Business Immigration Insights

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it is extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti through January 22, 2018 – a much shorter period than the normal 18-month extension. This announcement allows qualifying individuals to reapply for TPS and work authorization during a 60-day period starting May 24, 2017. If TPS designation for Haiti is allowed to expire in January 2018, as DHS warns may happen, the nearly 60,000 persons enrolled in the program will be forced to return to Haiti, change to another status if eligible, or remain in the ...

The Trump Administration’s April Executive Order, “Buy American, Hire American,” puts the H-1B visa program under increased scrutiny, but is not likely to have significant, if any, impact on the program for the foreseeable future.

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 June Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month:

• China EB-1 retrogresses to January 1, 2012, EB-2 continues a slow forward march advancing to March 1, 2013, and EB-3 is stalled at October 1, 2014
• India EB-1 retrogresses to January 1, 2012, EB-2 moves ahead slightly to July 1, 2008 and EB-3 advances six weeks to ...

The USCIS received 199,000 petitions for the FY-2018 H-1B visas that will become available on October 1, 2017.  The lottery was held on April 11, 2017, for both the master’s cap cases (20,000 H-1B visas) and the regular cap cases (65,000 H-1B visas).  The USCIS is in the process of sending receipt notices by regular mail to those whose petitions were selected in the lottery.  We expect that the process to mail all of the notices will take several weeks to complete.  Petitions that were not selected in the lottery will be returned (with the uncashed filing fee checks) over the next few months ...

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 May Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month:

Not surprisingly, the USCIS announced today that the FY2018 H-1B cap has been met.  The USCIS will hold a lottery for the H-1B visas as early as next week.  Those selected will receive receipt notices in the mail; those rejected will have their filings returned, along with the filing fee checks.   We expect that the receipt notices for those selected will begin to trickle in later this month through most of May; the rejected petitions will take longer to return.  The USCIS has not yet released the number of petitions it received.  Please check back for updates ...

On, March 31, 2017, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services rescinded a 17-year-old memorandum issued by the Nebraska Service Center regarding computer-related positions as H-1B “specialty occupations.”  For the last 10 years, all H-1B petitions have been processed at the Vermont and California Service Centers, so the memo has not been in use.  Since NSC recently began accepting H-1B extension petitions again, USCIS has rescinded the memo, stating it is outdated and inconsistent with the agency’s current approach to H-1B petitions for computer jobs.

Due to the upcoming temporary suspension of premium processing for all H-1B petitions on April 3, 2017, USCIS has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of premium processing cases it has received.  The Nebraska Service Center, which processes all H-1B extension petitions for non-cap exempt employers containing no changes to the beneficiary’s terms of employment, has announced that it will focus its resources on processing H-1B petitions in accordance with premium processing requirements.

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.

President Trump signed today the long-awaited revised travel ban Executive Order entitled, “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States”, effective 12:01 a.m, Eastern Standard Time on March 16, 2017.  The list of affected countries includes Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen; Iraq was removed from the list.  Key provisions are as follows: