The Department of State released the October 2024 Visa Bulletin and USCIS will accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the more advanced Dates for Filing chart for the beginning of this fiscal...more
The Department of State released the September 2024 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart. Most Employment-Based Categories will...more
The Department of State released the July 2024 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart. Most Employment-Based Categories will...more
The June 2024 Visa Bulletin shows no forward movement in employment-based preference categories, but retrogression could occur soon, according to the U.S. Department of State....more
The Department of State released the June 2024 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart. All Employment-Based Categories will hold...more
The Department of State released the May 2024 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart. Most Employment-Based Categories will hold...more
The March 2024 Visa Bulletin has been released by the U.S. Department of State and shows little movement from last month....more
The Department of State released the March 2024 Visa Bulletin. In March, USCIS will accept employment-based Adjustment of Status applications based on the more modest Final Action Dates chart for the first time this fiscal...more
Employers sponsoring foreign nationals should be aware that some cut-off dates for filing immigrant visa applications in certain employment-based (EB) preference categories have recently “retrogressed” or moved backwards in...more
Earlier this year, federal immigration officials announced concrete measures to reduce the massive backlog of petitions and applications currently pending at the agency’s National Service Centers – but has this promise been...more
In March 2022, USCIS published a final rule expanding its premium processing service to include additional immigration petition and application types. This announcement was welcome news to businesses and foreign nationals...more
Congress has mandated that in a given calendar year, 140,000 employment-based green cards will be awarded to companies sponsoring foreign nationals for permanent employment in the United States. This mandate is effective on...more
After much anticipation and unprecedented delay, the U.S. Department of State has announced the per-country priority date cut-offs for the November 2020 Visa Bulletin. The monthly visa bulletins indicate who may file an...more
In our continuing series of reports, Charles (“Charlie”) Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, U.S. Department of State, shares his most recent analysis of current trends and future projections for the...more
EB-1 to retrogress for most categories; EB-3 China to advance by one year. The US Department of State has released its August 2018 Visa Bulletin setting out per-country priority date cutoffs that regulate immigrant visa...more
Final Action dates for China and India EB-1 categories remain unchanged, while EB-2 India advances slightly....more
Now that the election is over, focus turns to the U.S. immigration policy of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s administration over the next four years. Forecasts of this type are never easy with any new President; the task is...more
The start of October means the start of a new fiscal year for the U.S. Department of State, with a new round of immigrant visa numbers for the permanent residency process. USDOS recently released the first Visa Bulletin of...more
On December 31, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) issued proposed regulations to address the retention and portability of high-skilled foreign workers. The new regulations were promulgated in furtherance of...more
The long-awaited proposed rule — “Retention of EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers” (aka I-140/AC21/EAD Proposed Rule) — was published in the Federal...more