October 1, 2009 marks the start of fiscal year 2010 (FY10). Thus, eligible diversity visa lottery winners for 2010 (DV-2010) can move forward with their permanent resident (or "green card") cases. The lottery program allocates 50,000 visa numbers for immigrant visas each year to certain...
The New York State Attorney General's Office announced the shutting down of three New York businesses that had been providing fraudulent immigration legal services. Details can be found in an August 20, 2009 press release. This is reported to MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers to raise...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has a new online feature for tracking the status of diversity lottery (DV) applications. This allows individuals who applied for the DV lottery for fiscal year (FY) 2010 to check the status of those applications online. This will allow...
An International Medical Graduate (IMG) educated in a country such as India faces an immigration hurdle because, unlike in the United States, s/he does not have to hold a bachelor's degree as a prerequisite to admission to medical school. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...
Special immigrant religious workers are currently able to petition for permanent residence in two distinct categories. One category is for those who enter the United States to carry on the vocation of minister in a religious denomination. The other category is for those who have...
California Service Center (CSC) views and clarifications on various immigration matters and procedures were provided to American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) on January 28, 2009. This summary of the highlights of that report, including the 30-day timeline to respond to Requests for Evidence (RFEs), transfer...
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Service Center Operations / ISD Committee (SCOPS) recently released answers to questions posed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) service centers. These questions were from a meeting on August 20, 2008. Some of the questions addressed the "sunset"...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has announced that it will accept 2010 Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery applications from 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight Time on October 2, 2008 to 12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time on December 1, 2008. The only way to apply is through...
MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers were provided with information on the National Interest Waiver (NIW) option for international medical graduates (IMGs) in our August 29, 2008 article, NIW for Physicians Completing J-1 Waiver Service. In contrast, the labor certification-based permanent residence (green card) option for IMGs...
As reported in last week's MurthyBulletin, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin holds some very good news in the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for nationals of certain countries. The cutoff dates for India and China were advanced in excess of two years...
