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 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued a brief announcement regarding the acceptance of H1B petitions (as well as H2A and H2B petitions) that were filed late because of the recent government shutdown. The following discusses the application of these instructions when seeking relief...
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...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report analyzing the current state of the L-1, intracompany transferee program. The report, entitled Implementation of L-1 Visa Regulations, addresses perceived problems with the processing of L-1 cases, and provides suggestions to make...
Now that the U.S. federal government shutdown has thankfully ended, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has resumed the processing of labor condition applications (LCAs). However, the bill to reauthorize funding for the federal government is only a stopgap, and is set to expire in...
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...
Since the U.S. Senate's passage of a comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) bill this past June, the prospects for immigration reform appear to have dimmed. The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives (House) has rejected the idea of a comprehensive immigration bill. Instead, the Republicans have focused...
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. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently released two documents addressing the discretionary authority of CBP officers to overlook certain technical or minor background issues that would otherwise make a foreign national inadmissible to the United States. The two documents give insight into those...
As has been widely reported in the media, the U.S. government temporarily ceased operations deemed non-essential as of October 1, 2013. This is a result of the failure of the U.S. Congress to agree on a new budget for federal operations. Many normal government functions...
