Close

Articles Posted in Backlogs

Updated:

New U.S. Visa Rules: Applying at U.S. Embassy in Your Place of Residence or Country of Nationality Now Required

Flickr Creative Commons Attribution Jeroen Akkermans In the last months, the U.S. Department of State released two significant policy updates that impact both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants. These updates focus on a core change: applicants will now be required to have their visa interviews in their place of residence…

Updated:

Trump Administration Limits Interview Waiver Policy: What Visa Applicants Need to Know (Effective September 2, 2025)

Starting September 2, 2025, the U.S. Department of State will implement major changes that limit eligibility for nonimmigrant visa interview waivers. Under the State Department’s new revised policy, most applicants—including children under 14 and adults over 79—will be required to attend an in-person interview with a U.S. consular officer, with…

Updated:

March 2025 Visa Bulletin: Major Advancements in EB-2 and EB-3 Final Action Dates, Retrogression of EB-4, and Minimal Movement in Family Sponsored Final Action Dates

We are pleased to report that today the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs published the March 2025 Visa Bulletin. In this blog post, we breakdown the movement of the employment-based and family-sponsored categories in the coming month. USCIS Adjustment of Status For employment-based preference categories, the U.S. Citizenship and…

Updated:

How Employment-Based Visa Applicants Can Prepare for the Incoming Trump Administration

In this blog post, we discuss how Trump’s return to the White House on January 20th could impact employment-based visa applicants and their employers in the years ahead. While the Trump campaign has been very vocal about their zero-tolerance policy toward illegal immigration, much less has been said about employment-based…

Updated:

Incoming Trump Administration Poised to Threaten H-1B Worker Visas

The fallout of the 2024 Presidential election has left high-skilled foreign workers asking what the Trump administration may have in store for them in the new year. Perhaps the most vulnerable to attack is the H-1B work visa program, which was previously targeted by the Trump administration. A second term…

Updated:

December Visa Bulletin: Except for Final Action EB-2 and EB-3 India, Absolutely No Advancements

We are pleased to report that today the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs published the December Visa Bulletin. Unfortunately, the December Visa Bulletin brings almost no movement. USCIS Adjustment of Status For employment-based and family-sponsored preference categories, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed it will continue to use…

Updated:

DOS Immigrant Visa Backlog Report: Increase in Applicants Scheduled for IV Interviews in October 2024

In this blog post, we discuss the release of the Department of State’s October 2024 Immigrant Visa Backlog report. This is a monthly publication that provides data and statistics regarding the number of immigrant visa cases currently at the National Visa Center waiting for interviews, documentarily complete cases that have been…

Updated:

Reports Signal Looming Crackdown on Asylum Requests at the Southern Border   

News reports from the Associated Press and other media outlets indicate that the Biden administration is on the verge of signing an executive order that could halt asylum requests at the U.S. Mexico border, and introduce new admissions quotas by invoking the President’s authority under Section 212(f) of the Immigration…

Updated:

U.S. Embassies Issue Record Breaking 5.2 Million Nonimmigrant Visas and 281,000+ Immigrant Visas Worldwide in FY 2024

On May 13, 2024, the State Department announced record breaking milestones including the issuance of a whopping 5.2 million nonimmigrant visas at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide in the first half of fiscal year 2024 – more than any previous year over the same period. In the past six months…

Updated:

April 2024 Visa Bulletin: Employment-Based Final Action Dates Advance and Family-Sponsored Categories Show Slight Progress

The Department of State has published the April 2024 Visa Bulletin, bringing significant advancements in the final action dates for most employment-based categories, and modest advancement for the family-sponsored categories when compared to the previous month. Highlights of the April 2024 Visa Bulletin Dates for Filing Chart For the family-sponsored preference categories,…