A great program on KPBS this morning covered the case of Ruben Flores-Villar. Flores-Villar, 35, was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but grew up in the San Diego area, in the care of his father and grandmother. When he sought U.S. citizenship in 2006 — to fend off criminal charges of…
The National Foundation for American Policy released a few interesting facts about H1B visa usage. You will be surprised when you read the following: – Although important for the competitiveness of many U.S. companies, new H-1B visa holders represented only 0.06 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force in 2009,…
H1B filings are looking much better than last year. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced it continues to accept H-1B nonimmigrant petitions subject to the Fiscal Year 2011 (FY 2011) cap. USCIS will monitor the number of petitions received for both the 65,000 general cap and the 20,000…
This is the latest update as of Tuesday, April 6, 2010, Vermont Service Center, as of close of business on Monday, April 5, 2010, VSC had received a total of 9,525 cap-subject H-1B petitions. Of those petitions, 6,791 were “regular” cap, and 2,734 were advanced degree. All cases received before…
With all the scrutiny around H1B visas these days, clients and lawyers are always seeking alternative visas. There are not many, but we will explore the best options in the next few articles. The Trade NAFTA (TN) category of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) North American Free Trade…
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued report on legislative developments in visa policy over the past 20 years and analysis of statistical trends in visa issuances and grounds for exclusion. The conventional wisdom is that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, prompted a substantive change in U.S. immigration policy…
As many readers know, H1B status holders in the US, may apply for visa stamp in Canada. This way avoiding a costly trip the country of origin. Such applicants are called Third Country Nationals. The US Consulate General in Cananda ACCEPTS the following types of NIV applications from Third Country…
Today is the first day that employers may file H1B petitions for FY 2011. We certainly released our cases on time yesterday, and are still open to new cases as long as the H1B cap will remain open. Under current law, an alien can be in H-1B status for a…
The Department of State just released the new visa bulletin for April 2010 on March 12, 2010. EB-1 category is current for the month of April 2010. For mainland Chinese nationals, the cut-off date progressed from July 8, 2005 to August 22, 2005 in the EB-2 category. For Indian nationals,…
USCIS has not extended its temporary accommodation for delays in the labor condition application (LCA) process. Earlier, USCIS agreed to accept H-1B petitions without a certified LCA, in certain situations, for a limited time. This exception was available from November 5, 2009 to March 9, 2010. The USCIS has declined…