a timely manner, when considering that agency caseloads are now returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Among the new proposals included in the NPRM are measures that:

  • Incorporate biometrics costs into the main benefit fee and remove the separate biometric services fee
  • Require separate filing fees for Form I-485 and associated Form I-131 and Form I-765 filings
  • Establish separate fees for Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, by nonimmigrant classification.
  • Revise the premium processing timeframe interpretation from 15 calendar days to 15 business days
  • Create lower fees for certain immigration forms filed online.

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Welcome to the start of a new week! In this blog post we share with you some good news regarding the continuing flexibility policy being followed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for applicants who have received a Request for Evidence, or Notice of Intent to Deny between March 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021, as well as new guidance for FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitioners, whose petitions were rejected or administratively closed solely because the requested start date was after Oct. 1, 2020.

 

USCIS RFE/NOID Flexibility Continued for Responses to Agency Requests

On June 24, 2021, USCIS announced that it will continue its flexibility policy and grant applicants who have received a request for evidence, notice of intent to deny, or such a related document, an additional 60 calendar days after the response deadline indicated on the notice or request, to submit a response to a request or notice, provided the request or notice was issued by USCIS between March 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

What documents qualify for this flexibility in responding?

Applicants who receive any of the below mentioned documents dated between March 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021 can take advantage of the additional 60 days to respond to the request or notice:

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We are extremely excited to report that USCIS has received enough electronic registrations during the H-1B initial registration period to reach the mandated numerical cap for fiscal year 2022, including for the advanced degree exemption (also known as the master’s cap), and has now selected all registrations eligible to participate in the H-1B visa program.

The H-1B initial electronic registration period came to an end on March 25, 2021, at which time USCIS began the process of randomly selecting from eligible registrations to fill the H-1B cap, including for the advanced degree exemption.

USCIS has now selected those registrations that will move forward and file a paper application with USCIS.

All those who were selected have received a notification of their selection in their myUSCIS online account. Selections in the myUSCIS portal will indicate that the petitioner is eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary that was named in the applicable selected registration.

On behalf of our law office, we extend our congratulations to all those who were selected to move forward with the filing of their petitions.

What happens next?

Now that you have overcome this obstacle, you may be asking yourself, what’s next? Sadly, getting selected in the H-1B visa lottery is just the first step in obtaining an H-1B visa. The second step requires the petitioner to demonstrate the beneficiary’s eligibility for the H-1B visa by filing Form I-129 with USCIS and obtaining approval.

USCIS has announced that all petitioners who have been properly selected in the visa lottery for fiscal year 2022, may file an H-1B cap-subject petition with USCIS, including petitions eligible for the advanced degree exemption, starting today April 1, 2021. Only filings that are based on a valid, selected registration will be accepted by USCIS for FY 2022, and only for beneficiaries named in the selected registration notice.

Those who were not selected must wait to apply again next year.

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Great news for our loyal followers! The time has come – today the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that premium processing services will resume.

Beginning June 1, 2020, premium processing services for all Form I-129 Petition for Nonimmigrant Workers will be resumed.

What about other types of petitions?

Premium processing service will be resume for other types of petitions in phases as follows:

-Beginning June 8th USCIS will accept premium processing requests for:

  • H-1B petitions filed before June 8 that are pending adjudication and are cap-exempt (for example, petitions filed by petitioners that are cap-exempt and petitions filed for beneficiaries previously counted toward the numerical allocations).
  • All other Form I-129 petitions (non H-1B petitions) for nonimmigrant classifications eligible for premium processing filed before June 8 that are pending adjudication.

-Beginning June 15th USCIS will resume premium processing for:

  • H-1B petitions requesting premium processing where Form I-907 was filed concurrently with Form I-129 (or request for a petition filed on or after June 8) and the beneficiary is exempt from the cap because:
    • The employer is cap-exempt or because the beneficiary will be employed at a qualifying cap-exempt institution, entity or organization (such as an institution of higher education, a nonprofit research organization or a governmental research organization); or
    • The beneficiary is cap-exempt based on a Conrad/IGA waiver under INA section 214(l).

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