Our office handles a substantial number of ETA Form 9089 – Permanent Labor Certification (“PERM”) applications and we are closely monitoring the current PERM processing times not only for the benefit of our clients but also to be able to predict longer-term trends in PERM processing. The Department of Labor (“DOL”) has provided an update [...]
The Department of State will open the DV-2015 Diversity Visa (a.k.a. “green card”) lottery on Tuesday, October 1, 2013. The entries for this year’s lottery must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 1, 2013, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Saturday, November 2, 2013. Applicants may access [...]
The U.S. State Department has just released the October 2013 Visa Bulletin which is the first Visa Bulletin for the FY2014 fiscal year. The major headline in the upcoming month’s Visa Bulletin is that despite the fact that this is the first Visa Bulletin for the new fiscal year, there is not much movement for [...]
The Department of State ("DOS") routinely publishes the denial rate for B-1/B-2 visitor visas for each fiscal year (October 1 to September 30). The fiscal year (FY) 2012 data has been published and we share it with our clients and readers. It is interesting to note the countries with the highest and lowest denial rates. [...]
The Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") Office of Inspector General ("OIG") has released a report on the L-1 visa program after a thorough analysis of the program, its weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. The report makes a number of recommendations to DHS on how to strengthen the L-1 visa program by making more robust review [...]
Recently published cases appear to demonstrate a distinct trend at the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (“OCAHO”)* in drastically reducing ICE's penalty assessments, particularly when the employer is a small business and acted in good faith. One commonality we see in decisions is the consistent cite to, "Penalties approaching the maximum permissible should [...]