On July 1, 2014, U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began using a new secure blue ink for many of its secure stamps.
Do we need to send an LCA for H-1B1 Singapore quota?
Yes, you do. E-3 visas for Australia and H-1B1 for Singapore and Chile, all require an LCA.
What happens if I travel without visa or advance parole while my I-485 is pending? I want to go to India.
That would lead to abandonment (sort of like cancellation of I-485). You will have to enter USA under some legal status (like H-4/H-1/L-2/L-1) and then file I-485 again when the priority dates becomes current.
The USCIS Electronic Immigration System (USCIS ELIS) is a streamlined online account-based system that allows customers to view their applications, petitions or requests, receive electronic notification of decisions, and receive real-time case status updates.
USCIS ELIS allows applicants to:
DV 2016 Program: Online registration for the DV 2016 Program will begin on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and will conclude on Monday, November 3, 2014 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4).
USCIS Automatically Extends Validity of Employment Authorization Documents
If I have 3 years of college from the UK and 7 years of professional experience, can they give me E-3 visa? The employer has given me a job offer in USA. All degree and work is in IT systems
If the degree and at least three years of professional experience are in the same field, E-3 should be available.
I have my I-140 approved(in my 6th year of H-1). But my employer is not handing the approval notice to me. I have both Receipt Number and my Labor number (starting with A.). I have filed FOIA to get copy of I-140 approval notice. I wanted to know
1) Can I transfer my H-1 to another employer by just giving I-140 receipt number to them?
2) Can my new employer use this number to file my GC and keeping the PD based on this number?
As long as your I-140 is not revoked BEFORE approval of H-1 extension/transfer, the receipt should be enough to get an extension with another employer. The priority date transfer is "automatic" and done at the USCIS level; that should not even need a receipt.
I am working for company X as a full time employee on H-1B visa. They have filed my green card and my I-140 has been improved. Company Y to hire me as a part time on W2 but I need to work as and when required. So sometime I have to work 20-3- hours in a week and sometime, I will not have work for months. I can work from home too during off hours. Company Y is going to file concurrent H-1B. I have few questions regarding my visa:
<br>
1) Will it affect my current full time H-1B with Company X<br>
2) Will it affect my green card process<br>
3) Is it ok if I don't work for months for company Y without affecting Company Y's H-1B<br>
4) If I get new I-94 through company Y, will it affect my current status?<br>
5) Will company X know about H-1B filed by Company Y?
This is not likely to work. Filing a concurrent H-1 is perfectly acceptable in this case and it does not affect your green card process, nor your current H-1. I dont know of any way an H-1 can be approved for an intermittent employment.
DHS will allow 13,999 CW-1 nonimmigrants for FY 2015
USCIS Federal Register Notice of Filing Procedures for Employment Authorization and Automatic Extension of Existing EAD for Liberians Eligible for DED.
I am reporting here comments from and my responses to a member of our community, "Julissa," regarding whether or how she could apply for a green card herself if she has a Master's degree. Do note, if a set of new immigration laws gets passed, all this could change.
Immigration.com Client Testimonial - Dr. JoAnne Woodard , Director of Sallie B. Howard School for the Arts & Education
Good morning, my name is JoAnne Woodard; I am the Founder and Executive Director of the Sallie B. House School for the Arts and Education in Wilson North Carolina for the past seventeen years. I am happy to give a reference and recommendation for the “Law Offices of Rajiv S. Khanna”.
We have been working with him for the past three years and the work that he has done for us has been Excellent. In the past, we have had a large number of immigrant teachers here at Sallie B. Howard, the entire time we have been in operation, large numbers. And we have used various attorney's over the years some good, some not so good, some very knowledgeable, some not so very knowledgeable and that resulted in complications and problems time to time, though we were able to get through those.
One of our staff members brought Rajiv's business to our attention. He actually had done some research and found a great record, well regarded, highly regarded in the industry and consultant some times for the government. It was really a Great Resume for the office. Even though he was in Washington D.C. and we are in North Carolina we took the trip up there to meet with him and to discuss what the service would be for us.
What we typically do are H-1B visas and green card petitions. And so we started out with him and found his services to be well beyond our expectations. More than that, for me I found him to be just stunningly brilliant, when it comes to the immigration laws and processes. We have had over the time some pretty difficult cases that the teacher had given upon on and we all said “wow “this is the shot in the dark to see if we can clean this part up or clear this up and get the right result. But Rajiv's folks were very confident and they always tell you exactly what you can expect. They don't promise something they can’t deliver and they were able to help us in every single case for past three years.
So, I highly recommend his company, they are people of integrity and they tell you exactly what to expect and we were pleased with their service.
There are several characteristics of the service that we get from this company that I want to point out. One is that timeliness and the responsiveness to our applications and to the conversations if we have to consult, then they get right back to us but more than that their meticulousness in which they do their work.
Everything is checked and double checked and nothing is submitted with errors and mistakes as we have experienced that many times in the past with other attorney's. I don't know if they are not as careful as they need to be sometimes or what happens but in the case of Rajiv's team they check and double check, they are careful. I don't think we ever had any application which returned or denied because of some error, even a telephone number, everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be and that means everything in this particular business when you are working with Federal government.
WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas will help USCIS celebrate our nation’s 237th birthday as the agency welcomes more than 7,800 new citizens during more than 100 naturalization ceremonies across the country and overseas from July 1 to July 5.
Statement from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano:
Immigration Reform 2013 Status
I wanted to give you quick overview of where we are as of today in the immigration reform effort. As you know the comprehensive immigration bill labeled S.744 was passed by Senate, and the voting in the Senate reflected what kind of support there is generally amongst the two parties (Senate and House of Republicans (House)) for this reform effort.
The composition of the Senate is currently 54 Democrats, one Independent and 45 Republicans. A total of 100 Senators. When the bill was voted upon, it was passed 68 to32. All Democrats voted for it, one Independent voted for it, but only 13 Republicans in the Senate voted for the bill. So less than one third (of Republicans voted for passage). This means that Democrats overwhelmingly support the reform, the immigration bill S. 744. But Republicans are not by any means, or in any way shape or form overwhelmingly or even in a majority in favor of the reform as it was proposed.
So, now bill has been passed the Senate. 68 to 32. It’s a good margin, but the problem situation in the House is totally different. The politics of the situation is that the Latino, Hispanic vote is becoming in proportion much larger. It is exponentially expanding. The Republicans leaders rightly believe that they must curry favor or must be considered a friend to the Hispanic industry of immigration. A lot of Republicans also believe that they have no incentive to pass an amnesty bill. One thing I would say that as far as reform of the legal immigration is concerned I don't think we have too much controversy about that. Both parties agreed that certain things need to be done, like we need skilled immigration professional. Special provisions for PhDs, physicians, people who have Master’s degrees, people with STEM degrees. We need all that and some way to remove the backlog, which is horrendous for many countries. For instance, India has nine to ten years of backlog waiting for a Green Card. So there is consensus among both parties on legal immigration. It is the amnesty part, the enforcement and border protection, which are the key areas of disagreement.
If you look on the Republicans composition, only 24 out of 234 House Republicans represent districts that have any appreciable numbers of Hispanic voters, more than 25 percent. So, only 24 out of 234. Where is the incentive for them to pass an immigration bill with amnesty? In fact, many of the Republicans come from districts that actually oppose amnesty. Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) was speaking in Lynchburg, Virginia yesterday and passions were really running high against the amnesty.
So in the House even if Democrats all get together, the problem is how do we move the reform forward. House is controlled by Republicans, 234 to 201. House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) has said that he won't bring the Senate bill up for a vote if he does not have the support of a majority of the House Republicans (known as Hastert Rule). He says, I will not even allow this Senate bill to be voted on in the House unless a majority of House Republicans support the bill. And if we look at the cross-section of the voting that occurred in Senate, less than one third of Republicans support. It’s not good sign to get that kind of support.
So, it appears at least at this stage that the Senate bill will have very tough time going through the House as today’s politics stand.
What are the options?
Four obvious options, the fourth option is very unlikely, which is House leadership brings up the the Senate bill up for vote.
There are four options, but again it’s important to understand what happens if there are two separate bills addressing some of the same areas or all of the same areas, and there are controversies among those bills, then it goes into something called “conference”. When we get into conference, the idea is representatives from Senate and the representative from House will meet together and they will iron out their differences. A lot of times if you want to effect the Senate bill, all you have to do is pass something in the House and then it goes into the conference where you can work on one bill or the other, agree, negotiate and then take the negotiated version back to both chambers for voting Senate and House. So, option number one is House passes its own bill or bills. Actually, here we are talking about comprehensive, some kind of comprehensive set of bills, then it goes for conference. Option two, the House passes any bill, it does not have to be comprehensive bill, something that effects or contradicts the Senate version again we go into conference.
Another interesting option and normally this would not be a really good option but here may be worth considering. I doubt it, but I am not a political pundit just a lawyer. House can actually vote on the Senate bill without the House Speaker’s support. If 218 house members vote for a discharge petition, which means we don’t care what the Speaker says, we are going to vote on this bill anyway. That means House Democrats need 17 votes from Republicans to get a discharge petition and vote on the Senate bill.
So, what are the four options again:
1. Comprehensive bill by House;
2. Any bill by House;
3. Discharge petition; and
4. House leadership brings up the Senate bill to vote which is unlikely.
Let us talk about a comprehensive bill. House had its own “Gang of Eight” people working on a comprehensive immigration bill. Their focus was a lot more on enforcement, on border security, etc. But then one of the Congressman, Raul Labrador (R-ID), quit. The now “Gang of Seven” still might produce a comprehensive House bill. If such a bill is produced, we will get into conference, negotiate and then finally vote on the negotiated bill. So number one is Comprehensive bill.
Number two is any bill. As I mentioned Rep. Goodlatte from Virginia, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has produced a series of immigration related bills. House Democrats do not like it because it’s a piecemeal approach and there are all kinds of very extreme positions taken by Bob Goodlatte that House Democrats feel are inimical or enemies of immigration reform. But one of the ways, this series of bills, could be just a device to force matters into conference. If any of these bills pass in the Republican controlled House, then we will all get into conference anyway, where we can negotiate based upon the Senate version of the bill and make changes to it and then go back with the compromise. So the passage of a series of extreme bills could be a way to force matter into conference.
Option three is a discharge petition. Discharge petition normally its considered to be very bad form. If a Republican votes for a discharge petition it’s disloyal, it’s considered to be bad form. But here, Speaker Boehner himself and many other leaders, who are perhaps more in tune with the needs of the time, have said that they want immigration reform. But it looks like there is very strong opposition from certain elements within the Republican Party, which is basically muting some of these more moderate or more aware. I would not call them moderate but more aware members of the Republican Party. So normally a Republican will not vote for a discharge petition, but here who knows. Maybe this is the choice.
The key date to watch is 10th July. On 10th July there will be conference, the House Republican conference, and they meet in the basement of the Capitol to decide how they want to move forward. So that's when we will hear about the final strategy. Once again, right now we don’t know which way House is going to go, but on 10th July we should have better idea of the direction.
I live in Bulgaria and I have a Master's Degree in Veterinary Medicine. My question is can I get a EB-2 visa if I work as a veterinary assistant in the USA ?
You can qualify for EB2 only if two conditions are met:
1. Your degree is equivalent to a U.S. advanced degree (a credentials evaluation service needs to assess that under proper standards); and
2. The job requires an advanced degree or equivalent experience.
1. Certification of Decisions to the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO)
Purpose
This policy memorandum (PM) and accompanying revisions to the Adjudicator’s Field Manual (AFM) guide officers on the proper use of the decision
certification mechanism described in 8CFR 103.4. This PM revises Subchapters 3.5, 10.7, 10.8, 10.14 and 10.18 of the AFM ;AFM Update AD13 -08.
Scope
Unless specifically exempted herein, this PM applies to and binds all U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services(USCIS)employees
Under Phase II, DHS and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will expand the exchange of biographic entry data collected on third-country nationals (those who are neither citizens of Canada nor of the United States), permanent residents of Canada who are not U.S. citizens, and lawful permanent residents of the United States who are not Canadian citizens, to all automated land ports of entry at the common border, including all major land border crossings.
I have stamped visa from Company A and I entered into USA from that company itself. Now my visa has been transferred to Company B. I am going back to India to bring my family. Will I have to go for stamping again? Will it make any difference at POE if Company A revoked/cancelled my H1B?
If you came in and actually worked for company A for a while, and you have never been out of status, you should not require a new visa stamp.
Rajiv was great to work with, he analyzed my case in detail and gave relevant advice on the next steps and possibilities regarding my green card. I would recommend him to my friends. Ravi