President Joe Biden on July 26, 2024, granted Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for certain Lebanese nationals for 18 months due to the humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon created by the ongoing conflict between...more
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is “rebranding.” As part of its rebranding, it has relaunched its website to distance itself from the politics of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE remains the...more
President Joe Biden announced Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for up to 18 months for Palestinians currently residing in the United States. The president took this action due to the terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7,...more
Diversity Visa (DV) Electronic Registration for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 opens at noon ET on October 4, 2023, and closes at noon ET on November 7, 2023. There will be 55,000 Diversity Visas available for FY 2025....more
The Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery is open for FY 2024. Applications may be filed online until 12:00 p.m. ET on November 8, 2022.
The DV Lottery program makes 50,000 immigrant visas (“green cards”) available every year to...more
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that as of October 1, 2021, all applicants for Green Cards must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
There are some exemptions from the requirement, but...more
The entry period for the 2022 Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program will open on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and will close at noon EDT on Tuesday, November 10, 2022. There is no cost to...more
The reported failure of USCIS to renew its contract with an outside vendor in June, because it planned to bring all printing of Green Cards in-house, may be the reason foreign nationals who have managed to make it through the...more
Premium processing will resume in stages according to USCIS. Cap-subject H-1B petitions will be included only in the last phase.
June 1, 2020: USCIS will accept requests for premium processing for all eligible Form I-140...more
In the first bit of relief for individuals waiting for their I-765, Applications for Employment Authorization to be adjudicated and Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) to be issued, USCIS announced that it will start...more
USCIS has announced that Iranians in the U.S. will not be eligible for extensions of E-1 or E-2 visa status or changes to that status from another visa classification. The announcement comes more than a year after the U.S....more
It is no secret that H-1B visa denial rates have been on the rise over the last two years. Recent reporting sheds light on the litigation ensuing from those denials and the impact of denials on H-1B beneficiaries.
Sanduja...more
On December 6, 2019, USCIS announced it is implementing the registration process in the next H-1B lottery. H-1B employers have been awaiting confirmation of and details regarding the new registration process for H-1B...more
The Trump Administration would like to institute a “points-based” or “merit-based” immigration system, cut down on family-based immigration and eliminate the Diversity Lottery. To date, Congress has not passed any such...more
Despite litigation that enjoined USCIS from proceeding with the implementation of the Public Charge Rule, Department of State (DOS) seemed ready to proceed with it at Consulates abroad.
But, as of this week, DOS is no...more
U.S. District Court Judge George S. Daniels of the Southern District of New York enjoined the Trump Administration’s new Public Charge Rule scheduled to go into effect on October 15, 2019. The new Rule has been the subject of...more
Online FY 2021 Diversity Lottery registration began on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at noon (EDT) and ends on Tuesday, November 5, 2019 at noon (EDT). This year, 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available. The Diversity...more
Having focused on enforcement and illegal immigration, the Trump Administration has recently turned to legal immigration. The new Public Charge rule which will go into effect on October 15, 2019, absent court action, will...more
In Mosleh et al. v. Pompeo et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Chief Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill ordered the Administration to show that delays in granting travel ban waivers to Yemeni...more
We wrote yesterday on the U.S. Supreme Court declining to expedite review of DACA, as well as the recent and current legislative activity regarding the program. Later in the day on June 4th, the U.S. House of Representatives...more
On May 20, 2019, USCIS will begin premium processing for cap-subject H-1B cases that were filed concurrently with Form I-907 premium processing requests. Under the Premium Processing Service, USCIS guarantees 15-calendar-day...more
President Donald Trump has extended the wind-down period for termination of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) status for beneficiaries from Liberia from March 31, 2019, to March 30, 2020.
DED, like Temporary Protected...more
The deadline for Brexit is quickly approaching – March 29, 2019. If the UK leaves the European Union without a Brexit deal, what will that mean for EU citizens working in the UK? According to Leigh Turner, the UK Permanent...more
Prior to the government shutdown, it seemed that the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act might pass as an amendment to the spending package with strong bipartisan support. But that was not to be. Now members of the U.S....more
USCIS announced that, effective immediately, it is terminating yet another humanitarian parole program. This one is for individuals living in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). ...more