Since January 2018, our firm has seen a sharp increase in administrative processing for U.S. visa applications at consulates in India and China. This has caused significant delays in visas being approved and has resulted in foreign nationals spending an additional three weeks to two months in the country of the visa interview, as […]
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) recently changed its mission statement to remove the section describing the U.S. as “a nation of immigrants.” Before the recent change, the USCIS’s mission statement read:
“USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and […]
Spouses of employment-based visa holders who hold H-4, L-2 or E status may now apply for work authorization and a Social Security Number via Form I-765, instead of appearing at a local Social Security Administration office. In order to pursue this streamlined option, spouses must answer a few additional biographical questions on the form. […]
On June 27, 2017, the Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration may ban “foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United State” from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The Court will hear the case on the travel ban in October, at which time […]
A federal district court has issued a nationwide temporary restraining order against the President’s entry ban. The President has asked the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to place a hold on the district court order, but the Ninth Circuit has declined to do so. Therefore, the entry ban remains suspended currently. […]
New USCIS Regulations will go into effect on January 17, 2017 both codifying existing guidelines and introducing new rules. The first three items below are codified existing policies, whereas the remaining items constitute new law.
A foreign national whose I-140 petition has been approved for at least 180 days will not have that petition automatically […]
As of June 25, 2015, most U.S. consulates are back online and are resuming visa issuance operations. (A computer system outage created a backlog of more than 200,000 visa applications, and the State Department is now working through that backlog.) Many visa applicants have had to reschedule their visa interview as a result of […]
U.S. consulates worldwide continue to have technical problems preventing visa issuance. The State Department indicates that visa issuance will not resume until June 22 at the earliest and that, after service resumes, visa applicants will encounter a delay of up to two weeks as the backlog of applications is reduced. Permanent visas (green cards) […]