The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has updated its STEM OPT webpage to reflect an apparent change in the agency’s interpretation of the 2016 STEM optional practical training (OPT) rule for F-1 students. Specifically, the USCIS now interprets the 24-month STEM OPT extension rule...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has adopted Matter of S- Inc. as a precedent decision, establishing new policy guidance for USCIS personnel. In this case, the AAO found that the absence of a legal relationship between two or more entities does not necessarily...
Today, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has completed the randomized H1B cap lottery selection process. The USCIS reported that it received 190,098 petitions this year, which is a slight reduction from the 199,000 H1B petitions received last year, and is...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently launched a pilot website to test a redesign of its processing time website, which now displays the data for all forms in an easier-to-read format. In the past, the published processing times of the USCIS have been...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that the H1B cap limit for fiscal year 2019 (FY19) has been reached. This applies to both the 65,000 regular H1B cap limit as well as the 20,000 advanced degree (masters) cap exemptions.As the H1B case...
On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) is once again deemed a nationally recognized accrediting agency. Moreover, this decision applies retroactively to December 12, 2016, which is when the ACICS was stripped...
This afternoon, President Trump signed a federal spending bill that keeps the government open through September 30, 2018. This bill also extends the employment-based, fifth preference (EB5) regional center program for the same time period. The bill does not, however, provide any protections to beneficiaries...
Congress must pass a spending bill to extend government operations by midnight of March 23, 2018, or else another temporary shutdown of the federal government will go into effect. A government shutdown at this time would be especially problematic because H1B cap season is upon...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that premium processing requests will not be accepted for cases filed pursuant to the fiscal year 2019 (FY19) H1B Cap. Any request for premium processing (form I-907) filed with a cap-subject H1B petition will be rejected....
One of the most widely used features on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website is the My Case Status portal. As the name implies, this online tool allows a person to check the status of a pending petition or application by inputting the...
