Last week, in a press release, USCIS announced a number of significant enhancements to the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program. Note that these are proposed changes which are expected to be published on June 17th for public comment and possible implementation at a later date. About the EB-5 Program In 1990, the U.S. Congress created the [...]
After the significant forward movement in many of the family-based preference categories in the fall, the government has received a significant number of I-130 family-based immigrant petitions in a number of preference categories. In an effort to process these pending I-130 petition in a more efficient manner, in November 2010, USCIS transferred approximately 36,000 I-130 [...]
USCIS released the weekly FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of June 11, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 22,200 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (an increase of only 1,400 over a two-week period). Similarly, as of June 11, there were 9,400 H-1B visas filed subject to [...]
The Texas Service Center (TSC) recently launched a pilot program pursuant to which employment-based I-485 applicants can facilitate TSC processes relating to specific stages of the employment-based adjustment of status. A special email address has been designated for this purpose: [email protected]. Procedure and Process After sending an email pursuant to this pilot program, applicants will [...]
USCIS released the weekly FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of May 6, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 18,000 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (a weekly increase of 1,500). Similarly, as of May 6, there were 7,600 H-1B visas filed subject to the U.S. Masters cap [...]
USCIS released the second “official” FY2011 information on the numbers of cap-subject H-1Bs filed since April 1. As of April 15, 2010, USCIS has received approximately 13,600 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap (a weekly increase of only 100). Similarly, as of April 15, there were 5,800 H-1B visas filed subject to the U.S. [...]
The Vermont Service Center (VSC) of USCIS has released the first "semi-official" Fiscal Year 2011 H-1B numbers. As of close of business on Monday, April 5th, VSC has received a total of 9,525 cap-subject H-1B petitions. Of those, 6,791 were "regular H-1B cap" and 2,734 were "master's cap" petitions. Note that this information is for [...]
The Texas Service Center (TSC), in a meeting with AILA, has provided some helpful updates regarding processing of petitions filed with TSC. Processing Times TSC has confirmed that the pending application reports posted on the USCIS status check website are generally correct. I-485s filed prior to March 26, 2009 that are still pending should be [...]
In November of last year and in February of this year, we wrote about a temporary change USCIS made with respect to H-1B petitions filed without certified Labor Condition Applications (LCAs). The reason for this temporary change in policy was to accommodate LCAs which have been delayed past the 7-day LCA processing window. Pursuant to [...]
During a recent AILA conference, the Vermont Service Center (VSC) Director Dan Renaud told the audience that the performance review structure for adjudicating officers has recently changed. Pursuant to the new performance review structure, officers get credit for issuance of Requests for Evidence (RFES), in addition to issuing approvals and denials, under the previous performance [...]