The U.S. Consulate in Mumbai, India, has announced the resumption of interviews for H and L visa applicants. The Consulate reopened the appointment schedule for all H and L applicants on August 26, 2011. The first appointments are being scheduled for September 6, 2011. Background: Temporary...
In Part I (26.Aug.2011) of this NewsBrief, MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers were informed of August 2, 2011 policy announcements from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), intended to facilitate immigration benefits for foreign national entrepreneurs. That article discussed the potential use of the H1B...
A foreign national is subject to specific, strict requirements as a condition of obtaining F-1 status as a full-time student. Failure to follow legal requirements can lead to status violations, which can have potentially devastating effects for many international students. Foreign national students must stay...
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas recently announced policies intended to allow the utilization of current immigration categories by foreign national entrepreneurs in a more expansive manner. These announcements were...
The Murthy Law Firm has started to receive Prevailing Wage Determinations (PWDs) from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) as of August 24, 2011. This is newsworthy, as the DOL had ceased processing such requests in July, as explained in our NewsBrief, DOL Not Issuing...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued the September 2011 Visa Bulletin. This is the final Visa Bulletin for the federal government's fiscal year (FY) 2011. The employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India and China will remain unchanged in the month of September...
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is not issuing Prevailing Wage Determinations (PWDs) as of this writing. The PWD is a required step in the PERM labor certification (LC) process, and the DOL stopped issuing them in July 2011. Thus, the entire system for initiating...
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) recently conducted a second random lottery to select "winners" of the 2012 Diversity Visa (DV) lottery. The DV 2012 new "winners" have been finalized and posted. All DV 2012 applicants must check the official lottery website in order to...
Sheela Murthy met with Arun K. Singh, the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM), and Datta Palsargikar, the Minister of Community Affairs at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC. The DCM shared updates the DHS had given the Indian government regarding the ICE raid on UNVA.Ms....
Anyone who has dealt with immigration issues in connection with the H1B petition and status has likely heard references to a ten-day "grace period" afforded to H1B nonimmigrants at the conclusion of the authorized period of stay. There is no automatic ten-day grace period in...
