USCIS Updates Rejection Criteria for Form I-129
USCIS will reject petitions lacking petitioner’s or applicant’s primary U.S. office address
USCIS will reject petitions lacking petitioner’s or applicant’s primary U.S. office address
USCIS will implement a national strategy to decrease differences in processing times based on location for Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, and Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status.
WASHINGTON — This week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will celebrate the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the country by welcoming almost 7,500 new citizens in nearly 110 naturalization ceremonies between July 1 and July 5. The naturalization ceremonies will be held in venues across the country, and include several notable ceremonies.
Are you seeking to adjust your status and become a U.S. permanent resident under a family-sponsored or employment-based preference immigrant visa? If you have not yet had a relative or employer file an immigrant visa petition on your behalf, please learn more about the Adjustment of Status Filing Process.
On July 1, 2019, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) published the latest prevailing wage data from the Occupational Employment Survey as generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for use July 2019-June 2020. Updates include:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is revising the current naturalization test with improvements to ensure it continues to serve as an accurate measure of a naturalization applicant’s civics knowledge and that it reflects best practices in adult education assessments.
A message sent by the acting director to USCIS asylum officers regarding asylum and internal relocation guidance.
On July 3, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) implemented its new Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) system for the H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker program. As of July 3, employers who file an H-2B application for temporary labor certification in FLAG will only receive a temporary labor certification electronically.
USCIS recently updated the following USCIS form(s):
Important Notice: Effective April 1, 2018, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi will no longer process IR5, IR1, IR2, CR1, or CR2 visas. The U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai will be your interview location if you are in process for an IR5 ( parent of a U.S. citizen), IR1/CR1 visa (spouse of a U.S. citizen) or IR2/CR2 visa (unmarried minor child of a U.S. citizen), AND your interview is scheduled on or after April 1, 2018. Your letter from the National Visa Center will specify the location of your interview, along with further details about interview preparation.
Starting April 2, USCIS will destroy Permanent Resident Cards, Employment Authorization Cards and Travel Documents returned as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service after 60 business days if USCIS is not contacted by the document’s intended recipient to provide the correct address.
USCIS has reached the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa cap for fiscal year 2019. USCIS has also received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the 20,000 visa U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap.
USCIS has received petitions for more than the number of visas available for fiscal year (FY) 2019 for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program. The cap for CW-1 visas for FY 2019 is 4,999.
On April 11, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process to select enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally-mandated cap and the U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year (FY) 2019.
USCIS recently updated the following USCIS form(s):
USCIS sometimes transfers cases between the five service centers in order to balance workload and promote timely processing.
USCIS on April 16, 2018 transferred some of the Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver from the Nebraska Service Center to the Potomac Service Center.
USCIS recently updated the following form.
E-Verify, the free system that allows employers to confirm the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States, will be unavailable
LOS ANGELES – This week, two immigration fraud perpetrators were sentenced to prison due to the considerable efforts of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Los Angeles Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) unit.