October 23, 2019
On October 15, CEOs and Deans from the top business schools in the country wrote a letter addressed to the President and members of Congress, asking them to reform the U.S. Immigration system to meet the country’s need for highly skilled employees in the STEM field. The ...
October 15, 2019
On Friday, just four days before the Trump Administration's public charge rule was set to effect, federal judges in California, New York, and Washington issued a preliminary nationwide injunction. In a breaking alert, the Immigration Nerds talk with managing directors Hiba Anver and Justin Parsons ...
October 14, 2019
On Friday, three federal courts in California, New York, and Washington issued judgments that will block the implementation of the Trump Administration's public charge rule. As previously reported, the rule was to go in to effect on Tuesday, October 15. The public charge rule would evaluate ...
October 11, 2019
On September 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments for the Save Jobs USA v. DHS case that may determine the future work opportunities and livelihoods for the H-4 spouses of H-1B holders as they wait to ...
October 9, 2019
USCIS has announced that, as a result of the Department of Homeland Security’s Public Charge rule, several forms for applications of immigration benefits, including form I-485 applications for adjustment of status and form I-129 petitions for nonimmigrant workers, will be updated as of October 15. USCIS will ...
October 4, 2019
Uncertainty of exact timing could undo expected cost savings Past problems with electronic filing systems has some attorneys concerned about reliability A new electronic preregistration process that’s likely to be part of next spring’s H-1B visa lottery is bringing additional uncertainty to what’s already a ...
October 4, 2019
In this week's Immigration Nerds podcast, Diane Rish, the Associate Director of Government Relations at American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) joins us at the mic. Through multiple FOIA requests and painstaking litigation, AILA along with the American Immigration Council won access to USCIS documents that revealed ...
September 25, 2019
In a letter to a U.S. Court of Appeals on September 16, the Department of Homeland Security indicated that the earliest possible publication date for a proposed rule to rescind H-4 employment authorization would be in Spring 2020. Until such a time that a new rule goes ...
September 25, 2019
On September 20, the Trump administration came to an asylum cooperation agreement with El Salvador, designed to deter migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. The agreement states that any migrants that pass through El Salvador seeking asylum must apply for protection in that country first ...
September 11, 2019
On September 4, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposal to collect social media user identifications in order to “assess an alien’s eligibility to travel to or be admitted to the United States or to receive an immigration-related benefit from DHS.” This change would ...
September 3, 2019
In a new Department of Homeland Security proposal released on September 3, employers who are applying for H-1B visas in next year's lottery would be required to pay an additional $10. This fee would go toward the electronic preregistration process used for the lottery. The fee ...
August 30, 2019
On Wednesday, August 28, the Trump administration announced changes to the definition of residency as it relates to the citizenship of children of U.S. service members born outside of the U.S. The current policy states that certain children living outside of the United States were considered ...
August 28, 2019
On August 15, 2019, USCIS announced that it has issued return notices for all H-1B Cap Petitions that were not selected in the FY 2020 lottery. The lottery for successful H-1B Cap Petitions was completed by May 17, 2019, and USCIS has since taken steps to ...
August 28, 2019
Twenty states announced their plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump Administration in response to its plans to amend the rule that limits the amount of time a migrant child may be held in detention centers to 20 days. Amending this rule would allow the ...
August 20, 2019
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the September 2019 Visa Bulletin. Several Employment-Based preference categories have retrogressed or have become unavailable for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2019. For EB-1 categories, cut-off dates have advanced for persons born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, Vietnam, ...
August 20, 2019
Last fall, USCIS announced that changes would be forthcoming for the H-1B program, as soon as this year. The new plan would require companies who seek an H-1B visa for a foreign worker to first submit a free online registration form instead of an initial ...
August 14, 2019
In March 2019, USCIS announced its plan to close all of its overseas offices.However, on August 9, 2019, USCIS updated its plans and announced thatseven of the international offices will remain open. The field offices in Monterrey, Mexico and Seoul, South Korea will be the first ...
August 14, 2019
On August 6, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that USCIS acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and abused its discretion in denying an H-1B work visa to a Data Analyst on the grounds that Data Analysts do not require a bachelor’s degree in ...
August 12, 2019
On Monday, August 12, the Trump Administration said it would move forward with new regulations that would deny green cards and visas to immigrants who use or are expected to use a wide range of government benefits, including food stamps, housing vouchers, and Medicaid. This ...
August 7, 2019
On Wednesday, August 7, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it would introduce "a single, secure portal" for the public to report "credible and relevant claims of immigration benefit fraud." USCIS will accept additional public comment on the form beginning Thursday, August 8. Individuals will be ...
August 2, 2019
In this week's Immigration Nerds podcast, we're joined by Erickson Immigration Group senior attorney Storm Estep to discuss recent policy updates from the week of July 15 - July 24. Storm explains H.R. 1044 and the companion bill in the Senate, new asylum rules and ...
July 25, 2019
As previously reported, on July 15, the Trump Administration published a new rule, Asylum Eligibility and Procedural Modifications, which would require individuals who pass through a third party country seeking asylum in the U.S. to first apply for asylum in that third party country. The rule was met ...
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, July 24, USCIS announced significant changes that would be forthcoming for the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. From USCIS, the new rule would include the following: Raising the minimum investment amounts from $1 million to $1.8 million, with an automatic adjustment for inflation every ...
July 18, 2019
USCIS is the agency charged with administering and providing immigration benefits to foreign nationals. Naturalization, green cards, work authorization, H-1B visas, asylum, family-based immigration, investment visas, cultural exchange programs, foreign doctors, NAFTA professionals, victims of crimes and domestic violence, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and many ...
July 17, 2019
On July 15, the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia issued an opinion in the case of Sagarwala vs. Cissna. Usha Sagarwala, beneficiary of an H-1B petition filed by HSK Technologies, Inc., sued the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) after USCIS denied the ...
July 17, 2019
On July 15, the Trump Administration published a new rule, Asylum Eligibility and Procedural Modifications, requiring individuals who pass through a third party country seeking to apply for asylum in the U.S. to apply for asylum in that third party country first. Under the new rules, ...
July 17, 2019
On July 10th, the House of Representatives passed the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which intends to eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based green cards. The bill will now be considered by the Senate. If the bill is approved, the first-come, first-served system would give every immigrant ...
July 16, 2019
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the August 2019 Visa Bulletin. Cut-off dates remain effective for the EB-1 categories with retrogression for all locations. The Department of State stated in Section D of the August visa bulletin that due to the increased volume of adjustment of status cases filed, it ...
July 3, 2019
Last fall, the federal government proposed a pre-registration plan that would change and, in theory, streamline the application process for the H-1B visa, of which 85,000 are allocated annually. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) announced in the federal register that the pre-registration plan was moving forward ...
July 3, 2019
This week, NPR obtained government documents showing that the Trump administration has fined some immigrants who are in the United States illegally, after "failing to depart the U.S. as previously agreed." The Department of Homeland Security sent out notices to targeted individuals with fines up to ...