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Visa Bulletin for August 2011.

Fact Sheet and QA

 Introduction

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State announced on, July 13, 2011, that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signed a bilateral adoptions agreement that will strengthen procedural safeguards in adoptions between our countries.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the availability of new data reports covering agency performance in a broad range of data  and operational areas. The reports, prepared at the request of agency stakeholders, advance agency efforts to enhance transparency and improve customer service.   

Please check the attachment.

Fact Sheet

Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
July 13, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today announced an agreement on the issuance of nonimmigrant business, tourist, private and humanitarian visas to the Russian Federation, and for business and tourist visas to the United States, as well as short-term official travel visas to both counties in keeping with the joint statement issued during the meeting of President Obama and President Medvedev in Deauville, France on May 26, 2011.

ICE announces changes to the Form I-515A process, and alerting SEVIS users of that as of 7/15/11. SEVP will terminate the SEVIS record of any F or M nonimmigrant who does not comply with the I-515A directive within the 30-day response period.

Diversity Visa lottery DV-2012 entrants can check the status of their DV-2012 Lottery entry starting on or about 7/15/11 at the DOS E-DV website.

Entrant Status Check.

USCIS notes from the stakeholder meeting on religious workers, providing an outline of changes resulting from the Religious Worker Final Rule that was published on 11/26/08.

Please check the attachment.

USCIS Publishes Report On Service-wide Receipts And Approvals Of All Form Types For FY2011.

Please check the attachment to see the report.

Correcting a mistake on the Form I-140

NSC would allow for a change of the I-140 classification to correct a clerical error as long as NSC is notified of the requested change to the box selected on the I-140. This has to be done before the case is adjudicated. However, NSC will not allow a change in the classification in response to an RFE but the issue will be considered.

EB3 skilled worker  

I-914 (T) and I-918 (U) Visa Statistics

This report contains information on the Victims of Trafficking (T visa) applications and the Victims of Crime (U visa) petitions.  The number of receipts, approvals, denials, and pending cases are displayed by fiscal year and by office.

As stated by "Indian Express" :

A proposal that will hit Indian IT companies the most, US software giant Microsoft Corporation has suggested a whopping fee of USD 10,000 (over Rs 5 lakh) for a new category of H-1B visas and USD 15,000 (more than Rs 7.5 lakh) for permanent residency or Green card.

This could raise a huge USD5 billion over a decade, it said.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has extended Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Next week, the Department of Homeland Security will publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing this decision.

The Federal Register notice will provide additional guidance on:

The Department, in anticipation of the enactment of H.J.Res 117, which prohibits the Department from expending funds to implement the 2011 H-2B Wage Rule for the duration of that Continuing Resolution, will publish in the Federal Register a Final Rule extending the effective date of the 2011 Wage Rule to March 27, 2013.The Final Rule is posted on the Federal Register's web site September 28, 2012 and it is accessible here.

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification has posted updated program factsheets containing the FY 2012 selected statistics for the:

Please check the attachment. 

• What is the background of the Accreditation of English Language Training Programs Act and when was it passed?

• *USCIS wants to notify customers and stakeholders that some work that USCIS performs at the four USCIS service centers (Vermont, Nebraska, Texas and California) will be transferred to a Field Office or the National Benefits Center (NBC) in order to balance the overall workload with processing capacity. The chart below summarizes these changes.