The U.S. Department of State (DOS) provides visa bulletin insights each month through Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division. The information from Mr. Oppenheim for February, which was released later than usual, includes a discussion about the DOS visa applicant wait...
For many years, the Murthy Law Firm has addressed questions regarding the interpretation of a "same or similar" occupational classification for job portability in the permanent resident (green card) process. This is a key concept in the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC21),...
As many MurthyDotCom readers are aware, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed regulation, on December 30, 2015, aimed at improving the employment-based immigration process. While many have focused on the portion of this proposal covering I-140 based employment authorization documents (EADs) -...
There are two strategies commonly used by those with pending adjustment-of-status (form I-485) applications to make job changes without disrupting their respective cases. One option is to argue that the move is to a same or similar job, thus qualifying for portability purposes under the...
This series of articles has been updated. Please find the updated version of Part 3....
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) February 2016 Visa Bulletin was issued on January 8, 2016. This latest visa bulletin provides advancement of the final action (FA) cutoff date in the employment-based, second preference category for India, consistent with earlier predictions. Meanwhile, the date of filing...
This afternoon, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the February 2016 Visa Bulletin. Once again, there is no change in the dates for filing (DF) chart for the employment-based categories. But, there is some forward movement in the final action (FA) chart.For India, the employment-based,...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed rule, on December 30, 2015, entitled "Retention of EB1, EB2, and EB3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers." Included in the proposed rule is the long-awaited provision for the ability to obtain an...
Each month, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) explains key aspects of the visa bulletin contents through Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division. The January 2016 Visa Bulletin information discusses the expectations for the employment-based, second preference (EB2) India category as...
On December 22, 2015, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concluded its review of a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would "allow certain approved immigrant petition for alien worker (form I-140) beneficiaries to obtain work authorization…" The rule...
