The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued the Visa Bulletin for May 2009, which announced EB3 unavailability for all countries of chargeability. The EB2 cutoff dates for China and India had been February 15, 2005 and February 15, 2004, respectively, and have not changed for May 2009. The EB3…
I made a bet with a few fellow Immigration experts about the timing of the cap being reached. I now admit that I lost. I predicted the cap to be met by the 7th with 85,000 regular H1B’s filed. Today we got the H1B news, and in line with the…
The H1B visa filing status seems to be the main issue for clients and site visitors in the past week. USCIS announced today that the H-1B cap has not been reached and it continues to accept H-1B petitions for both the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 higher-degree cap. Should…
We are not even one week after H1B filing day and problems are here. AILA Liaison has been advised by USCIS that a small number of petitions submitted for the FY2010 H-1B quota were receipted in error . This means the Immigration already issued receipts, even before any lottery. If…
It looks like there will be a delay in the launch of the new iCert PERM portal for processing labor certifications (LCs). As planned, the new LCA system will launch on April 15, 2009, when employers and attorneys can set up their iCert accounts and begin submitting the new LCA…
The H1B Frenzy is almost over, see below a sample of what some cases looked like before leaving our office. It is likely that companies will file fewer H-1B visa applications for Fiscal Year 2010 as a result of the economic recession. However, there will still be demand for the…
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington recently ruled in Ruiz-Diaz v. United States that a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regulation is “unreasonable and impermissible.” A federal judge has struck down a long-standing government policy that made it tougher for religious workers from other countries…
Starting April 3, employers must use a revised Employment Eligibility Verification form I-9 which is dated February 2, 2009. Until such time, employers must continue to use the I-9 form dated June 5, 2007. The most significant changes in the new form are: a) Only unexpired documents will be acceptable.…
As I am writing this post, my fingers are hurting from the amount of H1B forms I had to sign today. We are almost ready with our cases. Yet, last minute clients are calling in need of our services. Tomorrow will be the last day we accept cases (I promised…
Most H1B applicants assume that as long as they mail the cases on April 1, USCIS will consider it filed. Well today we have some new clarifications from USCIS. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that it will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2010…