President Biden is expected to sign an executive order (EO) on Tuesday, February 2, 2021 to modernize the U.S. immigration system. No further details on the forthcoming executive order have been provided.The President had been scheduled to sign this EO today, but delayed it until...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is again extending the response time flexibility, initially announced on March 30, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This flexibility applies to applicants and petitioners responding to any of the following, issued from March 1, 2020 through March...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has released the February 2021 Visa Bulletin. The visa bulletin also includes a number of predictions for the coming months. All cutoff dates listed refer to the dates in the final action chart (i.e., Chart A), unless otherwise specified. Visa...
In the final days of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attempted to rush through a regulation that would have required both H1B employers and end-clients to submit H1B petitions for workers placed at client sites. Because this was a final...
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was sworn in today as the 46th president of the United States, and he has already begun the process of undoing Trump's immigration policies. To start with, by the end of the day, President Biden will have signed several executive orders...
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has republished the rule that dramatically increases the salary requirements for H1B and PERM labor filings. The DOL initially published this regulation as an interim final rule (IFR), which was in effect from October 8, 2020, until it was...
This evening, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the text of a final rule that will change the definition of "employer" in the H1B context. Per this rule, end-clients would be required to submit petitions to the USCIS for H1B workers.At the same...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that all in-person services will be suspended on January 19th and 20th in order to "ensure the safety of … employees and individuals with appointments." The USCIS will send new appointment notices to stakeholders who had...
In some cases, it is possible to challenge a denial decision made by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on an application or petition for an immigration benefit. This challenge is made either through the filing of a motion to reopen or reconsider (motion,...
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing a new policy, effective January 26, 2021, which will require airlines to obtain negative pre-departure COVID-19 test results for all international airline passengers arriving in the United States. The test must be from within...
