On December 6, 2017, Kirstjen Nielsen was sworn in as the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary. Ms. Nielsen's hiring comes months after former DHS Secretary John Kelly left his post to take the position as President Trump's Chief of Staff. Ms. Nielsen...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) now allows most applicants for naturalization to file their N-400 forms online. Any applicant who is filing based on military service, filing from outside the United States, or requesting a waived or reduced filing fee is not eligible...
Once again, Congress has passed a short-term bill to fund the federal government for a few weeks. The federal budget is now extended through January 19, 2018. This bill also extends the employment-based, fifth preference (EB5) regional center program for the same time period.No action...
Most months, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, Charles Oppenheim, provides visa bulletin explanations and predictions. For the January 2018 Visa Bulletin, Mr. Oppenheim's predictions are regarding some key employment-based categories, as well as a minor update...
A federal court in the District of Columbia has ruled unlawful the June 2017 decision by the Trump Administration to delay the implementation of the new entrepreneur parole rule. The federal court ruled that the DHS could not sufficiently justify its decision to skip the...
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), periodically publishes an updated list of agency rulemaking activity. This list provides some basic information on regulations being worked on by various government agencies. The agency...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) finally released the January 2018 Visa Bulletin this morning. Unsurprisingly, there is not much progress in the oversubscribed categories from the previous month's visa bulletin. There was no change at all in the dates for filing (DF) chart from...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued a policy memorandum dated November 8, 2017 that provides guidance for officers adjudicating L1A petitions for function managers. This memo is based on the ruling from the administrative appeals office (AAO) in Matter of G- Inc.,...
Last night, the U.S. Senate passed a stopgap bill to fund the federal government through Friday, December 22, 2017. This bill also serves to extend the employment-based, fifth preference (EB5) regional center program for the same time period. This stopgap bill was passed by the...
There have been extensive delays in the issuance of employment authorization documents (EADs) and advance paroles (APs). At the Murthy Law Firm, we have noticed that I-765s for EADs are taking around five-to-seven months to process, while the I-131s for AP applications are taking up...
