The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued a policy memorandum containing some limited changes for certain foreign medical graduates during the COVID-19 national emergency. The new policy provides some relief from adverse immigration consequences to international medical graduates working in the U.S. in...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that routine in-person services at its field offices, asylum offices, and application support centers (ASCs) will resume on June 4, 2020. Per the announcement, the USCIS is following guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has released the June 2020 Visa Bulletin. All cutoff dates listed refer to the dates in the final action (FA) chart, unless otherwise specified. Visa Bulletin Summary Employment-Based, First Preference (EB1) Category The EB1 cutoff date for India moves ahead by more...
Yesterday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and IT Serve Alliance reached a settlement agreement, which should positively impact the H1B process for many IT workers and employers. According to the settlement agreement, the USCIS agreed to the following:The USCIS will withdraw the...
Humanitarian parole is a discretionary benefit that may be granted to allow a foreign national, who is otherwise inadmissible to the United States, to enter for a temporary period due to urgent humanitarian reasons. Filing for Humanitarian Parole with USCIS To apply for humanitarian parole, one may...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the IT Serve Alliance v. L. Francis Cissna case. In the trial court, a group of IT consulting firms successfully sued...
During a recent virtual meeting with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Charles Oppenheim, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, provided some updated information and a couple of predictions regarding the monthly visa bulletin. All predictions refer to...
A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that, if signed into law, would make up to 40,000 immigrant visa numbers available for doctors and nurses. The bill, known as the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act (HWRA), would recapture unused immigrant visa numbers, and grant...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is providing employers with the option to review employee documents remotely for form I-9 purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the I-9 form, all U.S. employers are required to establish the employment eligibility of prospective employees. The employee...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is extending the response time flexibility 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 between March 1 and July 1, 2020:Requests...
