In 2017, the Trump Administration began the implementation of an "extreme vetting" program for certain foreign nationals requesting admission to the United States. As part of this program, a foreign national applying for a visa at a U.S. consulate abroad may be asked to complete...
The U.S. State Department (DOS) has implemented changes to electronic forms DS-160, Application for a Nonimmigrant Visa, and DS-260, Application for an Immigrant Visa, that go into effect immediately. These applications will now request information about the social media username or handle used by an...
The Trump Administration has released a memorandum that is ostensibly designed to combat "the large numbers of aliens who overstay their period of lawful admission… ." The memo focuses primarily on those who overstay B-1/B-2 business / visitor status and those who overstay following admission...
Effective May 1, 2019, citizens of Israel will be able to access the E-2 (treaty investor) visa category. The United States and Israel had signed a qualifying treaty in June 2012. However, the E-2 visa program for Israeli citizens could not become effective until Israel...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it will be closing all international operations (IO) division offices by the end of 2019. The USCIS IO division is comprised of 24 field offices in 21 foreign countries. These offices have served as hubs...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it will permanently close its field office in Moscow on March 29, 2019, because of a significant decrease in workload. The office will be open to the public and will accept applications only until February...
In order to enter the United States in H1B status, a foreign national typically must first obtain an H1B visa foil (commonly referred to as a visa "stamp") from a U.S. consulate or embassy. This visa stamp generally will be annotated with the name of...
1) We have heard that there was a raid on students of a certain university called the University of Farmington in Michigan. What is the background on this university? The University of Farmington ("the University") was apparently set up by the U.S. federal government, in 2015,...
A partial shutdown of the federal government is now in effect because Congress was unable to pass a new budget or continuing resolution. This also means that several immigration programs are temporarily suspended, including the regional center portion of the employment-based, fifth preference (EB5) immigrant...
Congress must pass a spending bill to extend government operations by midnight of December 21, 2018, or else another temporary shutdown of the federal government will go into effect. This would be the third shutdown of 2018.The crux of the current budget dispute revolves around...
