On April 1, 2024, pursuant a final DHS rule, the immigration agency USCIS changed its premium processing time for certain immigration petitions from 15 calendar days to 15 business days. This is the same rule that increased...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has published a new FAQ to provide clarity and potentially encourage entrepreneurship among individuals with H-1B status. This FAQ contains a number of helpful updates and...more
Each month, federal immigration authorities publish a list of dates informing immigrant visa applicants when they should expect to be notified to assemble and submit required documentation to government officials. This...more
Starting April 1, 2024, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will implement a meaningful fee increase, the first increase since 2016. Numerous case types and specific forms will receive significant fee...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS has issued new guidance to define the extent of an employer’s financial obligation in employment-based green card applications where the sponsored employee has changed...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will increase premium processing fees for a number of immigration benefit applications due to inflation. The fee increases, outlined below, will take effect on February 26,...more
On March 15, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it is updating its guidance on how the agency interprets the regulatory requirement that U.S. employers must demonstrate their ability to pay prospective...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
Employers know that U.S. immigration laws are complex, and the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) long processing delays – coupled with recent layoffs in the tech industry – have further complicated matters by adding new fact...more
U.S. immigration law has always been challenging with ever-changing rules and policies and their far-reaching effects. However, the constant complication post-pandemic has been the unpredictability of processing times and...more
With the recent retrogression of employment-based priority dates for the EB-2 and EB-3 India and mainland China categories, many families with dependents nearing the age of twenty-one may be concerned about the impact...more
When U.S. employers hire a foreign worker who is maintaining H-1B status with another employer, they are required to file an H-1B transfer petition. It also behooves the hiring employer to screen those candidates to determine...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is trying to approve as many employment-based green card applications as it can before the annual deadline of September 30, 2022 (the end of the fiscal year)....more
We previously alerted our readership in May 2022 that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was implementing premium processing for certain I-140 petitions in the EB-1 and EB-2 categories. The...more
On May 24, 2022, USCIS announced implementation of premium processing for certain work visa petitioners who have pending EB-1 and EB-2 petitions. This announcement is part of a USCIS’ plans to expand its premium processing...more
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, processing delays have plagued the USCIS and frustrated many employers and foreign nationals applying for and extending their visas. At its peak in January 2022, the USCIS had a...more
Effective November 12, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) extended employment authorization for certain E, H, and L dependent spouses. Specifically, USCIS now recognizes that L and E dependent spouses...more
The short answer is that the premium processing fee increased to $2,500 effective October 20, 2020, for all eligible I-129 and I-140 filings (except for H-2B and R-1 requests that increased to $1500), based on the Emergency...more