In mid-November 2013, attorneys from the Murthy Law Firm participated in the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) DC Chapter Fall Conference as speakers and moderators for many of the informative panels. One particularly thought-provoking session, moderated by Sheela Murthy, was a U.S. Department of Labor...
Answer: A reentry permit is needed if a GC holder is out of the U.S. for a year or more. The GC is the proper document for reentry if the trip is less than a year. However, if there is any chance that the trip could...
Who are the new Americans of today? A recent report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, paints a fascinating statistical portrait of the latest cohort of naturalized Americans. [See Naturalization Trends in the United States, by Gregory Auclair and...
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has submitted proposed regulatory changes intended to improve the F-1 and M-1 student programs. The changes potentially would provide more resources in the form of additional designated school officials (DSOs). The proposals would also provide better options to F-1 and...
Murthy Law Firm founder and president, Sheela Murthy, was among the featured speakers at the 2013 Fall Conference of the Washington D.C. chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), held November 13th. AILA is the preeminent professional association for immigration law practitioners in the...
In a recent and concerning adjudication trend, the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has begun denying F-1 optional practical training (OPT) STEM extension applications filed by students who engaged in employment as unpaid interns during the initial 12...
Answer: If a school operates on a trimester or quarter calendar, a student in F-1 status can take a vacation once a year during any trimester or quarter, after s/he has completed at least one full academic year. Therefore, you need to wait until you have...
Just for the record: the House of Representatives has yet to gavel out for the holidays - that's set for December 13th - but all signs are that any action on comprehensive immigration reform will have to wait until the second session of the 113th...
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has alerted stakeholders of the issuance of inappropriate requests for evidence (RFEs) by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Benefits Center (NBC) in connection with family-based, second preference "A" (FB2A) petitions. These RFEs are asking petitioning family...
Governments and NGOs from around the world are rallying around the people of the central Philippines, bringing medicines, safe food and water, and building supplies to a region still reeling from the catastrophic typhoon that made landfall there earlier this month. [See A Global Plea...
