On 10 March 2020, a Washington DC Federal Court overturned the USCIS highly restrictive
standards applied to the consulting industry. This decision has a major positive impact on the IT
industry.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer held that the USCIS must not administer justice through random
memoranda and must, if it wishes to change the regulations, do so through a formal process. In
fact, the USCIS seems to have illegally targeted the IT industry (“special treatment”):
In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it adopted measures to assist applicants and petitioners who are responding to certain Requests for Evidence (RFE) and Notices of Intent to Deny (NOID). This alert clarifies that this flexibility also applies to certain Notices of Intent to Revoke (NOIR) and Notices of Intent to Terminate (NOIT) regional investment centers, as well as certain filing date requirements for Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced that it will reuse previously submitted biometrics in order to process valid Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, extension requests due to the temporary closure of Application Support Centers (ASC) to the public in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This announcement is consistent with existing USCIS authorities regarding the agency’s ability to reuse previously submitted biometrics.
USCIS has received enough electronic registrations during the initial period to reach the FY 2021 H-1B numerical allocations (H-1B cap). USCIS randomly selected from among the registrations properly submitted. USCIS intends to notify petitioners with selected registrations no later than March 31, 2020, that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration.
Registrants’ online accounts will now show one of the following statuses for each registration (that is, for each beneficiary registered):
In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it is adopting a measure to assist applicants and petitioners who are responding to requests for evidence (RFEs) and notices of intent to deny (NOIDs) dated between March 1 and May 1, 2020.
Alert: While premium processing is suspended, petitioners may submit a request to expedite their petition if it meets the criteria on the Expedite Criteria webpage. It is the petitioner’s responsibility to demonstrate that they meet at least one of the expedite criteria. All expedite requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and requests granted at the discretion of USCIS office leadership.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 National Emergency announced by President Trump on March 13, 2020, USCIS will accept all benefit forms and documents with reproduced original signatures, including the Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, for submissions dated March 21, 2020, and beyond.
Discussion Topics, Thursday, 5 March 2020
FAQ: Denial of a tourist/visitors/B visa 214(b) ||citizenship/naturalization trips of more than six months abroad || Time of stay and definition of a manager/executive employee for L-1A and EB-1C ||Transfer of H-1B while extension is pending ||What to do after an H-1B (or L-1) denial? ||Work duration and damages contracts under H-1B ||I do not have my final degree/diploma certificate/what should I do?
OTHER: Scheduling green card interview in a third country consulate || multiple H-4 extensions simultaneously ||AR-11 change of address filing, etc.,
Discussion Topics, Thursday, 19 March 2020
FAQ: EB-1C - What if my priority date does not become current before my L1A expiry? Should I file an H1B for safety? If I do, will I get moved from EB1 to EB2 ? Should my wife try for H1B ? Is there any maximum number of tries for H1B? If neither me nor my wife manage to get a H1B visa in the next 3 years, is it ok to exit the country and come back when EB1 priority date becomes current ? What visa will I come back with? || Loss of job/laid off during Covid/coronavirus times
OTHER: Moving from a cap exempt H-1B, extension etc. || Apply for an H-1B extension while another MTR is pending || Rejoining old employer after withdrawn I-140 || 60 days grace period for H-1B || Travel during EAD/AP renewal || H-1B transfer or AC21?
WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has re-designated Somalia for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and has extended the existing TPS designation for Somalia from Sept. 18, 2012 through March 17, 2014, allowing eligible nationals of Somalia to register or re-register for TPS in accordance with the Federal Register notice.
According to DOL updates as of 4/2/2012, they are working on PERM application filed in the following months:
Analyst Reviews: January 2012
Audits: September 2011
Reconsideration Requests to the CO: March 2011
Gov’t Error Reconsiderations: Current
Appointment: 9:40am
Arrived around 9:15am, there were about 50people in the waiting area, checked in with the receptionist, and sat down for my interview. 30mins, 45mins, 60mins, 90MINS went by still no one called my name. Finally someone around 11am called me, so walked all the way down to the other end of the hallway.
After the formalities, I was asked if I had brought anything that I hadn't already submitted, I handed him proof of selective service registration.
I was asked the following questions:
1. What is one promise you make when you become a USC?
Just wanted to share my timeline and some lessons learned. The whole process took a little over 6 months and now I'm a citizen of the United States of America.
Final Timeline:
06/06/11: Mailed N-400 (Dallas lock box) Priority Mail from NoVA
06/07/11: USCIS received date
06/23/11: NOA received, FP scheduled for 07/20/11
07/20/11: FP done - walk-in at scheduled time
08/19/11: YL received
11/14/11: Online change of status to testing and interview
11/16/11: IL received & Status changed twice
12/21/11: Interview
12/23/11: Oath ceremony
Alexandria Bay, N.Y. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Field Operations today announced the opening of the Cape Vincent port of entry. Cape Vincent is a seasonal port and will be open from May 1 until Oct. 31. The CBP hours of operation are 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.
You can use Immigration.Com "Advanced Search" feature to locate information more intelligently than just through a "word match," a literal search. Note that we are FOREVER working to get this better and better. So, each time you visit, you may find new items and improvement.
Using "Advanced Search" on Immigration.Com
Hello, everyone. This is Rajiv S. Khanna for immigration.com, the Law Offices of Rajiv S. Khanna, P.C.
I wanted to show you the “Advanced Search” feature on immigration.com. I enjoy it because it does focus your search considerably. We have a lot of information. It can be hard to parse through the information.
Every day we do something new and try to get better and better and better. I still have a lot of work to do on the website. The team has a lot of work to do on the website. But we have enough information at least to get you going and keep you in the right direction.
Let me start with the “Advanced Search” feature.
If you press on the “Search” button with nothing in it, just search. It brings you to this button, where you have “Advanced Search.” So you go into “Advanced Search.” The top portion is “Search,” but the bottom portion is “Advanced Search.” Click on “Advanced Search.”
You can search by putting in a search term which contains any of the words, contains a specific phrase, for example, “Adjustment of Status”--that phrase should be there; or containing none of the words. Some words you may not want.
I particularly like the fact that you can search in particular categories. These are categories, which are like tags. When you have tags, like a tag cloud. So these categories that are much more specific. And then, on top of that, you have types. There are content types. For example, let’s say I want to know if there’s a Community Story—you know, people’s experience. We tried to data mine some of these from our own forums.
If there’s a particular Community Story for citizenship. Find and click on the category, “Citizenship” under “Citizenship and Naturalization.” I know what specific story we’re looking for. Let’s put in the word “Detroit.” So I want somebody’s Community Story of what happened during Citizenship/Naturalization in Detroit.
And, after that, when I hit the “Advanced Search” button, I’m led right to the story, “Interview in Detroit.” This is somebody’s story about what happened in Detroit.
Another neat thing that we have is that, if you look at the bottom, we have these tags dimmed. The reason they are dimmed is because I’m not quite happy with the way we have cross-referenced information. But this is just the beginning. I’ve been doing this for the last several years. I’m still not happy, and we’re going to do more, a lot more, making information easily accessible to all of you.
So, let’s look at this. If I click on one of these tags, it will actually bring up the content, all the content, that has been tagged with that particular tag. So, if you look at this, all the particular content that has been tagged. If I look at any content. Let’s say, for example, if I go to “H-1.” I click on “Work Visa,” I go to “H Visa,” and I go to “H Visas for Nurses,” for example. If there’s any tags at the bottom of this and there should be. There’s not going to be a lot of information, but whatever information that we have will be all there for you. Every piece of information that was tagged with that came up.
So, I think this should help you find your way around immigration.com. And I love doing this, and I thank you for being here.
To read the CRS report on US Immigration Policy on Permanent Admissions, please check the attachment.
We have recently received an EB2 approval for a Physical Therapist. EB2 classification has become especially important now that EB3 category cases for severely backlogged countries are delayed so much. The good news with PT’s is that they do not have to go through the PERM process. But the bad news is that USCIS seems to question whether or not truly a Master’s degree or BS+5 years level job is being offered. The I-140 approval took 1.5 months in regular processing.
On April 26, 2012, the Temporary Non-agricultural Employment of H-2B Aliens in the United States, Final Rule, 77 FR 10038, Feb. 21, 2012 was preliminarily enjoined by the U.S. District Court for Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division in Bayou Lawn & Landscape Services, et al. v. Hilda L. Solis, et al., 12-cv-00183-RV-CJK, and was never implemented.