Visa Lawyer Blog

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Yesterday, Wednesday December 13, 2023, the United States Citizenship, and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will be transitioning the filing location for Form I-907 Requests for Premium Processing Service, when filed for a pending Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, to appropriate USCIS lockboxes starting Friday December 15, 2023.

This is being done to increase efficiency and reduce the workload of service centers. USCIS has also said that this change will allow it to centralize digitization of these forms for electronic adjudication.

Please note that this change in filing location does not apply to those filing Form I-140 concurrently with an associated application (such as Form I-485, I-765, or Form I-131). USCIS will soon announce a filing location change for these forms. For the time being such forms should be filed with the appropriate service center, as listed on the USCIS webpage Direct Filing Addresses for Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker.

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The January 2024 Visa Bulletin is finally here, and with it some big advancements for the employment-based preference categories in the New Year, specifically for India and China, and some promising forward movement in the Final Action Dates for EB-2 Worldwide and EB-3 Professional/Skilled Workers Worldwide.

For family-sponsored categories, the New Year brings big advancements in the Final Action Dates for F2A Mexico, F2 Worldwide, F2B Mexico, F3 Mexico, F3 Worldwide, and modest advancements for F4. The Dates for Filing remain the same as December.

Whether you are applying for an immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate overseas or applying for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the United States, you won’t want to miss these new updates.

Highlights of the January 2024 Visa Bulletin

Employment-based categories

  • EB-1 India: The EB-1 India Final Action Date will advance by three years and eight months, to September 1, 2020, and the Date for Filing will advance by a year and a half, to January 1, 2021.
  • EB-1 China: The EB-1 China Final Action Date will advance by four and a half months, to July 1, 2022, and the Date for Filing will advance five months, to January 1, 2023.
  • EB-2: The EB-2 Final Action Date for India will advance by two months, to March 1, 2012, and the EB-2 China Final Action Date will advance by approximately nine weeks, to January 1, 2020. Final Action Dates for the remaining countries in EB-2 will advance by three and a half months, to November 1, 2022.
  • EB-3 Professional/Skilled Workers: The EB-3 Professional/Skilled Worker Final Action Dates will advance by over 7 months for China, to September 1, 2020, and by one month for India, to June 1, 2012. Final Action Dates for the remaining countries in the category will advance by eight months, to August 1, 2022.

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Last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a new online portal known as the “ICE Portal,” designed to centralize communications between noncitizens and the federal government.

This new online portal will allow noncitizens to conveniently schedule appointments, update their address with ICE, and check immigration court hearing information all in one place.

It will incorporate previous online capabilities and improve upon them like ICE’s Appointment Scheduler and the change of address tool. Noncitizens will be able to look up information regarding upcoming immigration court hearings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

The portal is now live and ready to be accessed by the public here.

It is ICE’s latest initiative to streamline and simplify compliance requirements for noncitizens on ICE’s non-detained docket.

Will ICE collect my personal information by using this portal?

No. Except for login information used to create an account, the ICE Portal does not collect other personally identifiable information provided by an individual when using ICE’s digital services.

Who should use the ICE Portal?

Any noncitizen who has been placed in removal proceedings. It provides important information for noncitizens to complete necessary tasks related to the immigration process such as:

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In continuance of the information provided in our blog post concerning additional visa allocations for the H-2B cap, we share new updates recently from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

On November 9, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of State (DOS), published a Notice in the Federal Register identifying the list of foreign countries whose nationals are eligible to participate in the H-2A and H-2B Nonimmigrant Worker Programs next year.

Effective November 9, 2023, nationals of the following countries are eligible to receive H-2A and H-2B visas:

Andorra The Kingdom of Eswatini Madagascar Saint Lucia
Argentina Fiji Malta San Marino
Australia Finland Mauritius Serbia
Austria France Mexico Singapore
Barbados Germany Monaco Slovakia
Belgium Greece Mongolia* Slovenia
Bolivia Grenada Montenegro Solomon Islands
Bosnia and Herzegovina Guatemala Mozambique South Africa
Brazil Haiti Nauru South Korea
Brunei Honduras The Netherlands Spain
Bulgaria Hungary New Zealand St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Canada Iceland Nicaragua Sweden
Chile Ireland North Macedonia Switzerland
Colombia Israel Norway Taiwan***
Costa Rica Italy Panama Thailand
Croatia Jamaica Papua New Guinea Timor-Leste
Republic of Cyprus Japan Paraguay** Turkey
Czech Republic Kiribati Peru Tuvalu
Denmark Latvia The Philippines* Ukraine
Dominican Republic Liechtenstein Poland United Kingdom
Ecuador Lithuania Portugal Uruguay
El Salvador Luxembourg Romania Vanuatu
Estonia

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We are happy to share some exciting news for H-2B FY 2024 visa applicants and their employers.

On November 3, 2023, the U.S. Citizenship, and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the government will make available an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024.

This is in addition to the 66,000 H-2B visas made available each fiscal year for the H-2B visa program under the congressionally mandated cap.

This will allow American businesses operating within the hospitality, tourism, landscaping, seafood processing industries to hire seasonal or other temporary workers in the H-2B program to help them meet high demand for work during peak seasons, where not enough American workers are available to fill these jobs.

USCIS has made the announcement at the start of FY 2024 to allow U.S. employers to plan their hiring needs ahead of time and fill temporary positions for seasonal and other temporary workers.

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It’s a brand-new week full of important updates from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This time for employment authorization documents (EADs).

Recently, USCIS announced that certain applicants who have filed to renew their employment authorization cards (EADs) on Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, may qualify for an automatic extension of their expiring employment authorization and/or employment authorization documents (EADs) while their renewal applications are pending with USCIS.

Beginning October 27, 2023, those who are eligible will receive 180-day automatic extensions of their EADs, including those who have applied for or have received Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or asylum.

Previously, USCIS had passed a regulation that increased the automatic extension period for certain EAD applicants from 180 days to 540 days. This announcement will not impact EADs that were already issued for up to the 540-day period. Those extensions will remain in place. For such individuals, the increased automatic extension will end when they receive a final decision on their renewal application or when the “up to 540-day period” expires (counted from the expiration date of the employment authorization and/or their EAD), whichever comes earlier.

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A new family reunification parole process has been launched, this time for qualifying nationals of Ecuador.

Who is eligible?

Nationals of Ecuador petitioned by family members who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents and who have received approval on Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, to join their family in the United States may participate in this new parole process.

Parole will allow such nationals and their immediate family members to be admitted to the United States lawfully for a period of up to three years, while waiting to apply to become lawful permanent residents.

Qualifying beneficiaries must be outside the United States, must not have already received an immigrant visa, and meet all other requirements, such as screening, vetting, and medical requirements.

How does the family reunification process work?

The Family Reunification Parole process is initiated when the Department of State sends an invitation by mail or e-mail to the petitioning U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident family member whose Form I-130 is already approved. The petitioner is the person who has filed the Form I-130 petition with USCIS on behalf of the foreign national.

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We are happy to report that the Biden administration has accelerated Israel’s designation into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).

Previously, the government announced that Israeli nationals could begin to travel to the United States visa-free starting on November 30th.

However, as of yesterday, Thursday, October 19, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a new press release notifying the public that eligible Israeli nationals can now start applying for authorization to travel to the United States on a temporary basis through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). For the time being, the ESTA application is only available in the English language but will soon be made available in other languages.

ESTA authorizations are generally valid for two years upon issuance and allow successful applicants to travel to the United States for tourism or business purposes for up to 90 days without first obtaining a U.S. visa. Israeli citizens and nationals with valid B-1/B-2 visas may continue to use them for business and tourist travel to the United States.

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