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...
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) experienced a massive "crash" of its computer systems in April 2014. The EOIR announced, however, that it has been able to recover all of the data, and that portions of its system are once again operational. EOIR Computer Systems Crash,...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed regulatory change related to the country-specific specialty occupation professionals categories, E-3 (for Australians) and H1B1 (for citizens of Chile and Singapore). These changes would provide some clarification regarding the work authorized nature of these categories. Immigration Benefits...
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced the creation of a new website that gives travelers access to five years of their own I-94 arrival / departure and border crossing records. This website promises to serve as a valuable tool to foreign nationals who...
The results of the U.S. Department of State (DOS) diversity visa (DV) lottery for fiscal year 2015 (FY15) are now available. The DV lottery is a DOS program that runs on an annual basis. Eligibility for participation is limited to people from designated countries with...
A U.S. federal district court recently ruled on a case involving an issue that is a vital component of every H1B petition. The H1B classification is only appropriate for positions that qualify as "specialty occupations." In the case at hand, CareMax Inc. v. Eric Holder,...
On May 12, 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a proposed regulatory change in the Federal Register, which would make certain H-4 dependent spouses eligible to apply for employment authorization. This proposal is now subject to a sixty-day public comment period, after which...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hosted a teleconference on April 24, 2014, to discuss the coming expansion of the Administrative Site Visit and Verification Program (ASVVP) to include certain L1A petitions. The ASVVP program, which began in July 2009, is designed to verify...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has released the June 2014 Visa Bulletin. As predicted, the family-based, second preference "A" (FB2A) category retrogresses for all countries of chargeability, as has the employment-based, third preference (EB3) category for all countries, save India. EB3 China was hit especially...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued the June 2014 Visa Bulletin. As expected, the family-based, second preference "A" (FB2A) category for spouses and (unmarried, minor) children of lawful permanent residents retrogresses by more than a year for all countries of chargeability. Also, the...
