Business Immigration Insights

The Visa Bulletin is released monthly by the Department of State and is used to determine when a sponsored foreign national can submit the final step of the green card process, or if already pending, when the final step can be adjudicated.

Below is a summary of the September Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month.

• China: EB-1 retrogresses more than two years to January 1, 2014; EB-2 stalls at January 1, 2017; and EB-3 falls back more than two years to January 1, 2014
• India: EB-1 becomes unavailable for the first time ever (excluding the aftermath of the visa fiasco of August 2007); EB-2 creeps forward six days to May 8, 2009; and EB-3 falls back six months to July 1, 2005
• All Other Countries (including the Philippines): EB-1 remains backlogged, but advances over one year to October 1, 2017; EB-2 moves forward one year to January 1, 2018; and EB-3 stalls at July 1, 2016

USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli announced today, via Twitter, that USCIS will close all but seven of its international field offices, leaving only the offices in Beijing, Guanghzou, Guatemala City, Mexico City, Nairobi, New Delhi and San Salvador to service the many US citizens and permanent residents who reside abroad. USCIS has also made the official announcement on their website. The decision leaves the entire continents of South America and Europe without a USCIS office.  Although not ideal, this announcement still marks a welcome change from USCIS’s prior announcement, in March 2019, by then-Director Francis Cissna that all twenty international offices would be closed and their workload shifted to domestic offices.

On Tuesday, July 30, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement agreement with United General Bakery, Inc. based in Phoenix, Arizona. The agreement resolved a DOJ investigation into whether the company discriminated against authorized workers based on their citizenship status when verifying their work authorization in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

In 1985, near the village of Schengen in Luxembourg, five European countries signed an agreement to gradually eliminate border controls between their countries. Since then, the Schengen agreement has become the basis for the elimination of border controls between 26 European countries facilitating the flow of people and goods throughout Europe. Visitors are subject to immigration inspection when entering the Schengen area, but not when traveling between Schengen states.

Even though the United States ended the compulsory military draft on January 27, 1973, it maintains a database of eligible men used to provide “trained and untrained manpower to the Department of Defense in a national emergency.” The agency that manages this database, the “Selective Service System”, is alive and well, as is the requirement to register.

 Who must register?

Current law requires that all male US citizens who are 18-25 register with the Selective Service.  But did you know that non-citizens must register as well?  With a few exemptions, the following males who are ...

Are you frustrated with the increasing level of documentation required to support employment-based immigration filings? You are not alone.

Gone are the days when a company letter and organizational chart were enough to support an L-1A manager case or just quoting the Occupational Outlook Handbook was enough to demonstrate specialty occupation status for an H-1B petition. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) now requires pages and pages of supporting evidence for all employment-based filings, including I-129 nonimmigrant petitions for L-1 or H-1B status and I-140 ...

Since mid-June, the White House has been promising massive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) coordinated immigration raids around the country.  The goal: arrest and quickly remove approximately 2,000 recently arrived individuals with deportation orders.  This, according to the White House, would serve as a deterrent to others seeking to enter the U.S. unlawfully.  The raids were expected to begin in earnest on Sunday July 14, 2019.

What happened?

That date has come and gone, without the expected nationwide show of force.  There were no large-scale raids with weapons ...

The Visa Bulletin is released monthly by the Department of State and is used to determine when a sponsored foreign national can submit the final step of the green card process. The complete visa bulletin can be found here.

Below is a summary of the August Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month.

• China: EB-1 retrogresses to July 1, 2016; EB-2 advances two months to January 1, 2017; and EB-3 moves forward six months to July 1, 2016
• India: EB-1 remains stalled at January 1, 2015; EB-2 crawls ahead eight days to May 2, 2009; and EB-3 falls back more than three ...

Sunday as the country watched the US women cruise to victory over the Dutch, some immigration lawyers were wondering:

How many of the players are immigrants?

We know soccer teams draw their stars from around the world. For example:

• the current Manchester United F.C. first-team squad features players from 14 different countries,
• the current D.C. United MLS team features players from 10 countries, and
• the Washington Spirit, DC’s local women’s professional team that includes Rose Lavelle who scored a beautiful goal in the World Cup Final, features players from 3 countries.

This ...

While employment-based green card applicants are seeing unprecedented backlogs in their priority dates, notably in the EB-1 category reserved for “priority workers”, family-sponsored green card applicants are seeing their priority dates advance at a pace not seen in the last few years.

This development is happening almost unnoticed in the shadow of the media’s focus on the southern border and other aspects of preference-based immigration such as the administration’s proposal for a point-based system and a proposal in Congress to eliminate per-country limitations ...