Business Immigration Insights

As Congress failed to reach an agreement to avert the unthinkable, the US Government shut down at midnight.  This will affect some immigration-related government agencies:

• US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS),which processes immigrant and nonimmigrant visa petitions, will continue operating.  Petitions already on file will continue to be processed, and new petitions will continue to be accepted.  eVerify will not be operating during the shutdown.
• US Customs and Border Protection, which conducts inspections of those arriving by land, air, and sea, and enforces ...

The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) has now issued FAQs for handling of same-sex spouses in both the immigrant (green card) and nonimmigrant (temporary visa) categories, following the Supreme Court’s finding, in Windsor v. United States, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.  Effective immediately, DOS will treat same-sex spouses and their children identically to opposite-sex spouses and their children.  This means that same-sex spouses whose marriages, whether foreign or domestic, are legally recognized where they occurred are now ...

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act, the USCIS has issued some helpful FAQs pertaining to family-based immigrant visa petitions. The State Department has not yet issued guidance on nonimmigrant visa applications by same-sex spouses.  We will update this blog when that guidance is issued.

On July 1, DOL announced that its Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) is making publicly available redacted copies of all certified H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) and permanent labor certifications (PERMs) dating back to April 15, 2009, through the iCert “Labor Certification Registry” (LCR).  These certified documents can be searched by case number, case type, state, job location, employer name, posting range, or industry code.  The “LCR Document Availability Schedule” gives specific availability timeframes for each type of ...

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling holding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued guidance on the filing of same-sex marriage family-based immigrant visa petitions.  The guidance instructs the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to “review immigration visa petitions filed on behalf of a same-sex spouse in the same manner as those filed on behalf of an opposite-sex spouse.”  The DHS FAQs can be found here.

The State Department has yet to issue guidance on the adjudication of nonimmigrant visa ...

Last month, the Homeland Security Investigation Worksite Enforcement Unit of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a significant change in policy regarding use of electronic I-9 software.

Many such systems integrate data from other HR databases in order to prepopulate information on Section 1 of Form I-9, the section employees fill out during the employment eligibility verification process.

In an April 11, 2013, meeting with the Verification and Documentation Liaison Committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), ICE has now confirmed its ...

On April 30, US Customs & Border Protection began a phased elimination of the paper I-94 Admission/Departure Record that visitors to the United States have become so familiar with.

By May 5, CBP will no longer issue paper I-94s at airports in Charlotte, Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago (O’Hare), Miami, and Houston (IAH).  By May 21, I-94s at all other air and sea ports will be systematically phased out, per the schedule in CBP’s Travel Advisory.  Paper I-94s will continue to be issued at all land ports of entry.

Beginning on May 6, 2013, anyone attending an interview at a local USCIS field office or seeking to obtain evidence of an immigration benefit — e.g., employment authorization document, temporary I-551 stamp, or advance parole travel document — will be required to submit digital fingerprints and photos, under USCIS’s new “Customer Identification Verification” (CIV) program.

This biometric data will be input into the “US VISIT” database and will be available to USCIS for future benefits adjudications, and to USCBP, during primary, secondary and deferred ...

The USCIS announced that it received 124,000 Fiscal Year 2014 H-1B petitions between April 1, 2013, and April 5, 2013, including petitions filed for the advanced degree H-1B visas.  The lottery, which was held on Sunday, April 7, 2012, was conducted by a computer-generated random process for the 20,000 advanced degree H-1Bs.  Those not selected were added to a second lottery for the other 65,000 H-1Bs.  Receipt notices for those selected should arrive in the coming weeks.  The USCIS confirmed that it will begin adjudicating petitions filed under the expedited “Premium Processing” ...

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced this afternoon that as of April 5, 2013, it has received sufficient H-1B petitions (regular and master’s cases) to reach the statutory cap for Fiscal Year 2014 (10/1/2013 through 9/30/2014). This is significantly faster than the current fiscal year, when the cap was not reached until June 11, 2012.  Because the cap was met during the first five business days that employers could file Fiscal year 2014 petitions, a lottery will be held in the coming weeks to determine which cases will be accepted for processing, and which will be rejected.  Those chosen in the lottery will be issued receipt notices; those rejected will receive the original filings back from USCIS.