Author: Carly Schacknies

Last week, the Trump administration released proposals for changes that would affect the H-1B program, H-4 employment authorization, and F-1 practical training. The plans appeared in the Administration’s semi-annual regulatory agenda, published by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Specifically, the proposals addressed the following: H-4 ...

On Thursday, December 14, USCIS announced that it would begin accepting applications under the International Entrepreneur Rule (IER). As previously reported, the implementation of the program was to be delayed until March 2018, to allow the current administration time to review and potentially eliminate the program. However, a ...

On Tuesday, December 12, the House Judiciary Committee approved an immigration document mailing bill, which aims to reduce the misplacement of sensitive immigration information and documentation. If signed into law, the bill would allow recipients to pay a fee in order to receive immigration documentation ...

UK’s Latest Immigration Changes End 2017 on a High Note. Since August 2017, the UK has been incrementally rolling out new immigration laws and policies in the wake of Brexit which has had a significant impact on EU migration. Most recently, on December 7, 2017, the Court of ...

Bloomberg Law – Staff Reports – Bloomberg Law | December 19, 2017 By Laura D. Francis, Bloomberg Law   President Donald Trump has made overhauling the immigration system a priority, and his steps in that direction have kept immigration lawyers on their toes for the bulk of the past ...

Oral Arguments Heard on Third Travel Ban. The 4th Circuit heard oral arguments on December 8 for Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project. The argument focused on to what extent the President has the right to rely on the grounds of protecting the national interest to restrict ...

Ireland Introduces New Immigration Registration Cards. With effect from December 11, 2017, the ‘GNIB card’ has been replaced by the new Irish Residence Permit (IRP). The IRP has exactly the same legal status as the GNIB card. The same rules and responsibilities apply. For example, the holder is still required ...

As 2017 comes to a close, we reflect back on the immigration changes of the past 12 months. Three travel bans, the suspension of premium processing, repeal of DACA, and interviews for all employment-based green card applications, to name just a few. While immigration rules ...

While Congress has until March 2018 to address the status of DACA beneficiaries, commonly referred to as Dreamers, the issue has entered the ongoing budget debate. Democrats do not want to increase border spending, while Republicans have stated that it is a prerequisite for protecting Dreamers. Congress has ...

The Supreme Court of the United States has allowed the third and latest version of the Travel Ban to take effect as of Monday, December 4, 2017, while legal challenges to its constitutionality continue in lower federal courts. This travel ban imposes travel restrictions on most citizens from Iran, Libya, ...

As an update to our earlier story, beginning on Monday, December 11, 2017, US Consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok will resume processing of nonimmigrant visas on a significantly reduced capacity, as the Russian government’s order to reduce US consulate and embassy personnel remains in place. As a result, ...

Argentina: Waiver of Reciprocity Fee for Canadians. Effective January 1, 2018, Argentina will waive the visa reciprocity fee for Canadian citizens entering the country for tourism or business purposes. Following the cancellation of the reciprocity fees for US citizens in 2016 and Australians in 2017, the latest fee ...

April 1: The highly anticipated date when US employers may file new H-1B visa petitions with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in the hopes of bolstering their workforce with qualified, foreign talent to fulfill a variety of professional positions. Every year, USCIS issues up to 85,000 H-1B visas ...

Breaking News: SCOTUS Allows Travel Ban 3.0 to Take Effect News: Today, the Supreme Court rolled back the preliminary injunction forestalling the implementation of Travel Ban 3.0. The order, which was unsigned, appears to have been backed by 7 of the 9 justices, all except Justices Ginsburg and ...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has increased its collaboration with state and local authorities to report arrestees suspected of residing illegally to be turned over to federal agents. The 287(g) program permits ICE to delegate its enforcement authority to properly trained officers in local agencies, allowing them to ...

The Department of State has issued a federal register notice announcing its intention to continue extreme vettingby expanding the scope of questions asked of some visa applicants during the non-immigrant visa application process. This proposed information collection will go in depth into the applicants’ personal and professional history. ...

Last week, we gave you tips on drafting great EVLs for PERM Based I-140 applications. Today, we address another nerve-wracking part of the Green Card process, PERM audits. Nationally, the Department of Labor (DOL) audits about 1 in 3 PERM applications, most by random selection. An audit does ...

Update – Europe: Entry-Exit System (EES) Approved, Implementation Slated for 2020. As an update to our earlier story, last week the European Council adopted the proposed regulations establishing an Entry-Exist System (EES) for EU member countries. Now that the European Council has adopted the regulation, the proposal is now headed ...

Today, the U.S. State Department announced its final decision for the 2018 revisions of Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System. The SOC system was designed to reflect the current occupational composition in the U.S. by classifying all occupations in the economy to facilitate comparisons across occupational data. In ...

The Department of Homeland Security is currently awaiting a response from the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. following a grant of 180 days to review the H-4 Employment Authorization (EAD) Rule and decide what action if any, it will respond to the pending appeal ...

EMPLOYMENT & IMMIGRATION WHITEBOARD: Proposal would extend ‘extreme vetting’ visa questions for 3 years By Ted Hesson |11/27/2017 05:10 PM EDT The Trump administration plans to continue so-called extreme vetting of visa applicants for years to come, according to a notice published in the Federal Register today. The ...

Six Central African States Ratify Visa-Free Agreement. Gabon recently announced that they will waive the short-stay visa requirements for citizens of countries in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC); six central African states including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, and Equatorial ...

A USCIS officer has three options when adjudicating a case: approve, issue a Request for Evidence (RFE) or issue a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID). A USCIS Officer will issue an RFE if s/he has questions about whether a case is approvable, or if s/he ...

The Ministry of Manpower of Singapore has added new detailed recruitment questions to the Employment Pass (EP) Application form. The recruitment exception for positions paid more than SGD 12,000 per month remains in place. However, for positions requiring pre-application recruitment (positions paid less than SGD ...

ICE’s acting director, Thomas Homan, recently announced that ICE will significantly increase the number of workplace audits it conducts, reflecting the policy priorities of the Trump administration. ICE is expected to focus on I-9 violations, which carry substantial financial penalties for each violation. In preparation, employers are ...

With over 708,000 pending naturalization applications on file as of June 30, 2017, wait times for naturalization have stretched from the previous processing time of five to seven months to roughly ten months. This is in part due to higher demand; USCIS received over 50,000 more naturalization applications in ...

A new California law aimed at curbing immigration enforcement could cause problems for employers. California’s A.B. 450, signed into law Oct. 5, will become effective Jan. 1. The measure limits the circumstances under which employers can respond to requests for documents and physical access to nonpublic ...

The U.S. Department of State has released the December 2017 Visa Bulletin. Little to no change is visible in next month’s visa bulletin, the EB-1 category remains current across all countries, and the EB-2 and EB-3 categories for China see slight advances. Furthermore, the EB-2 India category advances ...

By Allissa Wickham Law360, New York (November 8, 2017, 9:18 PM EST) -- This time last November, Donald Trump defied conventional wisdom and won the presidential election, setting the stage for a dizzying year of immigration policy changes. It's been an anxious time in the immigration world, ...

Thank you to all who attended our holiday travel webinar last week. We had an active audience who asked several questions. Here are the most frequently asked questions (along with answers). If you have a question about your specific situation that is not answered here, contact your ...