Submitted by Eliza Grinberg on January 28, 2019 - 10:06am
On January 25, 2019, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it is resuming premium processing for all H1B nonimmigrant visa petitions subject to the fiscal year 2019 cap. The news alert states that petitioners who have received requests for evidence (RFEs) in relation to pending fiscal year 2019 H1B petitions may submit a request for premium processing along with their RFE response.
On January 8, 2019, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) unveiled its new Online Fee Calculator. The USCIS explained that the Online Fee Calculator is designed to “assist members of the public in calculating the correct fee amount to include when filing their forms with USCIS at an agency lockbox facility.”
On December 10, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had permanently closed the USCIS Field Office in Havana, Cuba, on that same day. In the aftermath of the closure of the USCIS Havana Field Office, the USCIS Field Office in Mexico City “will assume the Havana Field Office’s jurisdiction over U.S. immigration matters for individuals who are in Cuba.”
Submitted by Eliza Grinberg on December 12, 2018 - 3:07pm
On December 6, 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein published an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “Impose Boundaries on Immigration Law. He suggests creating a single federal circuit court with appellate jurisdiction over appeals of BIA decisions.
On December 7, 2018, President Donald Trump announced that he will nominate William P. Barr to succeed Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General of the United States.
On November 8, 2018, the U.S. Department of State published the Visa Bulletin for December 2018. The Visa Bulletin for December 2018 – like all other visa bulletins – contains final action dates and dates for filing for the family-sponsored and employment-based preference categories for that month. Just five days after the publication of the December Visa Bulletin, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published good news for both family-sponsored and employment-based adjustment of status hopefuls, requiring both to use the filing dates for determining eligibility to apply for adjustment of status in December in lieu of the more restrictive final action dates. In this article, we will review the relevant charts, news, and notes from the December 2018 Visa Bulletin, with a focus on adjustment of status applicants.
Submitted by Eliza Grinberg on November 22, 2018 - 9:52am
On October 10, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Nielsen v. Preap, Docket No. 16-1363. The issue in Preap is whether an alien becomes exempt from mandatory detention under section 236(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not take him into immigration custody immediately after his or her release from criminal custody. Preap arrived at the Supreme Court on the Government’s appeal from a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the section 236(c) mandatory detention provision applies only to aliens who are detained promptly after their release from custody. In this article, we will examine the background of Preap, the issues under consideration by the Supreme Court, and the oral arguments.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a news alert titled “USCIS Issuing Biometric Appointment Notices for Domestic N-565 and N-600 Applicants” on November 15, 2018. On November 1, 2018, the USCIS began requesting that domestic Form N-565, Application for Replacement Naturalization/Citizenship Document applicants go to a USCIS Application Support Center appointment to submit biometric information. The news alert adds that the USCIS will request that applicants filing the Form N-600, Application for Certificate of Citizenship, also begin following the same procedure in early 2019.
On November 16, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a news release on how it is simplifying users’ access to online data. We discuss the changes in this post.
On October 30, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a news release announcing that it is expanding its Information Services Modernization Program after having begun a pilot of the program in March.
