In honor of and to mark the passing of President Bush (41), the USCIS field office in Hartford, CT will remain closed on Wednesday, December 5th. Additionally, our Office has been receiving calls from field offices in other parts of the country letting us know that interviews scheduled for that day will be rescheduled. At [...]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions to first electronically register with USCIS during a designated registration period. Under the proposed rule, USCIS would also reverse the order by which USCIS selects H-1B petitions under the H-1B cap and the [...]
The Department of Homeland Security is proposing to amend its regulations governing petitions filed on behalf of H-1B beneficiaries who may be counted toward the 65,000 visa cap established under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“H-1B regular cap”) or beneficiaries with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions of higher education who are eligible for an exemption from [...]
USCIS has published a policy memo clarifying the requirement that a qualifying organization employ a principal L-1 beneficiary abroad for one continuous year out of the three years before the time of petition filing (“one-year foreign employment requirement”). Please see memo (PDF). The policy memo clarifies: The L-1 beneficiary must be physically outside the United [...]
The new ETA Form 9035, LCA for Non-immigrant Workers is now available. We are aware of the change and have implemented appropriate changes to our processing.
Sources indicate USCIS will end the practice of denying pending I-131 applications when an applicant travels overseas. At CIS Ombudsman Annual Conference, USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna indicated this policy will be forthcoming. We will provide updates as we receive them.
USCIS will expand its Information Services Modernization Program to key field offices, beginning with the Detroit Field Office and the five offices in the Los Angeles District on Nov. 13. Field offices in the Newark, Great Lakes, and San Francisco districts will implement the program during the first quarter of FY 2019. USCIS anticipates expanding [...]
USCIS announced that on 10/30/18, it transferred Form I-129, Petition for Non-immigrant Workers, for petitioners requesting H-1B non-immigrant classification from the CSC to the NSC.
BALCA found that when an employer requests review by BALCA, rather than filing a MTR, BALCA is only bound to consider information before the CO upon denial and the employer is prevented from supplementing the record with information. (Matter of University of California-Berkeley, 8/30/18) Read BALCA decision(PDF).
On Oct. 1, USCIS began using digital tablets to administer the English reading and writing tests during naturalization interviews as part of the agency’s ongoing business modernization efforts. Although USCIS applicants already use digital tablets to sign or verify parts of their applications, this new approach expands tablet usage, allowing the device to be used [...]