In early June 2019, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) began rolling out the Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) system, a cloud-based system, which is replacing iCERT. On June 10th, OFLC started accepting applications for prevailing wage...
Most months, Charles Oppenheim, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, provides visa bulletin explanations and predictions. Following the release of the August 2019 Visa Bulletin, Mr. Oppenheim discussed some of the higher-than-normal demand in various categories, and...
Answer One MUST be in the United States to file an I-485. If one is not, s/he must apply for a green card through consular processing with the U.S. Department of State at a U.S. consulate. The employer may need to file form I-824 to convert...
An overview of immigration issues related to employees traveling to the United States from abroad is provided in this teleconference from July 3, 2019. Discussed are situations employees may face, including extreme vetting, visa processing, and what happens during the immigration inspection process by U.S....
On July 10, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019. If passed into law, the bill would eliminate the per-country cap on employment-based green cards, and increase the per-country limit for family-based categories. While this news...
The August 2019 Visa Bulletin has been released by the U.S. Department of State (DOS). There are some notable retrogressions in employment-based (EB) categories, with EB3 India moving to January 1, 2006 and EB2 and EB3 all other countries retrogressing to January 1, 2017 and...
Answer In general, yes. If the job contained in the original H1B petition is still available, one could continue to work in that position until the petition expires, unless the USCIS has specifically ordered one to depart the United States in the denial notice for the...
On June 10, 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan announced that Ken Cuccinelli would be assuming the role of Acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). There is no consensus as to whether President Trump will confirm...
On July 2, 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman is putting on a teleconference related to H1B enforcement issues. The following topics will be covered during the teleconference:Compliance and systematic review of H1B petitions...
Most months, Charles Oppenheim, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, provides visa bulletin explanations and predictions. Following the release of the July 2019 Visa Bulletin, Mr. Oppenheim explained the reasoning for making the family-based, second preference A...
