The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Vermont Service Center (VSC) has announced a pilot program to use two-sided printing for certain types of notices. The purpose of this initiative is to reduce costs and waste. Stakeholders should be careful to review both the...
On July 6, 2014, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that travelers boarding flights bound for the United States from certain airports with direct flights to this country will face enhanced security measures. Travelers are advised to be particularly aware of the potential inspection of electronic...
On May 19, 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice to seek comments, for a period of 60 days, on proposed changes to the notice of entry of appearance as attorney or accredited representative (G-28 form). A G-28 must be properly completed...
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently released a fact sheet outlining the strategy that is used by its Entry / Exit Transformation (EXT) Office, which was created in May 2013. The goal of the EXT Office is to "accurately verify who arrives and to...
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released a checklist now being utilized by officers to evaluate trade NAFTA (TN) applications. This is an apparent response to concerns over inconsistencies in decision making on cases requesting admission in the TN category. TN for Canadian and Mexican Professionals The...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has confirmed that the U.S. consular posts in Canada have an extremely limited number of appointments available this summer for third-country nationals (TCNs) applying for nonimmigrant visas. To that end, the DOS is urging visa applicants, other than Canadian...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has released the July 2014 Visa Bulletin. The most significant movement is a nearly four-year leap forward in the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for Indian nationals. While this movement is not unexpected, it is still welcome news for many...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for July 2014 contains long-awaited good news for the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India. The EB2, India, cutoff date advances to September 1, 2008, effective during the month of July 2014.This forward movement was anticipated,...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed that medical examinations required as part of the permanent residence ("green card") process will have a validity limit of one year. This became effective on June 1, 2014. Those with long-pending adjustment of status (AOS) applications...
Maria Odom, the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, gave a presentation on various immigration issues on May 21, 2014. The setting was a meeting of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Washington D.C. Chapter, which was attended by several attorneys...
