It has been announced that the USCIS will NOT be holding a lottery of H1B cap-subject cases filed on the final day of filing for fiscal year 2012 (FY12). The cap for FY12 was reached on November 22, 2011. The USCIS typically does not have...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced in November 2011 that it will be allowable to "bundle" together L-1 petitions for multiple employees when filed for identical positions by the same employer. The L-1 petitions may be bundled in order to streamline and improve...
The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India recently announced a change in L-1 visa application procedures within India. As of December 1, 2011, all L-1 visa applications filed under an approved L-1 blanket case must be submitted to the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, India....
The USCIS H1B cap count had reached 56,300 as of November 14, 2011. This means that there are fewer than 9,000 cap numbers remaining out of the 65,000 limit for fiscal year 2012 (FY12). As expected, the rate of filings has increased in the past...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has published updated inventory charts showing pending employment-based (EB) adjustment of status (I-485) cases. These charts contain details of pending I-485 cases by EB preference, country of chargeability, and the month and year of the priority date. The...
Movement of the EB2 cutoff dates during the months of October and November 2011, as shown in the U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin, has resulted in questions regarding adjustment-of-status (Form I-485) filings for individuals no longer working for the labor certification (green card sponsoring)...
H1B visa refusals have become common for those working within the IT consulting industry, as regular MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers are aware. These problems have made travel abroad by H1B employees risky, if a new visa is required for reentry to the United States. This...
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...
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...
