Many of you may be wondering why it is taking so long to get your Citizenship approved. Many people who filed a year ago, or more, were not naturalized prior to this year’s election, so were unable to vote. What happened? If you thought it was due to the Covid pandemic, you are only partially correct. In 2016,
As you may know, USCIS implemented new regulations on the H-1B process, and the DOL implemented new regulations on the Prevailing Wage process. While there is at least one Court Case pending seeking an injunction on both of these regulations, it is still worthwhile going through the major changed made by both these regulations Prevailing
Today the US District Court for the Northern District of California enjoined DHS and USCIS from putting their new Fee rule into effect on October 2, 2020. The Court agreed with the plaintiffs that it was more likely than not that they would succeed plaintiffs their case showing that the acting Directors of DHS and
On September 11, 2020, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals limited the scope of the preliminary injunction on the USCIS new public charge rule issued by the New York State District Court. The Court of Appeals changed the injunction from nationwide to only applying to New York, and two other states in the jurisdiction of
There was a recent, very interesting article published by NPR that highlighted the problems that may be faced by the Biden administration (if he wins the election) in rolling back the changes implemented by the Trump administration. You can read the full article here. While there were several possible barriers raised by the article that
It appears that the current administration will soon have USCIS issue a new regulation regarding H-1Bs. There are three elements of the new regulation that are the most significant: 1) The regulation will be published as an “interim final rule,” which would allow it to go into effect immediately without public input but also makes
DHS this week indicated that it was going to propose a rule expanding the use of biometrics in immigration cases. Currently, in cases in which background checks are required, DHS (and, by extension USCIS) requires biometrics (fingerprints and photos at this point) to be taken at the Application Support Centers across the US. The new
Overall dates are moving forward, but there are some noticeable categories that are lagging behind and not progressing as much, this includes Employment Based Third Preference which doesn’t move forward at all this month. Below is a summary of movement in most categories Family Based Categories F1: Moved forward one months to September 15, 2014
USCIS issued its final rule to up fees starting October 2, 2020. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association: On August 3, 2020, USCIS published a final rule that significantly increases certain immigration and naturalization benefit request fees. The rule, which will be effective October 2, 2020, also removes certain fee exemptions, changes fee waiver requirements, alters premium
The Department of State announced yesterday that it would begin a phased reopening of Consulates across the world. Please note, they will NOT be reopening all consulates at once, and cannot give specific dates as to when certain consulates will open or not. Each Consulate will announce their plans and re-opening dates on their individual