On March 15, 2022, the United States enacted the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 (the 2022 Act) as part of a large omnibus budget package of legislation. The 39-page compromise legislation grandfathers existing workers...more
Prospective EB-5 investors have watched 2019 regulations nearly double minimum investment amounts, only then to see those regulations judicially vacated in 2021 just as the regional center legislation expired on June 30,...more
With regional center legislation expired for now, and almost all investors born in Mainland China having used a regional center sponsorship, there should be nearly zero Chinese investors waiting for an EB-5 visa number and...more
Spouses of H-1B, L-1, and maybe E-1/E-2/E-3 workers or investors will have an easier time maintaining work authorization under a litigation settlement entered by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The...more
This week two major events occurred in the EB-5 investment visa program: (1) Congress failed to enact a law renewing the law authorizing regional centers and indirect investment and job creation, which expires June 30; and...more
More than 78 days into the Biden Administration, less dust than expected or hoped has settled on the landscape for business and family immigration to the U.S. This article briefly assesses the state of play concerning...more
4/8/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
F-1 Visa ,
H-1B ,
H-4 Spouses ,
Immigration ,
Presidential Proclamations ,
Travel Restrictions ,
USCIS ,
Visas
New rules published by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Homeland Security (specifically, USCIS) are intended to severely restrict the use of the H-1B and related H-1B1 and E-3 visa classifications for...more
On October 1 a federal district court in California immediately enjoined the implementation of the President's Proclamation against the issuance of visas in the H, L, and J classifications, pending further hearings in the...more
President Trump has issued a new Proclamation that immediately extends to December 31, 2020 its April 22 suspension of certain immigrant visas (family categories other than spouse and children of citizens; employment...more
President Trump has issued a new Proclamation that immediately extends to December 31, 2020 its April 22 suspension of certain immigrant visas (family categories other than spouse and children of citizens; employment...more
President Trump's April 22, 2020 Proclamation narrowly delays for 60 days the issuance of immigrant visas for certain categories of family and employment-sponsored immigrants and diversity lottery winners. It has no effect on...more
As the White House extends its social distancing guidelines another month through April 30 in recognition of the still-increasing pace of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the U.S., it appears that many U.S. immigration...more
To implement its new standards for assessing whether someone is "likely to become a public charge," the U.S. government now requires gobs of intrusive data and documents from almost every green card applicant. ...more
USCIS has been falling farther and farther behind on adjudication of EB-5 filings. Last week USCIS suddenly announced that, starting March 31, 2020, it will adjudicate first I-526 petitions from investors for whom a visa...more
On January 31, President Trump issued a new Proclamation not only keeping in place a prior ban on certain travel (having removed Chad from that ban), but imposing a ban only on permanent immigration from outside the U.S. of...more
The Department of Homeland Security has published its plan to follow the State Department in collecting social media platforms and identifiers used in the preceding five years by applicants for immigration benefits, including...more
It is time for employers to prepare H-1B filings for workers who have not held H-1B status before and are subject to the annual cap on visa numbers. The filings need to be submitted on April 1 to USCIS with full documentation...more
In about 2015, USCIS started denying petitions of EB-5 investors who used the cash proceeds of a loan as their source of funds unless the loan was collateralized by the personal assets of the investor. ...more
On March 6, President Trump issued a revised Executive Order (EO), effective on March 16, 2017, to replace the prior order of January 27 with more limited and prospective restrictions on travel for nationals of six countries,...more
On March 3, 2017 USCIS announced that it will not honor any requests for premium processing for ANY H-1B petitions filed starting April 3 until further notice. That includes capped and cap-exempt petitions, and petitions for...more
On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13769 entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” We’ll call this one the “Screening EO.” This is one of at least three...more
2/7/2017
/ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Executive Orders ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Green Cards ,
Iran ,
Iraq ,
Libya ,
Somalia ,
Sudan ,
Syria ,
Travel Ban ,
Trump Administration ,
US Department of State ,
Visas ,
Yemen
USCIS has published a final rule, to take effect January 17, 2017, ensconcing in regulations most of the policies it had long ago worked out in memorandums implementing provisions of 1998 and 2001 laws intended to bridge some...more
On September 9, 2015, the U.S. Government pleasantly surprised the immigration world by publishing a new type of monthly Visa Bulletin for October 2015 with USCIS announcement about a new approach to the timing of the ability...more
9/28/2015
/ Applications ,
CSPA ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
EB-3 ,
EB-5 ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Final Action ,
Green Cards ,
Immigration Reform ,
Medical Examinations ,
Obama Administration ,
Popular ,
US Department of State ,
USCIS ,
Visas ,
Work Visas
The following bulletin was published by the Department of State (which oversees all consulates/embassies), advising of a global glitch that has stopped all U.S. visa issuance worldwide. The issue has not resolved since the...more
FINRA has clarified that its Suitability Rule applies to broker dealers' assessment of EB-5 transactions, but that the broker can and should assess the immigration benefit among the economic interests of the investor.
...more