Recently USCIS issued a new rule stating that all employment based green card applications will be subject to interview starting on October 3, 2017. Just this week AILA members and the Ombudsperson for USCIS had a Stakeholder Call to discuss the new rule. Here are the details that came out of this call:
- All EB applications are subject to the new rule INCLUDING NIW and EA applications.
- Any I-485 filed prior to March 6, 2017 (the date of the EO “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” the root of this new requirement) are NOT subject to the new rule. Those cases will still be subject to random interviews, but only about 5% of cases are so selected.
- The Service Centers will still adjudicate the I-140’s and the local offices have been instructed not to readjudicate the I-140s however they are allowed to evaluate the evidence used to support the I-140 for accuracy and credibility. We will have to see how this plays out in real life.
- Once the Service Center adjudicates the I-140, the file will be sent to the National Benefits Center (NBC) to determine if all documents for the I-485 are present. If there is no medical, this is when an RFE will be sent out for the medical (and, considering that there will be longer processing times for everything, it may be wise to not submit the medical until an RFE is issues).
- Surprisingly, USCIS does not feel that timelines will be significantly lengthened due to this requirement. According to USCIS employment based I-485s are only about 17% of the Field offices caseload. We will have to see how this plays out in the real world.
- The top field offices that will be most affected are: San Jose, San Francisco, Newark, New York, Houston, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
- In most cases families will be interviewed together.
As we learn more information we will certainly let you know. Please do contact us with any questions on how you may be impacted.
Please remember, as always, this blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog. Thank you.
The Department of State released the visa bulletin for October 2016 recently. Below is a summary of movement and changes.
The August 2016 visa bulletin was released by the Department of State yesterday. It features backlogs for ALL countries in the EB-2 category and other changed. However, readers should understand, that while certain countries (India and China) have regular backlogs in the EB-2 category, those for other countries in the EB-2 category and those in the EB-1 category are temporary. I will discuss this more in depth below as we look at the specifics of the Visa Bulletin:
We get this, and similar questions, from our clients frequently. This is a very complex issue and every situation is different. However, there are some key considerations you should think about. The key questions are:
Is it as hard as the Extraordinary Ability application? Again, the short answer is no, definitely not. The National Interest Waiver is actually a very appropriate application for many researchers and others who either cannot be or do not want to be sponsored by their employers. It allows you to sponsor yourself, and to change jobs and employers fairly easily throughout the process.
Invariably when working with scientists it becomes apparent that USCIS’s definition of your “most important” work and our client’s definition of their “most important” work are very different. This leads to issues over what findings should be discussed in the memo and highlighted for the USCIS officer to review. Scientists, for good reason, feel that the findings with the most scientific merit should be discussed most prominently. However, this is often not the correct direction to go if you want USCIS to approve the application.
Immigration Briefs 