Most federal agencies will be closed on Wednesday, December 5, 2018 for a national day of mourning to commemorate the death of former President George H.W. Bush. Few specifics have been provided, but this closure appears to apply to all federal offices and non-essential federal...
On Monday, December 3, 2018, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is scheduled to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register that, if enacted, would require employers filing cap-subject H1B petitions (i.e., petitions filed in the H1B lottery) to pre-register. The...
As stakeholders are no doubt aware, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) under the Trump Administration has taken a narrow view of the educational requirements that are permitted for a position to be considered a specialty occupation for H1B purposes. Specifically, the USCIS has...
This evening, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that, effective November 19, 2018, implementation of the policy memorandum on the issuance of notices to appear (NTAs) is being expanded to include various additional categories of foreign nationals. More specifically, the NTA memo may...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updated instructions for civil surgeons regarding medical screening for tuberculosis (TB) for applicants for permanent residency, otherwise known as green card applicants. The new instructions replace the tuberculin skin test (TST) as the initial tuberculosis...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced a new measure to help prevent fraud in the O-1 or O-2 petition process. If a labor union issues a negative O visa consultation (i.e. A consultation that objects to the issuance of an O-1 or...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that, effective November 1, 2018, the medical examination and vaccination record (form I-693) required for most I-485 applicants will be valid for two years from the date it is signed by a civil surgeon. In addition,...
This morning, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reversed course, updating the adjustment-of-status filing charts webpage yet again to indicate that the more favorable dates for filing (DF) chart dates may be used for both family- and employment-based cases in the October 2018 Visa Bulletin. No...
Earlier today, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated the adjustment-of-status filing charts webpage to indicate that only the less favorable final action (FA) chart dates may be used for employment-based cases in the October 2018 Visa Bulletin. The USCIS had previously indicated that...
This evening, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the policy memorandum on the issuance of notices to appear (NTAs) will be phased in incrementally, beginning on October 1, 2018. Effective October 1st, the USCIS "… may issue NTAs on denied status-impacting applications,...
