In order to alleviate the workload received by the Vermont Service Center, USCIS recently announced that some cases normally processed at the Vermont Service Center will be transferred to the California Service Center. Cases that may be affected include I-130 petitions for alien relatives and I-751 petitions to remove the…
In this blog we are answering 5 of your frequently asked questions in detail. Please remember that every case and every story is different and unique. You should not compare your situation to anyone else’s. We hope that our answers will provide you with further guidance while you embark on…
On August 12, 2015, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle vacated the Department of Homeland Security’s 17-month STEM OPT Extension program that has been in existence since 2008. But because an immediate vacatur of the STEM OPT program would cause “substantial hardship” to thousands of F-1 students and create a…
It is our pleasure to provide our readers with newly released statistics published by the Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification concerning the processing status of the PERM program and Prevailing Wage Determinations. The PERM graphic provides a breakdown for the review of applications certified during FY 2015…
National Visa Center Blunders On July 30th the National Visa Center sent out a notification confirming reports that applicants had been receiving letters or emails from the NVC on July 29, 2015. These letters and/or emails stated that applications would be terminated or that their applications were in the process…
By Yingfei Zhou, Esq. On July 21, 2015, USCIS issued the final guidance on when an employer must file an amended or new petition when the H-1B employee has changed or is changing his or her job location. Except the situations listed below, the general requirement is that an employer…
We would like to inform our readers that on July 21, 2015 the Department of Homeland Security issued a policy memorandum which provides guidance to employers and H-1B applicants regarding when to file an amended or new H-1B petition following the case law, Matter of Simeio Solutions, LLC, 26 I&N Dec. 542…
It is our pleasure to introduce our readers to Associate Attorney Yingfei Zhou, Esq who joined our firm in 2012. Attorney Zhou is an active member of the California State Bar, the New York State Bar, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Ms. Zhou practices primarily on employment-based and investment-based…
On July 15, 2015 USCIS announced that it mistakenly issued approximately 2,100 employment authorization cards to DACA recipients that were printed with a three-year validity period instead of a two-year period, following a court injunction prohibiting USCIS from doing so. To correct the error, USCIS sent these recipients a notice…
By now you may have heard that on the morning of June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a landmark 5-4 decision (Obergefell v Hodges) that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage, a right that cannot be denied by the laws of any state.…