The U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for December 2013 contains a cutoff date of November 15, 2004 for employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India. This substantial retrogression was expected, based upon official DOS predictions issued in October 2013. This means another extended...
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) iCert system has, of late, been exhibiting some intermittent technical problems. The iCert system is used for a number of immigration-related processes, including labor condition applications (LCA), which are necessary for the H1B process, and PERM labor certification cases....
Historically, there has been considerable variation in the amount of time required for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to process PERM labor certification applications. The recent trend, however, has been for the processing of these cases to drag on significantly longer than in years...
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued guidance on October 31, 2013, regarding PERM labor certification cases impacted by the recent government shutdown. During the shutdown, it was not possible to use the DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) electronic submission systems. The guidance...
On October 23, 2013, Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division, U.S. Department of State, who is responsible for content of the visa bulletin, provided predictions for future visa bulletin developments. Several attorneys from the Murthy Law Firm attended the October 23rd American...
The EB2 cutoff dates for India will retrogress in December 2013. The exact cutoff date, which will be set in the Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for December, is yet to be determined. However, it is expected to be at a point between the...
Updated 7:00am (Eastern Time - U.S.) At 12:30am Thursday, 17.Oct.2013, President Obama signed a bill to reopen the U.S. government. Federal workers are returning to work today.----- NewsFlash! Senate Deal May End Government Shutdown - Updated 16.Oct.2013: Updated 4:27pm (Eastern Time - U.S.) Speaker Boehner has agreed to not...
As a result of the U.S. federal government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is temporarily not accepting or processing prevailing wage requests. A prevailing wage determination (PWD) is generally a required component at the outset of the PERM labor certification process that is used...
The U.S. government is in a state of partial shutdown as of October 1, 2013 due to an inability to obtain congressional agreement on appropriations. As of October 1st, the Department of Labor iCert system is unavailable. This system is used for both PERM labor...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has confirmed earlier rumors that the employment-based (EB) visa numbers available for fiscal year 2013 (FY13) been exhausted. This is not uncommon, as FY13 ends on September 30. Thus, DOS seeks to allocate visa numbers in a manner that...
