Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas break with your families. In this blog post, we share a new update from the State Department regarding the continuation of its interview waiver policy for certain nonimmigrant visa types. In a new announcement, the Secretary of State has…
Articles Posted in Policy
USCIS Announces Trial Testing, New Updates to the N-400 Naturalization Test in 2023
If you are considering applying for U.S. Citizenship in the new year, you may be interested to learn that yesterday December 15, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to conduct trial testing of…
USCIS Reveals New Policy Automatically Extending Green Cards for Naturalization Applicants Starting December 12, 2022
We start off the week with some exciting news for naturalization applicants filing N-400, Application for Naturalization. On December 9, 2022, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced new updates to its policy guidance including a new procedure that will allow USCIS to automatically extend the validity of a…
USCIS Announces Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) Loses Accreditation: How this Impacts F-1 Students, STEM OPT Extensions, H-1B Master’s Cap, and More…
In this blog post, we bring you some unfortunate news. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it will no longer recognize the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) as an accrediting agency. Sadly, this means that certain F-1 student visa applicants will be impacted by this…
USCIS Opens New Admissions Process for Venezuelans, Starting Today October 18, 2022
In this blog post, we follow up on our previous reporting relating to a brand-new program launched by the Biden administration that will allow for the admission of up to 24,000 Venezuelans, closely following in the footsteps of the Uniting for Ukraine program. Today, October 18, 2022, the U.S. Citizenship…
Biden Administration Launches New Entry Program for Venezuelan Nationals, Mirroring Uniting for Ukraine
The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to secure the Southwest border to curb illegal immigration stemming from the humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela. In a press release issued October 12, 2022, the Biden administration announced that effective immediately, Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry,…
USCIS Extends its Temporary Waiver of the 60-Day Rule for Civil Surgeon Signatures on Form I-693 Green Card Medical Exams
Happy Columbus Day! We start the week with great news for green card applications. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it is extending a policy that previously waived the requirement for civil surgeons to sign the Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record, no…
USCIS Extends Green Card Validity Extension to 24 Months for I-90 Green Card Renewals and Replacements
In this blog post we share with you some great news for lawful permanent residents filing Form I-90 Application to Replace or Renew existing permanent resident cards. On September 28, 2022, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that beginning September 26th the agency will be automatically extending the…
All About the COVID-19 Vaccine Waiver and Success Story: Vaccine Waiver Based on Religious Belief or Moral Conviction
Have you ever wondered: is there an exception to the COVID-19 vaccine requirement mandated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for those undergoing the green card process? In this blog post, we share with you how our office was able to obtain successful waivers of the COVID-19 vaccine…
Asylum Seekers Skyrocket at San Diego and El Paso Ports of Entry
Welcome to the start of a brand-new week. In this blog, we cover new reports from the U.S./Mexico border addressing the growing number of asylum seekers entering the United States from Tijuana into San Diego, through a process known as “humanitarian parole.” According to a recent report published by the…