The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) often issues a variety of inked stamps in the passports of foreign nationals. These stamps are simple in appearance, but the government has long used specialized security ink for such stamps. Starting in the summer of 2014, the...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) generally prohibits a company from filing multiple cap-subject H1B petitions for a single beneficiary in the same cap year. Related companies also face such restrictions, with some exceptions, but this aspect of the rule appears to have gone...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS), through Charles Oppenhiem, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, provides key insights into the contents of the visa bulletin in monthly conversations with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Chief Oppenhiem has provided information that is of...
The manual outlining policies and procedures used by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in serving the public was updated in August 2014. The USCIS Policy Manual is intended to increase uniformity and transparency within the agency, as explained in the MurthyDotCom NewsBrief, USCIS Releases...
In order to remain competitive and retain needed workers from abroad, U.S. companies often sponsor permanent residence ("green card") cases. Most employer-sponsored cases are initiated through the PERM labor certification (PERM LC) process. What follows is information released by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)...
On July 11, 2014, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigrant Services (USCIS) issued a policy memorandum that provides updated guidance to adjudicators to determine whether a particular nursing position meets the H1B category's specialty occupation requirement. This issue was last addressed by the USCIS in 2002. The...
The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Vermont Service Center (VSC) has announced a pilot program to use two-sided printing for certain types of notices. The purpose of this initiative is to reduce costs and waste. Stakeholders should be careful to review both the...
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) experienced a massive "crash" of its computer systems in April 2014. The EOIR announced, however, that it has been able to recover all of the data, and that portions of its system are once again operational. EOIR Computer Systems Crash,...
A U.S. federal district court recently ruled on a case involving an issue that is a vital component of every H1B petition. The H1B classification is only appropriate for positions that qualify as "specialty occupations." In the case at hand, CareMax Inc. v. Eric Holder,...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hosted a teleconference on April 24, 2014, to discuss the coming expansion of the Administrative Site Visit and Verification Program (ASVVP) to include certain L1A petitions. The ASVVP program, which began in July 2009, is designed to verify...
