What is BALCA? The Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) is an administrative body which reviews mainly denials of PERM labor certification cases but it also handles a number of Department of Labor review cases. With respect to PERM denials, BALCA is the appellate body which reviews appeals for PERM denials. BALCA currently has [...]
Effective May 28, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (”DHS”) began collecting biometric digital fingerprints from non-U.S. citizens departing the U.S. We wrote last April about the possibility of exit fingerprinting and it seems that DHS is underway to test the system and to implement it throughout other points of departure from the U.S. within [...]
The USCIS has released an update to the projected processing times for naturalization petitions. Based on updated projections, USCIS estimates that the naturalization process would take an average of 10-12 months by the end of September 2008 (compared with the estimated 16-18 months projections announced last year). The increase in processing time was mainly due to [...]