On Tuesday, July 20th, AILA filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) seeking the release of records concerning agency policies and procedures for the H-1B visa program. AILA had attempted to obtain these documents under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which had been denied [...]
We have previously written extensively about the January 2010 Neufeld Memorandum and the recent lawsuit challenging its validity. We wanted to provide some recent updates on the case as it is of great interest to many of our clients and readers. On June 25, 2010, the government filed a Memorandum in Opposition to the complaint. [...]
USCIS released the weekly FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of July 16, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 25,300 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of only 500 over the week). Similarly, as of July 16, there were 11,000 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
Our office handles a fair amount of appeals with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) and we often receive inquiries not only about about the procedural aspects of an AAO appeal but also about the current processing times for AAO cases. About the AAO The AAO is an appeals office which handles appeals of certain decisions [...]
USCIS released the weekly FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of July 9, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 24,800 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of only 600 over the week). Similarly, as of July 9, there were 10,600 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]
The August 2010 Visa Bulletin was just released by the State Department. The eleventh visa bulletin for the fiscal year 2010 brings some substantial forward movement in the EB-2 India category which had not moved for the past few months. Also, there is some gradual forward across all EB-3 employment-based categories. Summary of the August [...]
The Department of Labor (“DOL”) has provided an update on the current PERM processing dates as of May 31, 2010. They are as follows: Regular processing: August 2009. DOL is processing PERM applications with priority dates in August of 2009. This suggests that there is certain forward movement for regular PERM processing. Accordingly, regular PERM [...]
In a recent announcement, USCIS, as part of their annual budget review and due to lower-than-estimated fee revenue collection, proposed a fee increase that will amount to an average increase of 10% across the board. A formal proposal has been published in the Federal Register and there is a 45-day comment period. Some of [...]
USCIS released the weekly FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of July 2, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 24,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of only 700 over the week). Similarly, as of July 2, there were 10,400 H-1B visas filed subject to the [...]