Articles Posted in Immigrant Visas

A Blog reader called me the other day and wanted to know when his priority date will become current. His I-485 adjustment was filed in August 2007 when visas opened up for 30 days, and since that time retrogressed. The applicant is from India and like many others in his shoes is eager for answers. So how do visa numbers become available?

In order to approve an application for adjustment of status (I-485), there must be a visa number available in the particular category. This, in turn, depends upon the country of chargeability and the priority date of the case. Once the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has reviewed a particular I-485 application, a request is submitted to the DOS for a visa authorization. If the USCIS makes the request for a visa number to the DOS when the priority date of a particular case is current, and an immigrant visa number is available, the authorization is transmitted and the USCIS can approve the I-485 application. This is all tracked through the DOS Immigrant Visa Allocation Management System (IVAMS).

If an immigrant visa number for a particular individual is requested from the DOS by the USCIS, but none is available, the request is moved to the “pending” file with the DOS. Data from this pending file is used by the DOS to calculate the appropriate cutoff dates for the backlogged categories in the Visa Bulletin each month.

The U.S. State Department has officially released information about this year’s DV-2011 green card lottery, which begins on October 2, 2009. Don’t wait too long and sign on the registration process by reading through this year’s instructions. For those of you who were curious, the DV-2011 list of ineligible countries remains the same as last year:

* Brazil

* Canada

The State Department has advised AILA liaison that due to the large number of approvals issued in the past few weeks, employment-based visa numbers are no longer available for this fiscal year that concludes on September 30, 2009. This affects all categories of employment based immigrant visas. Numbers will become available again on October 1, 2009, as stated in the October 2009 Department of State Visa (DOS) Bulletin.

USCIS will continue to accept I-485 applications in categories showing visa availability based on the September Visa Bulletin, USCIS will not able to approve pending I-485 applications unless a visa number was previously captured. Where a USCIS officer adjudicated or pre-adjudicated a case and it was in the DOS “pending” queue and DOS has sent the electronic notification allocating a number to the Service Center, USCIS should issue the approval.

For those consular processing, because visa numbers for scheduled cases have already been allocated as part of the scheduling process, scheduled immigrant visa appointments at consulates for September will continue and immigrant visas may be issued.

According to a recent Newsweek article, Immigrants irrespective of their legal status are actually good for the job market, and boost the economy.

Lou Dobbs, take note: immigrants are good for our economy. The most skilled create jobs in technology and engineering, says Duke professor Vivek Wadhwa, who estimates that in 2005 immigrant-founded engineering and tech companies employed 450,000 people and generated $52 billion in sales. But even the least skilled more than repay their costs in schools and health care. Two highly respected Australian economists, Maureen Rimmer and Peter Dixon, studied the issue for the libertarian Cato Institute. “The net impact on U.S. households from tighter border enforcement is unambiguously negative,” they found, because even low-skilled immigrants expand the economic pie and create jobs farther up the ladder. Cato’s Dan Griswold says the study shows a $250 billion difference between the most and least restrictive immigration policies.

Read more here

USCIS has reminded all applicants for Adjustment of Status, Asylum, Legalization and Temporary Protected Status to obtain an Advance Parole (AP) document before traveling abroad. AP allows an applicant to re-enter the U.S. after traveling abroad.

In order to obtain Advance Parole, individuals must file Form I-131, Application for Travel Document to USCIS. The USCIS cautions individuals planning on traveling abroad to file Form I-131 well in advance of their travel plans (approximately 90 days before) in order to prevent possible conflicts.

We suggest all applicants of I-131 to file it in time to get the AP approval before leaving the U.S., otherwise it could have dire consequences and may result in an individual not being able to re-enter. Therefore, individuals that have a pending I-485 are encouraged to apply for Advance Parole before traveling abroad for easier re-entry if the circumstances of their current status changes.

The USCIS California Service Center is in the process of identifying all pending Adjustment of Status (AOS) applications in the EB-5 category based on the pilot program, and all non-Minister Religious Worker I-485s. All applicants with pending AOS application and for a non-minister Religious Worker in the EB-5 category can bring this to the notice of California Service Center.

Please let us know if you have such application pending before CSC.

U.S. Department of State’s visa bulletin brought some relief for some EB-2 applicants. The cutoff date for India and China moved forward to October 1, 2003 which had recently retrogressed to January 1, 2000. No explanation was provided for the change to October 1, 2003.

Summary of August 2009’ visa bulletin:

EB-1: This category is current for all countries of chargeability.

From time to time we publish posts by guest writers, this article is written by Kat Sanders, who regularly blogs on the topic of court reporter school online at her blog Court Reporter Schools. She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: katsanders25@gmail.com

Obtaining a visa to enter another country is not often an easy job. It involves a great deal of work and numerous formalities before you can are legally allowed to enter the foreign nation. Very often, lawyers who have experience and who are specialized in the visa applications process are able to help you with your visa, especially if you need one to be able to work in a new country or stay there for a while before you decide on your future options. A visa lawyer can help you by:

• Taking care of the paperwork and research: A company that is looking to hire employees from overseas will have to get them special visas that allow them to work for a certain period in their homeland. This means that all applicants and their credentials will have to be screened in order to protect national security and ensure that terrorists and other anti-social elements are not using this visa to enter the country illegally.

USCIS announced on June 22, 2009 that the premium processing service will resume for I-140 (Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker) cases. This service was suspended since July 2, 2007. The USCIS announcement advises that they will accept premium processing requests for all EB1, EB2, and EB3 cases, except for EB1 Multinational Executive Transferees and EB2 National Interest Waiver cases.

USCIS will charge an additional $1000 filing fee for the premium processing service. USCIS will take one of the following action within 15 calendar days in-lieu-of this fee: approve the case, issue a notice of intent to deny (NOID), issue a request for evidence (RFE), or open an investigation for fraud / misrepresentation. They also provide a dedicated telephone number and email address to facilitate communication regarding the case.