The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently clarified that original signatures are still required for nearly all USCIS forms. This notice comes following the release of an interim policy memorandum in June 2016 that seemed to signal original signatures would no longer be...
The Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC), which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), has notified the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) that it has suspended issuing PERM denials based on recruitment efforts that use terms such as "depends on experience," "competitive,"...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued the following announcement this afternoon: When new fees for most of our forms went into effect on December 23, 2016, we published updated versions of the forms at uscis.gov/forms. We strongly encourage customers to submit these new versions,...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) generally will only recognize a U.S. degree that is issued by an accredited institution. Moreover, the accreditation must be granted by an accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). How is a degree viewed, however,...
For an employment-based case filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), it is not uncommon for the petitioning employer to be issued a request for evidence (RFE) asking for clarification on mismatched information found in the Validation Instrument for Business Enterprise (VIBE) system....
On November 16, 2016, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report analyzing concerns related to the issuance of I-551s or lawful permanent resident cards ("green cards"). The report, entitled Better Safeguards Are Needed in USCIS Green Card Issuance,...
Please read the 29.Dec.16 update on this information. Updated Information This afternoon, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) issued a practice alert related to the new forms. It states, in part: AILA reached out to USCIS … to demand a grace period during which prior form versions could...
Please read the 29.Dec.16 update on this information. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a revised version of the application to register permanent residence or adjust status (form I-485) today and, effective immediately, will no longer accept any other versions of the form. No...
Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division for the U.S. Department of State (DOS), supplies visa bulletin explanations nearly every month. This month's update regarding the January 2017 Visa Bulletin provides insights and predictions related to most of the employment-based immigrant visa...
On December 22, 2016, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is expected to issue a new version of the application for naturalization (form N-400). Beginning December 23, 2016, the USCIS will accept ONLY this new version of the form. Any previous version of the...
