The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has announced that several employment-based (EB) immigrant visa categories will remain unavailable for the remainder of fiscal year 2024 (FY24). A category that is unavailable is one for which all the immigrant visa numbers have been exhausted for the...
A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked the Biden Administration from continuing to grant parole in place under its Keeping Families Together program. As noted in the MurthyDotCom NewsBrief, USCIS Starts Accepting Applications for Keeping Families Together Program (22.Aug.2024), this program is designed to...
A student in F-1 status who has been granted optional practical training (OPT) may normally have no more than a total of 90 days of unemployment during the initial one-year post-completion OPT period. On occasion, the Murthy Law Firm hears from students on OPT who...
UPDATE: See NewsFlash! Federal Judge Orders Temporary Halt to Parole-in-Place Program, Posted 27.Aug.2024As was recently indicated in MurthyDotCom's NewsFlash! Filing Guide Released for Parole in Place Program for Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens (16.Aug.2024), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began accepting applications for...
As the second round of the FY2025 cap lottery begins, it is important to note one avoidable reason for an H1B petition – or really, any type of petition or application – to be rejected by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is for...
UPDATE: See NewsFlash! Federal Judge Orders Temporary Halt to Parole-in-Place Program, Posted 27.Aug.2024Today, the Biden Administration released a filing guide for form I-131F, which is the new electronic form that soon will be used by certain undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply...
Among the eligibility criteria a lawful permanent resident (LPR) (commonly known as a "green card" holder) must meet to apply for U.S. citizenship is the requirement to have maintained continuous residence in the United States for a specified period. An extended absence from the U.S....
Special handling, sometimes referred to as optional special recruitment, is a PERM labor certification process solely carved out for those who teach at U.S. colleges and universities. While similar to the regular PERM process, in that it requires a test of the U.S. labor market,...
This afternoon, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the September 2024 Visa Bulletin. There is no forward movement in any of the employment-based categories from the previous month. Worse still, as the DOS previously predicted, the EB3 category cutoff date for certain countries has...
The Murthy Law Firm regularly assists foreign nationals in filing self-sponsored immigrant petitions under the EB2 national interest waiver (NIW) category and in the EB1(a) for immigrants with extraordinary ability. In a recent NIW case, the immigrant petition (form I-140) was filed for an expert...
