The Department of State has confirmed that the annual limit for the EB-1 immigrant visa category has been reached for FY2024. Accordingly, no immigrant visas or green cards will be issued for the remainder of the fiscal year,...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 U.S. Department of State’s July 2024 Visa Bulletin confirms prior predictions of backlogs in the employment-based immigrant visa process for EB-3 Professionals and Skilled Workers. According to the State Department, high...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 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
Foreign nationals and their sponsoring US employers or US family members have been closely monitoring the monthly releases of the US Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for the past year to confirm when they will be...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 September 2023 Visa Bulletin has been released by the U.S. Department of State and shows little movement from last month. ...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
Social networks are abuzz with news that the “green card” waiting line has moved ahead substantially. For some categories, the difference is years! What does the latest update from the Department of State (DOS) mean for...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
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
I. DOS Announces 2018 Diversity Lottery - The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) just released its instructions for the DV-2018 Diversity Visa (DV-2018) lottery. The registration period begins on Tuesday, October 4,...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
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has again revised its procedures for determining whether foreign national applicants waiting to file their employment-based or family-sponsored preference...more
As previously reported in our legal update from September 10, 2015, the Department of State (DOS) made a major change to the Visa Bulletin in early September. Then, on September 25, 2015, that Visa Bulletin was rescinded and...more
Each month, the Department of State (“DOS”) publishes current immigrant visa availability information in its Visa Bulletin. The Visa Bulletin indicates when statutorily limited visas are available to prospective immigrants...more
The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) just issued a revised October 2015 Visa Bulletin. As we noted in our last Alert, the DOS recently changed the format of its Visa Bulletin to add cutoffs for application dates. These are...more
Earlier this month, USCIS, in coordination with the Department of State (“DOS”), announced that it was revising the procedures for determining visa availability for applicants waiting to file for employment-based or...more
Action Item: The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”), in coordination with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), has announced that it has revised “the procedures for determining visa availability for applicants...more
Starting in October, 2015, an additional chart will be posted on the Department of State Visa Bulletin that provides new filing dates, or dates when applicants may be able to apply for permanent residence. This change was...more