The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is not issuing Prevailing Wage Determinations (PWDs) as of this writing. The PWD is a required step in the PERM labor certification (LC) process, and the DOL stopped issuing them in July 2011. Thus, the entire system for initiating...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) recently conducted a second random lottery to select "winners" of the 2012 Diversity Visa (DV) lottery. The DV 2012 new "winners" have been finalized and posted. All DV 2012 applicants must check the official lottery website in order to...
In an unexpected and encouraging move, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an initiative on August 2, 2011, to encourage immigrant entrepreneurs and start-up companies to the United States. This USCIS initiative will be especially helpful to people from countries like India and...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued an interim policy memorandum that changes the timeframe for responding to various requests for evidence (RFEs). The interim memorandum became effective immediately for RFEs issued after July 7, 2011, the date of the memo. The purpose...
The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, known as AC21, became law more than a decade ago. As of this writing, the USCIS has issued neither proposed nor final regulations interpreting the provisions of AC21. Rather, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has...
Recently, BALCA rendered an opinion on two separate cases regarding the use of expired Prevailing Wage Determinations (PWDs) in PERM labor certification cases. The appeals body within the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA). The useful information...
Many MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers are among those who have to wait for years to obtain their permanent residence (or "green cards") due to their priority dates and/or immigrant visa numbers not being current. There are other individuals who also find themselves waiting, often for...
The Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman, January Contreras, addressed matters of concern in May 2011 at an American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) meeting attended by a number of attorneys from the Murthy Law Firm. The CIS Ombudsman's role is to assist with U.S. Citizenship...
[Part 1 of this news article, H1B Portability: A Change in USCIS Policy? Part 1 of 2 (13.May.2011), is available on MurthyDotCom.]In Part 1 of this article, a narrowing of the USCIS's interpretation of the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC21) was discussed...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has had to void the results of the 2012 Diversity Visa Lottery. These results were posted on the DOS website in early May 2011. However, due to a computer programming error, the selection of winners was not made in...
