The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued instructions for entry in the fiscal year 2017 (FY17) diversity visa (DV) lottery. The DV lottery, often called the "green card" lottery, grants 50,000 visa numbers each year to qualified applicants. Registration for FY17 began on October...
Excitement over the October 2015 Visa Bulletin turned to disappointment, frustration, and anger on September 25, 2015, when the U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued a revised version of the visa bulletin, superseding the original version. The cutoff dates for filings in the revised October...
Congress approved a spending bill late this afternoon that will fund the federal government's operations through December 11, 2015. This serves to avoid a government shutdown, at least for the next two months.The bill passed today was also used to extend the regional center (RC)...
As previously indicated, the Murthy Law Firm is generally recommending against filing adjustment-of-status applications (form I-485s) based on the cutoff dates listed in the original version of the October 2015 Visa Bulletin, which was released on September 9, 2015. This recommendation is based on a...
Answer If the case is filed prematurely and rejected, this would not prevent the I-140 from being used again for a later I-485 filing. The worst that could happen, other than wasting money and effort, is either (a) the case is wrongly accepted and denied later...
Answer Things are rather chaotic right now. October is the first month of a new fiscal year, so final action (FA) dates WILL move within the next 12 months. What is unknown is how much they will move and precisely when. We are hoping that the...
1. The visa numbers in the October 2015 Visa Bulletin allowing for I-485 filings suddenly changed on September 25, 2015. What happened?At this time, no one outside of the government knows for certain what happened. It appears that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)...
In an unusual and highly disappointing move, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued a revised October 2015 Visa Bulletin. The most significant change is that the dates for filing (DF) in the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India have been moved backward to...
The USCIS announced that, as of September 24, 2015, they must briefly suspend final action on pending employment-based (EB) form I-485 applications. The reason for this development is that the EB visa numbers for Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) have been depleted. This is a very...
The PERM labor certification application must state the sponsoring employer's minimum educational and/or experience requirements for the offered position. Thus, complications arise if the foreign national beneficiary gained all or a part of the required experience for the position while employed by the green card...
