19 May 2015

NewsFlash! Effective May 26th, Premium Processing Temporarily Suspended for H1B Extensions

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that, effective May 26th, the agency "…will temporarily suspend premium processing for all H1B Extension of Stay petitions until July 27, 2015." Further, premium processing fees will be refunded for any H1B extension case filed before May...

29 Apr 2015

Overview of L1B Policy Memo

On March 24, 2015, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a long-awaited L1B draft guidance memorandum that outlines the elements of the L1B category and primarily focuses on a discussion of the "specialized knowledge" requirement. The L1B category has been plagued by very...

23 Apr 2015

AAO Broadens Definition of “Doing Business” for EB1(c), Multinational Executive or Manager Cases

The administrative appeals office (AAO) issued a precedent decision on April 9, 2015, that addresses a key requirement for the employment-based, first preference (EB1) immigrant visa (i.e. green card) category designed for multinational managers and executives. This favorable decision should make it easier for some companies...

15 Apr 2015

H1B Cap Lottery Update for FY16

On April 13, 2015, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the completion of the H1B random lottery process for fiscal year 2016 (FY16). As previously noted, the total count of about 233,000 greatly exceeded the cap limits, and was substantially higher than the approximately...