Demystifying Immigration Law
The Latest on E-2 Visa with Citizenship-by-Investment
Law Brief: H-1B Visas – New Process and New (Upcoming) Deadlines
Employment Visa Restrictions: Past, Present, and Future by Sang Shin
Update from Washington: Employer's Preview of Immigration Restrictions from the Administration
The ever-changing landscape of employment-based immigration continues to pose challenges for U.S. employers. With increased scrutiny on foreign national workers, compliance audits, and evolving nonimmigrant visa policies,...more
The 2025 H-1B cap registration period will begin at 12 p.m. Eastern time on March 7, 2025, and will conclude at 12 p.m. Eastern on March 24, 2025. Prospective petitioners are required to register each beneficiary online and...more
H-1B Registrations for the FY2026 cap season will open at noon ET on March 7, 2025, and run through noon ET on March 24, 2025. The USCIS filing fee is $215 per registration this year (a significant increase from $10)....more
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a new regulation to “modernize” the H‑1B program, a visa category commonly used by US employers to hire skilled foreign workers. The new regulation takes effect on...more
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published a final rule with key updates to the H-1B specialty occupation nonimmigrant visa program. The final rule is aimed at modernizing the H-1B program by improving efficiency...more
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday key changes to the H-1B lottery for Fiscal Year 2025, including a beneficiary-centric selection process for H–1B registrations; start-date flexibility for certain...more
On December 13, 2023, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced that it reached the requisite number of H-1B Cap petitions and stopped making further selections for Fiscal Year 2024. Fiscal...more
The H-1B visa, highly sought after and a valuable route for foreign nationals to ultimately pursue U.S. residence status, will become available for pre-registrations in the lottery submission process in March 2024. We await...more
Updates regarding the H-1B visa cap and a new pilot program to renew passport visas within the United States are included in the latest edition of the Immigration Insider....more
Federal immigration authorities have just published long-awaited revisions to the H-1B visa process intended to modernize that nonimmigrant category and tighten the annual lottery system that has long frustrated employers and...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that as of October 11, 2023, the H-2B cap for nonagricultural workers had been reached for the first half of fiscal year 2024....more
The U.S. Department of State announced that it will extend the authority of consular officers to waive in-person interviews for some non-immigrant visa categories through December 31, 2023. The determination to waive the...more
Background- The H-1B nonimmigrant visa is one of the most highly utilized and sought-after temporary work visas and facilitates the employment of foreign nationals entering the United States to perform employment in...more
Immigration partner Roxanne Levine joined Litigation partner and host Rich Schoenstein to discuss the new filing process for H-1B visas, which provide a nonimmigrant temporary visa category for certain foreign nationals that...more
USCIS to Publish Revised Form I-539 and New Form I-539A - This week the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced sweeping changes to the I-539 and I-539A forms and processes. Starting on March...more
On Friday April 1, 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2017 cap. It is critical that employers begin preparation as soon as possible for...more
While it may seem early, the holiday season is a good time for employers to start preparing for the H-1B Cap for Fiscal Year 2017, which begins October 1, 2016. Demand for the H-1B has steadily increased so that last year,...more
USCIS announced on September 24, 2015 that it will: “suspend final adjudication of employment-based Form I-485 applications… because the Department of State reports that the statutory cap has been reached for the...more
In 2014, Massachusetts created the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program (GEIR), a program meant to capitalize on the opportunities provided by concurrent H-1B employment. Under this program, universities partnered with...more
Fiscal year 2016 cap-subject H-1B petitions selected and approved by USCIS will be valid starting October 1, 2015. However, as October 1, 2015 approaches, many cap-subject H-1B petitions remain pending at both the California...more
USCIS announced on July 14, 2015, that it completed the return of rejected fiscal year 2016 H-1B cap-subject petitions. It was previously announced on May 4, 2015, that USCIS completed data entry of all selected...more