Recent processing time trends at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) are raising concerns for both Employers and F-1 visa holders relying on automatic extensions of work authorization while awaiting the...more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has completed its annual H-1B cap lottery selection process for fiscal year 2025. Given the high number of lottery registrations and the fixed number of...more
Beginning March 6, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will conduct its annual H-1B Cap Lottery to award H-1B slots for professional workers in specialty occupations. There are a total of 85,000 visas...more
USCIS is proposing to modernize the H-1B visa program by streamlining eligibility requirements, improving program efficiency, providing greater benefits and flexibilities for employers and workers, and strengthening integrity...more
Each year in March, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducts a lottery to award H-1B slots to enough foreign workers to meet its 85,000 visa annual cap. This number includes 20,000 slots reserved for...more
Employers who recently hired F-1 foreign students and wish to continue to employ them beyond the one or three years of Optional Practical Training employment authorization should contact immigration counsel and start making a...more
The H-1B lottery for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 was conducted in March 2022. USCIS received 483,927 H-1B registrations and initially selected 127,600 registrations, which is the projected amount needed to reach the FY2023...more
An accounting firm hires a new graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from a local university for its audit team. This new graduate is a foreign student utilizing the one-year Optional Practical Training...more
On January 21, 2022, the White House released a fact sheet entitled “Biden-Harris Administration Actions to Attract STEM Talent and Strengthen our Economy and Competitiveness,” announcing several immigration-related policy...more
Registration Dates Announced and Rule Prioritizing Selection of Highest Wage-Level Delayed - On February 5, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the...more
On Friday, February 5, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the FY2022 H-1B Cap Lottery will begin on March 9, 2021. ...more
USCIS Resumes Premium Processing - USCIS has announced here that beginning the month of June 2020, it will again start accepting certain petitions for premium processing. Premium processing was indefinitely suspended as...more
In 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued final rules making a number of changes to the H-1B visa lottery process. This Holland & Knight alert highlights key differences in the 2020 process and answers...more
U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) confirmed it will utilize a new electronic registration system for the Fiscal Year 2021 H-1B lottery. By way of background, the H-1B visa program allows companies in the United...more
Employers will have to decide who they are sponsoring earlier this year. For a brief background, H-1B work visas are the most common work visas for foreign nationals in professional positions (which are jobs requiring at...more
Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that an H-1B cap registration system (from which the annual H-1B lottery will be run) will be implemented for the upcoming fiscal year 2021 H-1B cap...more
Many U.S. employers have recently experienced frustration over legal obstacles to keeping high quality foreign-national employees. These valuable employees have often been with the company since finishing a degree and...more
As of April 1, 2019, U.S. employers requesting a change of status for H-1B hopefuls should request Premium Processing by concurrently filing visa petitions with Form I-907...more
On March 19, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced that it will accept premium processing requests (i.e., Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service) for fiscal year (“FY”) 2020 H-1B cap...more
On April 1, 2019, USCIS will begin accepting cap subject H-1B professional worker petitions for a start date of October 1, 2019 (FY2020). Due to the high demand for H-1B visas and newly proposed rulemaking for cap-subject...more
Technology companies, including IT consulting companies, IT service providers and software designers, seek to employ the best and the brightest IT professionals to keep IT systems secure and to deliver innovative solutions....more
For employers, the extended suspension of Premium Processing will mean postponed start-dates for H-1B workers well beyond the expected October 1 annual start date. ...more
USCIS Extends and Expands Suspension of H-1B Premium Processing - Earlier this week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will extend the suspension of Premium Processing for all pending FY...more
On April 1, 2018, USCIS will begin accepting cap subject H-1B professional worker petitions for a start date of October 1, 2018. Due to the high demand for H-1B visas, we encourage employers to take time now to identify any...more
The October 1st start date for H-1B cap-subject petitions is rapidly approaching. Foreign nationals who were selected in this year's H-1B lottery and their petitioning companies should remember several key points about the...more