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On Wednesday, the Florida federal court in Perez v. Perez, No. 3:14-cv-682, extended the stay on its March 4, 2015 order vacating the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) 2008 H-2B regulations order by one month through May 15, 2015. DOL will continue to process temporary labor certification applications under its H-2B regulations until this date. Continue reading “Stay on Order Affecting H-2B Program is Extended by One Month”
The Department of State has released its Visa Bulletin for May 2015 and, as predicted back in October 2014 by Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, Charles Oppenheim, the EB-5 category will retrogress for nationals of China. The cut-off for processing will be May 1, 2013. The cut-off date for a foreign national is established by the filing date of the I-526 Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur and is shown on the receipt notice in the “Priority Date” box. As such, Chinese nationals who wish to adjust their status to legal permanent resident in May 2015 must have a priority date of May 1, 2013 or earlier. Continue reading “EB-5 Retrogresses By Two Years in May 2015 for Nationals of China”
United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will begin premium processing H-1B petitions selected during its April 13, 2015 lottery by no later than April 27, 2015.
Continue reading “Premium Processing Update for Selected H-1B Petitions”
Today, after receiving nearly 233,000 petitions, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it conducted its lottery (a computer-generated random selection process) to select the H-1B petitions that it will adjudicate for the 65,000 general-cap and 20,000 master’s cap visas available for FY 2016. Continue reading “Alert: USCIS Conducts Random H-1B Lottery for FY 2016”
On Monday, multiple amicus briefs were filed with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of State of Texas v. United States. As way of background, a coalition of 26 states, including the State of Texas, sued the U.S. government to prevent the implementation of the President’s Executive Actions on Immigration on the grounds that the executive actions are unconstitutional and would require the states to invest more in law enforcement, health care, and education. Continue reading “Multiple Legal Briefs Defending The President’s Executive Actions Filed”
United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced today that it has reached the congressionally mandated H-1B cap for fiscal year 2016. Continue reading “H-1B Cap For FY 2016 Has Been Reached”
Maria del Carmen Ramos, an immigration partner in our Tampa office, was invited by Representative Kathy Castor to attend the Family Defender Orientation. Continue reading “Maria del Carmen Ramos Invited to Attend Family Defender Orientation”
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) recently released the April Visa Bulletin. Continue reading “April Visa Bulletin Released”
Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to expedite its appeal of U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s injunction staying President Obama’s immigration actions. Continue reading “Fifth Circuit to Hear Oral Arguments on Whether to Lift Injunction on April 17”
Today, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memorandum that provides guidance to field adjudicators on things to consider while adjudicating an L-1B petition. Specifically, the new L-1B Adjudications Policy is meant to consolidate previous policy memoranda as well as supersede and rescind, in part, prior memoranda. Continue reading “L-1B Policy Development: USCIS Issues L-1B Adjudications Memo for Comment”