USCIS policy memo provides guidelines on how USCIS processes requests to expedite the adjudication of Forms I-601, Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility, filed by individuals outside of the U.S.
To read memo please check attached document.
The OFLC PERM, H-2A, H-2B, Prevailing Wage, and LCA program disclosure data files for Quarter 2 of FY 2012 are now available in the Comma-Separated Value (CSV) file format. Click here to access the disclosure files and corresponding record layouts. Historical OFLC program disclosure files for prior fiscal years are available on our Foreign Labor Certification Data Center website at www.flcdatacenter.com.
After leaving previous employer, and got the position with new employer. I was looking for good lawyer or firm, I talked and met with many top immigration lawyer firm, no one convinced me. When I talked to Rajiv S. Khanna, I was convinced because I could feel the truth inside him, and the knowledge he has. He and his great team took my case, prepared, and filed successfully. Mathew, Mark,William, and Rajiv were really helpfull. There is true diversity in Rajiv S. Khanna law firm. They all work like a fmily. Mark was really helpfull during whole process from AC21 to getting the GC, include filing AP, and EAD. He always promptly response, alwasys keep posted, and file all documents timely. Any legal question Mathew promptly respond, and resolved. I love them. I would highly recommend Rajiv S. Khanna Law firm because of their dedication to each of the case and experties in immigration matters. Thank you!! Rasheed
Number 46
Volume IX
Washington, D.C.
A. STATUTORY NUMBERS
Please check the attachment to determine "Recent Employment Preference Cut-Off Dates".
WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 for fiscal year (FY) 2013. Yesterday, June 11, 2012, was the final receipt date for new H-1B specialty occupation petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2013.
In accordance with PERM regulations at 20 CFR §656.17(f)(1) and the preamble (69 FR 77326, 77348 (Dec. 27, 2004)), as with any advertisement, the employer's name must appear on the job order placed with the SWA. SWA procedures that allow for applicants to view the employer name only after applying for the position do not satisfy the requirement that the employer's name be in the job order. If the SWA's job placement process results in the name of the employer not being visible to job seekers, the employer must include its name in the body of the job order so that the employer's name is visible to potential applicants when viewing the job order.
June 11, 2012
In the preamble to the PERM regulations (69 FR 77326, 77331 (Dec. 27, 2004)), the Department of Labor indicated that SWA job order "[r]eferrals will be handled the same way they are handled for other job orders, which may vary from state to state." However, the PERM regulations at 20 CFR §656.10(c)(8) also state that the employer must attest that "[t]he job opportunity has been and is clearly open to any U.S. worker." Therefore, the employer must receive all resumes submitted to the SWA through a posted job order. To ensure that the SWA refers to it all U.S. workers, the employer must indicate to the SWA, pursuant to each SWA's specific process, that it wants to receive all resumes and all types of referrals (e.g., qualified, best qualified, minimally qualified, etc.). This instruction to the SWA ensures that the employer is accepting and reviewing the resumes of all U.S. workers and determining which of the applicants meets the minimum qualifications for the job opportunity, as well as gives all U.S. workers access to such jobs.
June 11, 2012
Under the PERM regulations at 20 CFR §656.17(e)(1)(i)(A) and §656.17(e)(2)(i), the employer's job order for both professional and nonprofessional occupations must be placed with the SWA serving the area of intended employment for a period of 30 days. Moreover, during this 30-day period, the job order must be accessible and visible to the public at large, i.e., the entire pool of job seekers potentially qualified for the position. Therefore, where a SWA has a special exemption of making job orders accessible to only certain groups, such as veterans, the employer must still ensure that the job order is accessible and/or visible to the public for the full required period of 30 days. The employer can accomplish this by instructing the SWA to post the job for the required 30-day time period only after the days during which the SWA holds the job order open only to the select group.
For example: If the job order start date is Monday, May 7, 2012, the end date must be Wednesday, June 6, 2012, to meet the 30-day job order posting requirement. However, if the SWA places a hold on the job order, so that it is only accessible and/or visible to a certain group, from Monday, May 7, 2012, until Wednesday, May 9, 2012, then the employer must ask the SWA to keep the job order open, and accessible and/or visible to the public at large, from Thursday, May 10, 2012 until Saturday, June 9, 2012, to comply with the 30-day requirement.
June 11, 2012
Experience:
Waited about 30 mins, got called ...
Questions asked: 1. Who wrote declaration of independence, 2. which state bordering Mexico, 3. Name three states part of original 13 states, 4. Who is Pres of U.S, 5. Which party he belongs, 6. Name the two political parties in US.
Asked to read: There are 50 states in US, and then write the same sentence.
It was easy as most others have said. I arrived 25 minutes early, went through security and signed in at the front desk. The large waiting room had about 20 other people waiting. I was called about 12 minutes after my appointment time of 1:30. One middle-aged lady that came out of the process seems to have failed her civics exam, based on the conversation the IO had with her and her son. My advice to non-native English speakers who are having trouble understanding the civics questions - don't go through it alone, have someone study with you and explain them to you in your language.
My son had his interview today at 9:00 am at St. Louis DO. We came at 8:35 am, and he was called in at about 8:45-8:50 am, earlier than expected. I was waiting for him in the waiting room. In about just 10 minutes he came out smiling. The interview went very well, nothing difficult at all, pretty standard. 6 civic questions, reading and writing something at the 1-st grade level. The IO asked basic questions on his application, asked for documents - DL, passports, GC, and his Selective Service card.
Had mine and spouse's interview yesterday at the Chicago office -
We both had the same interview timing - 11:05am
Wife was called first (about 30 min late) and she was done in about 15min. Was very easy - Standard 6 civics questions, english read and write. Went over the application. The officer told her that she would get the oath date letter after my interview is done with so that we are both placed together for the oath. They don't give the oath on the same day as the interview in Chicago.
I passed my interview today. It started exactly on time (1:30 pm). The officer (middle-aged lady) was very nice and friendly. I liked that when I came 30' prior the interview, she called out another person, but also called my name and said, "You would be the next". When my turn came, she let me in, asked to raise my hand and swear to say truth. Then the test came. Reading: How many Senators are there in the U.S.? Writing: There are one hundred Senators in the U.S.
American history & Civics questions were the following.
1) What is the name of the National Anthem?
DHS media advisory announce a reciprocal agreement for each nation’s trusted traveler programs at Washington Dulles International Airport.
Please check the attached "Media Advisory for Trusted Traveler Program".
The Office of Foreign Labor Certification has posted five factsheets containing the FY 2012 selected statistics for the
Mr Khanna and his team have been outstanding in their service. Fran, Anna helped me a lot with my case, this is second year they helped and guided me in LCA filing and cleared many clarification regarding the 6 years of H-1B period. The SLA from Fran is very excellent in email response as well as answering the immigration questions. I would like to thank Rajiv and his team for such a great work and would strongly recommend their services to anyone. Best Wishes!
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent this bulletin at 06/14/2012 11:27 AM EDT
The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in San Francisco experienced a fire today and, as a result of the disruption to service, some applicants may be unable to get to the San Francisco Field Office for their scheduled interviews. USCIS will automatically reschedule interviews for those affected.
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
June 13, 2012
DHS press release announcing that effective immediately, certain young people who were brought to U.S. as young children, do not present a risk to public safety & meet other criteria will be considered for relief from removal or from entering into removal proceedings.
DHS FAQs on the deferred action process for certain young people who were brought to the U.S. as young children, including information on who is eligible to receive deferred action, how the directive will be implemented, eligibility for employment authorization, and more.
Rose Garden
2:09 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. This morning, Secretary Napolitano announced new actions my administration will take to mend our nation’s immigration policy, to make it more fair, more efficient, and more just -- specifically for certain young people sometimes called “Dreamers.”
Hello, everyone. This is Rajiv S. Khanna for the Law Offices of Rajiv S. Khanna, P.C, immigration.com. We are discussing with some of our clients the issue of what to do now that the H-1 quota has expired. What are my options?
Well we can look at the options two ways or three ways. Actually, there are several variables.
Variable one: Can I continue to work? The answer is yes, if you have the STEM extension option. In this case, we are working towards 17 months of the STEM extension anyway.
What is the STEM extension?
Some people who are F-1 OPT can get further 17 months of OPT if they are in the discipline of Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM). Any one of these disciplines, if you are in STEM, you can get a further 17-month extension.
So can you continue to work? One way is STEM extension. If that is not an option, some people go back to school and they get something called CPT (Curricular Practical Training). That is an option that I don’t advise. Why? Because this option has come under the gun. USCIS has become very suspicious of it because the regulations say, if somebody wants to get a CPT by going back to school in the first semester itself, then the curricular practical training, the CPT, must be integrally related to the education. In other words, you cannot really get a good education without that CPT and because of the “misuse” or the perceived misuse that government sees, they have come down hard upon universities that have been giving CPTs too liberally. So CPT has become a suspect option, unless you are going to join a university that is well-recognized, a good university, or a good school that is fully accredited. And I actually have a video on our website, our blog, on how to see if the school is accredited. (http://www.immigration.com/media/eb2-green-card/accreditation-distance-…)
So 17-month STEM extension, CPT not recommended, but possible. You can, of course, go back to school and stay until you are ready to file for the H-1 again. If you have an option, for example, if your spouse is on H-1, you can convert to H-4, or L-2 if your spouse is on L-1. That would be another option. One option is to go back to your home country if the work can be outsourced to you. It is perfectly legal for you to work for your employer from your home country and they can pay you either as an independent contractor or on a project basis or even as an employee. You can work out the details with your CPAs, but that is certainly a possibility.
Now the last option that I see is there is a very fine distinction between what jobs are quota and what jobs are quota-exempt. The interesting thing is the way that the government looks at it is even though the employer is a quota employer, but if the job is quota-exempt, you are not subject to the quota. Let’s take an example of a quota-exempt job. If you are working for a university in a research position or any academic position, you are quota-exempt. But what if your employer places you to work in a university research facility? Because the job is quota-exempt, that H-1 will be quota-exempt, even though your employer is a quota employer. So look for a job that is quota-exempt. That’s another possibility.
Those are the options as I see them.
Question--How do they go about applying for a STEM extension?
The way it works is the company that you are working for has to agree to be e-verify compliant. That means they open an account with the government office for being an e-verify company. You sign a bunch of contracts with them and you say every person that we hire, we will run them through the e-verify program, which is basically a way of ensuring that they have proper authorization to work in the US. For larger companies, I would probably be reluctant to go e-verify, especially if you are a multi side company that has its own problems, so we need to assess that very carefully. For smaller companies and one-side companies, it’s much easier to go through e-verify. It’s not a problem. E-verify basically involves agreeing to go through verification of every employee you hire from now on. You have put them on the e-verify database.
To get the STEM extension, they don’t have to go back to school. They notify the school office, and the school issues new paperwork based on their existing paperwork. They don’t have to go back to school.
If you already have your STEM extension, after that expires, you could take classes for CPT, work from your home country, try to convert to a spousal visa, find a quota-exempt job, or wait for next year’s quota.
One more question that people have asked me. Is it okay for me to volunteer? What if I want to work, but I don’t want to get paid for it? I don’t want to lose all this experience that I have.
The answer is that that’s risky. However, the way it works is, if the person volunteers, let’s assume they’re on H-4. They work, but they neither expect to be paid nor do they have any benefits coming to them. Health insurance, for example. Then, it’s okay to volunteer.
The Department of State recently posted its July Visa Bulletin indicating that the cut-off date for EB-2 Worldwide, Mexico and the Philippines has regressed to Jan. 1, 2009. The June cut-off date for EB-2 Worldwide, Mexico and the Philippines is "C" for "current." This means that a cut-off date is not specified for these categories through the end of the month.
Deferred Action for the "Dreamers" -- Youthful Illegal Aliens
17th June 2012 at 07:20 PM
I have received a lot of questions from people on the new policy announced by the White House on 15 June, 2012, what they refer to as “Reform for the Dreamers.” Essentially, what is being addressed is those people who are below the age of 30, came into the US before they were 16, and have been here for five years. So the idea is the people who are illegally here and were here at a relatively young age, we want to protect.
And the policy as announced by the President is motivated by the fact that these folks have come here, they’ve studied hard, they’ve worked hard, and they came not because they wanted to come, but because they came as a child, and they had no control over where they were.
Let me make one thing very clear at the outset. This program does nothing for people who are legal residents or immigrants or temporary residents of the United States. It does nothing if you are legally in the USA and your children are here legally in the USA, it does nothing for you. Stop listening if that's what you are interested in. But if you want to know more about the law and how it is shaping up, I will tell you more as best as I can based upon our knowledge as it exists today.
So the idea here was that you want to protect those people who came here without their own volition, without their own desire. They are here because their parents are here. And the President said that he wanted to step in and take care of these folks because this is not a new effort. It was started as early as six years ago. I know it because we were very actively involved at one point in this process as well.
The President talks about six years ago, the unlikely trio John McCain, Ted Kennedy, and President Bush had come together to champion this so called “Dream Act,” but, unfortunately, according to the President, the Republicans blocked it in the Senate. So the idea here is that the President wanted to step in and do whatever he could without involvement of Congress. So remember, Congress passes laws, whereas the Executive Branch of government, which is the President and all the agencies underneath the President, including DHS, USCIS, etc., all of them implement and execute the laws. When you are implementing something or executing something, remember that your authority is limited. You cannot create new rights. You cannot create more laws. Because of that, the President made it clear and USCIS made it clear that we are not creating any permanent entitlement.
What we are going to do is this: if you meet the criteria, we will give you temporary residence in USA for two years. It carries no other rights except the right to work. The details would be implemented within 60 days, so let me get to that document. This is probably the most informative document to date. These are the Frequently Asked Questions that the government has put out.
The duration of the deferred action is for a period of two years, subject to renewal.
What does deferred action basically mean? It means, “We will not deport you, we will not remove you, and we will not send you outside USA.” That does not create any new rights. It does not make you a permanent resident. It does not make you even a legal non-immigrant, like an H-4 or E-2 visa holder. It does not give you anything substantive. It basically gives you the right not to be deported until government changes its mind, and they can change their mind right away. There is nothing in law that says they cannot change their mind. The use of prosecutorial discretion confers no substantive right.
It does not make you legal in the USA. They want to begin implementing the process within sixty days of June 15, and the rights are available immediately, but they will start orderly implementation within 60 days.
Then they talk about who is eligible. The individual must have come to the USA under the age of sixteen; must have been here five years before the date of this memorandum (which is June 15th, 2012); must currently be in school or have graduated from high school or have obtained a general education development certificate (GED) or be an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the US; and must have not been convicted of felony offense. No felony. If there is even one felony, you can't qualify for this. Also, you can’t be convicted of a significant misdemeanor offense, and they define what significant misdemeanor offense means. Also, you can’t be convicted of multiple misdemeanor offenses or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety. So if you have a criminal background or have a history of being a threat to national or public safety, you will have a problem. And you must not be above the age of thirty.
Then they talk about what is deferred action. They define it. It basically means, “We will not send you out.” It does not mean whatever unlawful presence you have already accrued gets washed away. What does that mean? In a very basic manner, once your I-94 expires or you enter US without inspection, if you come through the border without being inspected in other words (for example, a coyote brought you to USA), the fact that you are getting deferred action now does not mean all your past problems are washed away. So be very careful. Do not think that, because unlawful presence of one year will bar you from getting any kind of status in USA for ten years unless you qualify for a very narrowly tailored waiver. It is very difficult to get a waiver on something like that. Just because you are getting a differed action now does not mean that all the past “sins” and infractions have been washed away. They are still there. Those violations are not going to go away.
You will receive employment authorization and remember that deferred action can be terminated anytime. Then they talk about how they are going to implement them. Individuals who are not in removal proceedings (meaning you are in the immigration court right now), some people who are in removal proceedings will be treated differently. One classification is individuals who are not in removal proceedings or who have already been ordered to be removed (meaning their proceedings are over and the judge has said, “Okay. You need to be removed. You need to be sent away.”) Those people will be treated little bit differently. Individuals who are still in proceedings will be treated differently. So they have these various methodologies that they are going to come out with. We still do not know all the details yet, but they will be treating these people differently, but all of these folks will have the right to get their work authorization and deferred action as long as they meet those four to five criteria that I have mentioned earlier.
Another thing that the government mentioned was that the people who they have already identified, they are automatically giving them deferred action without having to apply. So basically the government is acting upon its own accord. There is a lot of information in this Frequently Asked Questions document. I will attach that document to this little conversation that I have here.
Then they talk about what kind of documentation you need to show that you came to USA before the age of 16, that you have resided here for five years, and that you were physically present in the US as of June 15, 2012. They said provide us financial records, medical records, school records, employment records, military records, but that is not the only thing. You can give anything that you think tends to prove your presence in the USA that will help you.
So now this where they talk about what they consider a significant misdemeanor offense. First of all, a felony is anything that is punishable by more than one year in prison, according to this definition. So anything that is punishable by more than one year in prison, if you have been convicted of that, you do not qualify. You also can’t have a significant misdemeanor and they define it here. A significant misdemeanor is a federal, state, or local criminal offense punishable by no more than one year of imprisonment and, even if no imprisonment-- that is the key point-- even if there is no imprisonment-- but involves violence, threat, assault, domestic violence, sexual abuse or exploitation, burglary, larceny, fraud, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, obstruction of justice, bribery, or unlawful flight.
So there is a whole list of things that, if you have been convicted of, even if they were a misdemeanor, you will not qualify. And if you have three misdemeanors, you will not qualify at all. And they talk about what threat to public safety is. It is, for example, gang membership, participation in criminal activities, or participation in activities that threaten the Unites States.
What if my case is not approved? Can I ask for an appeal? The answer is no. You cannot get an appeal, but they will set up a public procedure where you can ask the supervisor of the case officer who decided your case to look at the case again and decide.
Do my dependents or immediate relatives get benefit? No. This is only for you, the person who qualifies.
Can I travel outside United States? The answer is, “We have not decided that yet.” I will be very careful with that, because, if you are subject to unlawful presence and you have been here over a year under unlawful presence, travel outside USA could bar you for ten years.
I hope this gives you some information on what you need to do and what this is all about. Feel free to post a message here if something is not clear.
Good luck, folks.
I must say that having Mr. Khanna as my attorney was a great experience. He filed my EB1 I-140 and the case got approved without an RFE. Before filing I had several conversations with Mr. Khanna. He was always available to talk and would give advice, backing it up with rules and regulations. He knows the requirements well and is great with clients...making sure your concerns are addressed at any point in the process and that the process goes as it should. I will recommend him whole heartedly.