USCIS Announces Citizenship and Assimilation Grant Opportunities
Fee-funded grants will support citizenship preparation services for lawful permanent residents
Fee-funded grants will support citizenship preparation services for lawful permanent residents
On July 24, 2018, President Trump signed the Northern Mariana Islands U.S. Workforce Act of 2018 (the Workforce Act), extending the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker program (the CW-1 program) through 2029 and increasing the CW-1 cap for fiscal year (FY) 2019.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) announced Tuesday the results of a two-phase nationwide operation in which I-9 audit notices were served to more than 5,200 businesses around the country since January.
I had my H1 visa extension stamping appointment on Feb 21, 2018. Initially it was put under Administrative Processing and later on May 23rd my petition was send back for revocation. As per the inquiry with embassy they told me that "Based on the documents you submitted and the information elicited in your interview with a consular officer, you were determined ineligible for an H1B work visa. Your petition was returned to the Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) on May 24. Currently H1 status website shows KCC received the application on June 8. Once KCC receives a petition, it is returned to the approving USCIS office for review and possible revocation. At this point, USCIS can either reaffirm the petition or issue a notice of intent to revoke it. What are the options available with me now?
Note: This is a verbatim transcript of the referenced audio/video media delivered as oral communication, and, therefore, may not conform to written grammatical or syntactical form.
USCIS announced on July 30, 2018, that it has returned all fiscal year 2019 H-1B cap-subject petitions that were not selected in the computer-generated random selection process.
Policy Memorandum 602-0050.1, Updated Guidance for the Referral of Cases and Issuances of Notices to Appear (NTAs) in Cases Involving Inadmissible and Deportable Aliens, was issued on June 28, 2018 and instructed USCIS components to create or update operational guidance on NTAs and Referrals to ICE (RTIs), to be issued within 30 days of the Policy Memorandum. Issuance of the operational guidance is pending; therefore the implementation of PM 602-0050.1 is postponed until the operation
I have I-140 and I-485 pending. H-1B ended on May 2018 and applied for extension which is pending.
Spouse entered US under parole status and is valid till December 2018, H4 visa has expired in May 2018
Can spouse apply for H-4 extension after approval of H-1B extension? If so can it be done from USA or have to travel abroad for H-4 visa stamping?
Watch the Video on this FAQ: Applying for H-4 status while on parole
Video Transcript
Note: This is a verbatim transcript of the referenced audio/video media delivered as oral communication, and, therefore, may not conform to written grammatical or syntactical form.
Our offices will be closed for Christmas break from December 24, 2019 through January 1, 2020. The offices will reopen on Thursday, January 2, 2020. If you are a client, in case of an urgent matter, please leave a message at (202 )909-1110, ext. 1001. Our team members will also regularly check their own emails and messages. If you need to speak with someone urgently please leave a message and you will hear back from them.
Happy Holidays to all of you from our team!
I got my I-140 approved in about 6 months under EB1 category. I am very impressed with the sincere and efficient services provided by Mr. Rajiv Khanna and Ms. Diane Lombardo. Thanks a lot
Many Many Thanks to Aruna & Subha...for all the earnest replies & Support for our 100's and 1000's of queries !!!!
Greatly appreciate your help!!
I got my PERM certified. Excellent job , Richa & Mohana. Thank you very much for your prompt responses, quick call backs, and providing me very helpful information throughout the PERM process
I would like to thank Mr. Vijay Durgam and Ms. Pramita for the effort they put in to get my labor approved. Great work !
What would you expect for what you pay? Quality? Thats right. If you want quality of work, I would say Rajiv Khanna's law office is the right place.
You wont believe it until you experience or meet a person who experienced.
Special Thanks to Mr.Khanna, Richa and Mohana. Richa and Mohana, you have done a great job. I saw dedication and sincerity in your work.
These people are incredibly great.
Thank you again.
I am pleased with the outcome of my PERM application. Thanks to Vijay Durgam
Good job by my manager Vijay Durgam and Pramita. They were always prompt in getting back to me with answers/comments. They worked diligently in getting all the documentation done in the rightway and helped my case.
Thank you very much Vijay and Pramita.
My sincere thanks for all the wonderful work that you all did and "five star" quality service you provided.My labor is cleard from BPC; Special thanks to Amrita, Now I look forwrad for my
GC to get done; Thanks again
I'm writing to inform your firm of a successful 7th year H1 petition approval. My 7th year H1 was perhaps a little tricky because my H1 expired on the 365th day of LC pendency. However, the team at the NIV section was able to recover vacation days and also advised me on responding to an RFE on my case. I attribute the successful outcome of the petition on the sound advice and experience of your team. Overall, my experience with your firm has been very positive. Responses to even the simplest of queries are always professional and timely. Thanks for your efforts (Ursula, Anna)
I got my PERM approval. Excellent Job! Richa,Mohana Thanks for the that.
Hi Richa and Mohana,
Thanks for your help. My labor got approved in a month.
Appreciate your work.
I would like to thank the labor Certification team for my case: Richa, Mohana and Lakshmi for their timely help and support. My labor got approved on April 7th 2006 and thank you all for this great news. I appreciate your team work and help at all the times.
Just wanted to add, the day Mohana gave me this news, just an hour ago I recommended this website as 'Attorney for H1/GC' to someone. I am so Glad that I picked you as my attorney.
Thanks once again!!!
I have a delayed birth registration certificate issued by municipal authority with place of birth: hospital name, city. My passport just got the city name as place of birth. Do I need to submit secondary evidence when I file I-485 because of delayed registration?
In many countries especially India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, it can happen that the birth occurred much earlier but the registration of the birth was done much later. Remember it was not the law that you have to register every birth, it was a voluntary action. So if a child was born in 1980 or 1970 you registered the birth in 2015 because that’s when you needed to get the green card. Now those are not acceptable registration. What you should do in those cases is get a letter from the municipal corporation, or local government, that says before this was registered there was no other registration. Like a non-availability before the registration. Along with that get two affidavits, from your parents or other people, who were alive when you were born, that will take care of it.
Secondary evidence becomes acceptable only when you can’t get non-availability from the municipal corporation and that’s a much more complicated area. I think you should get the non-availability.
I am holding a Canadian student visa, now is my second year in Canada. I was issued a B-1/B-2 visa last year. Then I was charged of Theft under $5000 this June, and the charge goes withdrawn-diversion in July. When I went to US Embassy for visa renewal this October, the officer asked my about the charge, and I answered honestly that I did it on purpose and I really regret my behavior. He rejected my class B visa, gave me a pink paper, which says the denial is under Section 214(b), which says that alien doesn't show strong ties with home country. After I carefully searched online resources, I found that my admission of the offence will make me inadmissible to enter US, as a moral turpitude. But the officer didn't say that I need waiver to enter US.
1. So my question is:
does this mean that their denial is not based on the Crime of Moral Turpitude, but I really didn't show strong ties? Or they just don't reject me explicitly with the real reason? I will marry a Canadian citizen next year so it would be a strong tie then. Or do you suggest me to apply for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility like I-106 whatsoever?
2. Another question is:
I got an offer of a big well-known US company for summer internship, and I need to apply for J1 Visa. How will the charge affect me J-1 application?
First of all, not every crime leads to serious consequences in USA. There are two kinds of crimes. Misdemeanours which are small crimes, punishment is typically less than a year and the other felonies where the punishment is a year or more, those are more serious crimes. In immigration law we look if the crime is of moral turpitude or not. If a crime is not of moral turpitude, I believe it has absolutely no consequences, unless it is a drug offence. Moral turpitude simply means that you are doing something, which reflects on your poor moral character.
The next step: is it misdemeanour or felony. If it is a felony, we almost certainly have a problem. It could lead to deportation, non-admission, and then you will need a waiver of some kind. Waivers are usually available for green card only for family based reasons. You cannot get a waiver just because you want to come to USA. So in an employment based case, and you have a felony conviction for moral turpitude crime you will not be able to come to USA.
Remember the rules are different for deportation, what is called removal and admission. So when you try to enter you could be subject to different laws, sometimes you think you are in USA and I am safe, because your lawyer told you are not going to be deported, but when you come back they won’t let you in and now you have to go back, the reason is the rules for admission are different. This is a very complex area of the law.
Question: What if I am convicted of misdemeanour involving moral turpitude?
First, how many misdemeanour convictions do you have. If you have multiple convictions, then that itself is ground for deportation removal as well as no admission. But if you have only one offence, a misdemeanour, and the actual punishment imposed was less than six months you are covered by something called petty offence exception. Which says we forgive you entirely as long as it was just a single misdemeanour.
The rules under immigration law and the rules under criminal law for conviction are very different. Sometimes you have a criminal defence counsel. He will tell you this is not a conviction. It may not be a conviction under criminal law but is a conviction under immigration law. Any kind of plea bargain you set up with the government where you are admitting directly that you committed the crime would be considered in all probability to be a conviction. So be careful when you discuss this with your immigration lawyer as well as criminal counsel.
Question: What is 212(d)(3) waiver?
Say if you got the kind of conviction where you cannot come back we can let you in on a temporary basis for a non-immigrant visa. 212(d)(3) applies only to non-immigrant visa and the situation has been a little uncertain, especially for Canadians. I think there is a certain timeframe where you can get it or for one visit you can get it.
Question: I am holding a Canadian student visa, now is my second year in Canada. I was issued a B-1/B-2 visa last year. Then I was charged of Theft under $5000 this June, and the charge goes withdrawn-diversion in July.
Normally diversion means some kind of a plea bargaining has been made.
Question: When I went to US Embassy for visa renewal this October, the officer asked my about the charge, and I answered honestly that I did it on purpose and I really regret my behaviour. He rejected my class B visa, gave me a pink paper, which says the denial is under Section 214(b), which says that alien doesn't show strong ties with home country. After I carefully searched online resources, I found that my admission of the offence will make me inadmissible to enter US, as a moral turpitude. But the officer didn't say that I need waiver to enter US. So does this mean that their denial is not based on the Crime of Moral Turpitude, but I really didn't show strong ties?
That is correct because they denied it based upon their inability to verify that you will come back.
Question: I will marry a Canadian citizen next year so it would be a strong tie then. Or do you suggest me to apply for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility like I-106 whatsoever?
Definitely that will make it a much stronger tie and you can try again. You might be covered by a petty offence exception.
Question: I got an offer of a big well-known US company for summer internship, and I need to apply for J1 Visa. How will the charge affect me J-1 application?
If you are covered by petty offence exception, then even J-1 is not affected but the 214(b) denial, affects your J-1. If you had a 214(b) denial, it will bar your entry for J-1, F-1, B-1, B-2. It will not bar your entry for H-1 or L-1. I suspect the officer realised you were covered by petty offence exception.
What is I-485 Pre-adjudicate/Pre-adjudication?
How soon must I join my future green card employer?
Situation -
I have my EB2 India PD as March, 2008. I applied for I-485 in Oct 2014 (Future based GC application). My PD is not current as of yet but I have got an RFE for expired medical form I-693 ONLY in Oct, 2015.
Question: What is I-485 Pre-adjudicate/Pre-adjudication?
You are at the last step of the green card process. Your priority dates became current, you filed the I-485, then the priority dates slipped back two years, at this time USCIS has two choices. They can either put your file in their filing cabinet and forget about the case, until the priority dates become current again. Or they can sit down and can say look we have time, let’s go over the case, adjudicate all the details, decide that the case is completely qualified to receive a green card, so we pre-adjudicate, decide that the person is entitled to get the green card. Make a note on the file. If you need some documents, we send an RFE get the documents so when the priority dates become current again all we have to do is issue the green card. That’s pre-adjudicate.
Question: How soon must I join my future green card employer?
There is really no rule of thumb. But within a commercially reasonable period of time. Three to four months maybe, after approval of the green card, you should join the future green card employer. In your particular case that appears to be a requirement sometimes it may not be a requirement because of AC21 and remember AC21 portability is available even in future employer green card cases.
I had my green card filed through my employer and got the opportunity to work directly with Bharathi Gajjala, one of the attorneys/Case manager at the Rajiv S. Khanna law firm and I couldn't have asked for a better person to handle my case. She was always available to take my calls and answer any of the multiple questions I had in great detail, and never failed to return my calls and emails whenever I was not able to reach her. From EB2 case to having a green card in hand was super fast since Bharathi was always on top of my case. Mr. Rajiv was super accommodating with any queries that was routed thru Bharathi. My process went by really fast and I attribute that to the diligent work that Bharathi performed. I won't hesitate to recommend my friends and colleagues to this Rajiv S. Khanna law firm for any of the services they provide. NOW I HAVE A GC IN HAND :) Can't be more happy.