Deferred Enforced Departure Extended for Eligible Liberians in U.S.
Release Date: September 26, 2014
USCIS Automatically Extends Validity of Employment Authorization Documents
Release Date: September 26, 2014
USCIS Automatically Extends Validity of Employment Authorization Documents
Release Date: September 29, 2014
DHS will allow 13,999 CW-1 nonimmigrants for FY 2015
WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will allow up to 13,999 nonimmigrants for fiscal year (FY) 2015 for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program. DHS published the notice in today’s Federal Register.
USCIS Federal Register Notice of Filing Procedures for Employment Authorization and Automatic Extension of Existing EAD for Liberians Eligible for DED.
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.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is now accepting applications for the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, a competitive grant opportunity for organizations that prepare permanent residents for naturalization and promote civic integration through increased knowledge of English, U.S. history and civics.
USCIS has received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated H-2B cap for
Discussed: FAQ Dual intent visas and filing green Card in multiple categories simultaneously, CSPA, Denial of F-1 student visa, FAQ: H-1 Receiving payments for past work/bonus (1099), change of location H-1B amendment, AC21 green card portability, naturalization, J-1 waiver, H-4 EAD: travel, fingerprinting, reentry permit
SUBSCRIBE to Immigration.com YouTube Channel for further updates.
USCIS would like to inform stakeholders about the proper action to take if cap-subject filings for fiscal year 2016 H-1B petitions are mishandled by delivery services. If a petitioner filed an FY16 H-1B cap petition in a timely manner, but received notification from the delivery service that suggests that there may be a delay or damage to the package, the petitioner may file a second H-1B petition with a new fee payment and the following:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has reached the congressionally mandated H-1B cap for fiscal year (FY) 2016. USCIS has also received more than the limit of 20,000 H-1B petitions filed under the U.S. advanced degree exemption.
USCIS will use a computer-generated process, also known as the lottery, to randomly select the petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 visas for the general category and 20,000 for the advanced degree exemption.
| Form Number |
Case Type |
Time |
|---|---|---|
| I-129CW | CNMI-Only Nonimmigrant Transitional Worker | 6 months or less |
|
I-129F |
Petition for Fiancée |
6 months or less |
|
I-129 H1B |
Nonimmigrant Specialty Occupation Worker |
This bulletin summarizes the availability of immigrant numbers during May. Consular officers are required to report to the Department of State documentarily qualified applicants for numerically limited visas; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security reports applicants for adjustment of status. This bulletin summarizes the availability of immigrant numbers during May.
Discussed: FAQ on Requirements for Extension of H-1 beyond 6 years; applying for visa from third country (TCN); after getting green card, how soon can I change jobs; birth certificate problems; H-4 EAD COS pending; File green card while on H-4; H-4 EAD - Can we own our business? Do we have to run own payroll? And Applying for H-1 visa; US options for Canadian; applying H-1 through multiple employers; EB-5 for ; dentist; affidavit of support; EB-2 with 10 years of experience; EB-5 buy existing business; error on EAD; ; E-2 visa; priority date carry over; L-1A org chart, etc.
SUBSCRIBE to Immigration.com YouTube Channel for further updates.
PERM Processing Times (as of 4/16/2015)
|
Processing Queue |
Priority Dates |
|
|
Month |
Year |
|
|
Analyst Review |
October |
2014 |
On April 15, 2015, the federal district court in the Northern District of Florida issued an order effectively permitting the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to continue issuing temporary labor certifications under the H-2B visa program through May 15, 2015. As a result, DOL will continue to process temporary labor certification applications under its 2008 H-2B regulations through May 15, 2015.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director León Rodríguez and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed signed a letter of agreement today to begin a partnership to strengthen citizenship education and awareness efforts. The agreement will remain in effect until December 2017.
A lawsuit has been filed against the H-4 EAD regulations. I am attaching the complaint with my comments. Follow my tweets for updates. If you want to discuss this matter, join our next free community conference call on Thursday. Details are here.
The attached document contains my preliminary comments, including:
Beginning Friday, May 1, 2015 USCIS will accept only the new version (edition date: 10/23/14) of Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker. The edition date is printed at the bottom of every page. We will reject previous editions of this form if you submit them on or after May 1.
USCIS issued the new version in January and have continued to accept old versions during the transition period, which ends Thursday, April 30.
In response to recent court decisions that have created significant uncertainty around the H-2B temporary foreign nonagricultural worker program, the U.S. Departments of Labor and Homeland Security today announced an interim final rule to reinstate and make improvements to the program and a final rule to establish the prevailing wage methodology for that program.
Radio show April 28, 2015:
Question1: My spouse is on H-1 visa and his former employer filed I-140 and then my spouse changed his employment to another employer and transferred his H-1, the I-140 has not been revoked by former employer. So my H-4 is with the former employer valid for three years, and current employer for my spouse has not filed H-1 for me. Is the H-4 from the former employer valid for file EAD or do I have to apply for H-4 again and what would be the documents that would I need to file H-4 EAD ?
Answer: Every time the H-1 holder changes job, the H-4 holder does not need to re -apply for H-4. Your H-4 is good. You don't have to have different H-4 for the employer. Of course, every time the H-1 holders change their job they have apply for new H-1 but as long as you never violated status and H-1 holder has never violated status that H-4 continued to be good from job to job to job, you are good.
Your second question was what document need to file H-4 EAD?
Answer is we don't know yet. When the instructions for the new form I- 765 come out along with the form I-765 they will tell you exactly what you need to submit . I suspect probably marriage certificate along with evidence of couple of last pay stubs of your husband's, copy of H-1 receipt and a copy of your H-4 receipt or approval or visa stamped. That typically they should be looking for. But I don't have any basis for saying, this is just my guess.
Question 2: I got my H-1B petition approved last year, it got extended as well. I have never used any of these visas to work in the U.S. though I have travelled few times to U.S. but on B-1 visa for meetings with the customers. So the question is when do I become exempt from the H-1 quota?
Answer : In your situation when you are outside the USA, you become exempt from the H-1 quota when you get your visa stamped. So I think USCIS interpretation of law is faulty and incorrect, because in my view as soon as H-1 is approved you should be exempt from the quota but USCIS has taken the position that unless you get the visa stamped from the consulate we will not consider you exempt if you are outside the USA. So it appears to me that you should be exempt from the quota.
Question 3. I just got my citizenship and now wants to apply for my younger sister, who is alone in India. I lost my parents few years back so she is all alone but she is above 18. Is there any way I as a brother and only relationship here in United States apply for her Green card in such a manner that she can be here in United States as soon as possible.
Answer: Siblings Green Card is like planting mango trees, in India we used to have saying that mango trees takes so long to bring fruit that one generation plants the tree and the second generation eats the mangoes. It's kind of that for sibling cases, it takes 13 years for the Green Card to come through and there is no way we can expedite that Green Card. However leaving the option of Green Card filing you could look at the things like sponsoring her for her student visa if she wants to study or if she is an professional or intent to be professional soon she can come on H-1 or L-1 visa, like other people do. f you have money you can gift her half a million or million dollar depending upon what kind of money you have that you can invest in her. So Investment visa could be an option but there is no way you can expedite sibling green Card.