The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security held a hearing in September 2011 to assess the status of current programs administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aimed at combating and preventing terrorist activity. The testimony presented...
Employers continue to weather ongoing economic problems in the United States, as well as immigration-related scrutiny, which has increased over the past few years. As U.S. companies consider their projections and proposals for 2012, their attention should also turn to matters that can facilitate smoother...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for November 2011 has been released earlier than expected. The cutoff dates for the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India and China move to November 1, 2007, effective in November 2011.This is remarkable, as it opens...
The USCIS Office of Transformation Coordination (OTC) recently provided an overview of the current status of the USCIS Transformation. Transformation is a large scale USCIS program to upgrade from paper-based operations to electronic systems. One important part of this series of changes is the phasing...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced an initiative intended to encourage bright international students to study in the U.S. The initiative, entitled Study in the States, sets forth the goals of examining and improving upon existing student and exchange visitor programs. The most...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) Diversity Visa (DV) "green card" lottery for fiscal year 2013 (FY13) registration period will close on November 5, 2011. Interested applicants need to submit their online entries by 12 noon, Eastern Time (U.S.), November 5, 2011, to have a...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued an announcement dated September 15, 2011 stating that all employment-based (EB) visa numbers for fiscal year 2011 (FY11) have been utilized. This means that no more immigrant visa numbers are available in the EB categories until October 1,...
On September 19, 2011, the Murthy Law Firm began receiving "courtesy copies" of case approval notices (Form I-797C) from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), rather than the "original" approval notices (I-797A or I-797B). This is at variance with long standing procedures, and was...
The H1B cap for fiscal year 2012 (FY12) continues to have numbers available, as of this writing. The volume of filings for FY12 has been light. The latest U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) statistics on H1B usage is always available via MurthyDotCom, on the...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued the October 2011 Visa Bulletin, the first in the federal government's 2012 fiscal year (FY12). The most remarkable development, effective in October, is the substantial forward movement in the employment- based, second preference (EB2) category for India...
