One of the components of President Obama's executive actions on immigration includes efforts to facilitate lawful permanent residents (LPRs, or "green card" holders) in becoming citizens of the United States. To that end, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memorandum to Leon...
As has been widely reported, the State of Texas has filed a lawsuit seeking to block portions of President Obama's executive actions related to immigration. This has created some unease and confusion among foreign nationals who stand to benefit from some part of the President's...
The January 2015 Visa Bulletin was released by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) earlier this evening. As expected, this month's visa bulletin offers little relief for most foreign nationals hoping to become permanent residents of the United States. There is no significant movement in the...
The National Visa Center (NVC) has changed the requirements regarding supporting documentation submitted in immigrant visa applications. As of November 12, 2014, the NVC has begun accepting photocopies of civil documents, rather than requiring originals. Background on the NVC In cases where a foreign national wishes to...
Each month, the U.S. Department of State (DOS), provides visa bulletin insights and predictions, when possible, of future visa bulletin content. This information is provided to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) by Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division. For December...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo on October 17, 2014, regarding restrictions on the use of DNA test results in cases involving claimed sibling relationships. Per the memo, the USCIS will not accept sibling-to-sibling DNA test results as evidence establishing that...
Department of State eMail Restored The external eMail system for the U.S. Department of State (DOS) is operational, as of November 18th. The DOS suggests that those who have not received responses to eMail sent to DOS after the evening of November 14th, may wish to...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) December 2014 Visa Bulletin is now available. As expected, while there is cutoff date movement in some EB categories for December, there is no change at all for the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India. Employment-Based, Second Preference (EB2) As usual,...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the December 2014 Visa Bulletin today. The only significant movement of cutoff dates for family-based cases is for Mexicans in the second preference "A" (FB2A) category, which is for spouses and (unmarried, minor) children of lawful permanent residents. FB2A...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced plans for a Haitian Family Reunification Program (HFRP), which will allow some Haitian nationals who are the beneficiaries of family-based petitions to enter the United States while the cases are still pending. The program is expected to...
