U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced the launch of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Immigration Records SysTem (FIRST), which will eventually allow users to submit, manage, and receive FOIA requests entirely online. Before this change, USCIS only accepted FOIA requests by mail, fax, and email, and requesters typically received their documents on a compact disc by mail.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing a rule to end a program that allows certain foreign entrepreneurs to be considered for parole to temporarily come to the United States to develop and build start-up businesses here, known as the International Entrepreneur Rule (IE Final Rule). 

Due to a processing error on May 4, 2018, USCIS mailed a number of biometric services appointment notices with incorrect Application Support Center (ASC) locations to petitioners who filed Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence. 

The affected notices have a date of 05/04/2018 and a case type of “I-751 – PETITION TO REMOVE CONDITIONS ON RESIDENCE.” The notices tell petitioners to appear for their biometric services appointments starting the week of May 21, 2018, at ASCs located out of the normal geographic area.

USCIS updated the following USCIS form(s):

Update to Form I-129CW, Petition for a CNMI-Only Nonimmigrant Transitional Worker; New Edition Dated 05/09/1805/23/2018 12:00 AM EDT For more information, please visit  Forms Updates page.

USCIS is issuing policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual regarding the Child Status Protection Act. The Policy Alert is available here:

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that current beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under Nepal’s designation who want to maintain their status through the effective termination date of June 24, 2019, must re-register between May 22, 2018, and July 23, 2018.

USCIS reminds F-1 students on Optional Practical Training (OPT) that transferring to another school or beginning study at another educational level (for example, beginning a master’s program after completing a bachelor’s degree) automatically terminates their OPT as well as their corresponding employment authorization document (EAD). 

EB-5 Tenant Occupancy

USCIS is revising guidance on immigrant investor (EB-5) cases involving tenant occupancy. Previously, the USCIS Policy Manual allowed for tenant-occupancy methodologies used by some petitioners to show their capital created, or will create, 10 indirect jobs. USCIS has determined that these methodologies do not provide reasonable predictions of indirect job creation and are no longer considered reasonable methodologies to support economically or statistically valid forecasting tools.