Visa Lawyer Blog

Articles Posted in Presidential Proclamations

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The Department of State has released the visa bulletin for April 2021 outlining the availability of immigrant visa numbers for the upcoming month.

NOTE: Adjustment of Status Filing Charts April 2021

USCIS has not yet advised the appropriate cut off date chart for acceptance of adjustment of status applications filed with USCIS in the month of April. Please keep checking back to the USCIS website for more information, since we do not yet know if adjustment applications will be based on the Final Action dates chart, or on the Dates for Filing Chart.  

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We are pleased to report that the Department of State has issued new guidance following President Biden’s rescission of Presidential Proclamation 10014, entitled “Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Present a Risk to the United States Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak.”

As you may recall, President Biden issued an executive order rescinding Proclamation 10014 on February 24, 2021.

The Department of State is now providing instructions for immigrant visa applicants who were previously impacted by the Proclamation.

Instructions for Immigrant Visa Applicants

Those Not Yet Interviewed:  Immigrant visa applicants who have not yet been interviewed or scheduled for an interview will have their applications processed according to the existing phased resumption of visa services framework being followed by the Department of State.

How will the resumption of visa services be prioritized?

According to DOS, the resumption of routine visa services, prioritized after services to U.S. citizens, will occur on a post-by-post basis, consistent with the Department’s guidance for safely returning personnel to Department facilities.

At the moment, U.S. Embassies and Consulates are providing emergency and mission-critical visa services and will continue to do so. As post-specific conditions improve, each mission will decide when it can begin to provide additional services. Eventually each mission will gradually restore a complete resumption of routine visa services. However, Consular posts have not provided any specific date as to when they will resume normal operations.

Those Previously Refused:  Immigrant visa applicants whose petitions remain valid and who were previously interviewed but refused visas due to P.P. 10014 should wait for instructions from the U.S. embassy or consulate where they were interviewed.  According to DOS guidance, Consulates will reconsider cases that were previously refused because of P.P. 10014 and will inform applicants if additional information is needed from them.

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Source: Flickr Creative Commons License, Gage Skidmore

In this blog post, we bring you some long-awaited news. In a much-anticipated move, the Biden administration decided on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, to immediately revoke Presidential Proclamation 10014, a controversial order passed under former President Donald Trump that halted the issuance of most U.S. visas at Consulates and Embassies worldwide.

Our office has known since early January that the Biden administration was planning to revoke this Proclamation, and yesterday the rumors were finally put to rest.

Presidential Proclamation 10014 is no more.

What was Presidential Proclamation 10014 about?

P.P. 10014 essentially imposed a 60-day ban on the issuance of visas for most immigrant and nonimmigrant visa categories. The Proclamation began on April 23, 2020 and was set to continue by President Trump until March 31, 2020.

P.P. 10014 proved to be exceedingly harmful given the wide variety of immigrants to which it applied.

Specifically, the order halted the issuance of U.S. visas for the following classes of immigrants at U.S. Consulates and Embassies worldwide as of the date of the proclamation (April 23, 2020):

  • Spouses and children of green card holders (US citizens were not affected) applying at the consulate
  • Parents of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Brothers and sisters of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of US citizens applying at the consulate (children under 21 years old of US citizens were not affected)
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of green card holders applying at the consulate
  • EB1A extraordinary abilities and their family applying at the consulate
  • PERM EB3, PERM EB2, NIW employment based and their family applying at the consulate
  • EB4 religious workers immigrants applying at the consulate
  • H1B and H4 dependents applying at the consulate
  • L1 and L2 applying at the consulate
  • J1 applying at the consulate  

Individuals residing in the United States and those who had a valid visa or travel document to enter the United States, on or before the date of the proclamation, were not impacted.

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Happy Thursday! We are back with a brand-new blog post. Today, we continue discussing President Biden’s recent executive actions on immigration. This time we are breaking down Executive Order entitled, “the Establishment of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families.”

So, what exactly does this executive order mean for you and your family?

This new executive order will prioritize the reunification of children who have been separated from their family members at the United States/Mexico border by establishing an Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families.

The heads of several agencies including the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of State, and others will take part in the Task Force and perform the following functions:

  • Identify all children who have been separated from their families at the border between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021 Continue reading

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Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! In this post, we continue with our efforts to provide our readers with an overview of President Biden’s recent executive orders on immigration.

Last week, we discussed the major provisions of Executive Order, “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans.”

In today’s blog post, we continue to break down President Biden’s new executive orders focusing specifically on, “Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border,” and what it means for you.

What is this Executive Order all about?

President Biden signed this executive order on February 2, 2021, to create a multi-pronged approach that will help the United States manage and address the root cause of mass migration from North and Central America.

President Biden plans to work with civil society, international organizations, and govenments in the region to create a strategy that will increase opportunities for vulnerable groups of immigrants to apply for asylum protection closer to home. With this order, his administration hopes to streamline the asylum process in these regions by expanding systems and resettlement capacity.

Among its provisions, the order will increase lawful pathways for vulnerable groups of people to immigrate to the United States, while strengthening our asylum system.

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It’s been an exciting week in the world of immigration. As we had been expecting, on Tuesday President Biden signed a fresh batch of executive orders directly impacting our immigration system.

These include (1) Executive Order on, “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans,” (2) Executive Order entitled, “Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border,” and (3) Executive Order on, “the Establishment of Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families.

In this blog post, we will discuss the major provisions of the Executive Order entitled, “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion for New Americans,” and what this order means for you.

*Please note we will discuss the other two orders in separate upcoming blog posts.

EO – Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration System and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion for New Americans

First, we will discuss the President’s initiative to create a new task force that will promote integration and inclusion of foreign born immigrants, dismantle harmful policies arising from the public charge ground of inadmissibility, promote naturalization, and initiative to revoke former President Trump’s memorandum on enforcing the legal responsibilities of sponsors of aliens.

Task Force on New Americans

This executive order was created in order to promote integration and inclusion for immigrant communities including asylees and refugees. In line with this new executive order, the President has ordered his cabinet agencies to coordinate their efforts to pass policies that both welcome and support immigrants to the United States. To that end, the government will convene a Task Force on New Americans to positively impact local immigrant communities.

As discussed in section 3 of the order, the Department of State, the Attorney General, and the Department of Homeland Security will review and revise any existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and agency actions to ensure that they conform with the President’s agenda to welcome and support vulnerable immigrants. As part of this process, the government will be dismantling barriers that make it difficult to receive immigration benefits, including actions taken by the previous administration that do not promote fair access to the legal immigration system – such as potentially rescinding USCIS fee increases, and other such areas of concern.

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Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! We kick off the start of a brand-new week with new immigration updates.

Texas Judge Blocks Bidens’ 100-day pause on deportations

First, let’s discuss some legal challenges the Biden administration is facing. Just last week, a federal judge from the state of Texas issued a nationwide temporary restraining order that temporarily stops the Biden administration from pursuing a 100-day pause on deportations.

As our readers will know, since his inauguration, President Biden has been busy dismantling anti-immigrant policies passed by his predecessor. Among the actions taken by President Biden has been placing a temporary 100-day pause on deportations for most undocumented immigrants with removal orders, except for those who have been suspected of committing acts of terrorism or espionage, and those who present a threat to national security.

The state of Texas took issue with the President’s actions and filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, calling on the court to grant an injunction that would immediately stop the Biden administration from putting a pause on deportations.

The judge in the case, Drew B. Tipton, a Trump appointee, ultimately sided with the state of Texas finding that the state had met its burden of proof that it would suffer irreparable harm if Biden were to pause deportations. The judge agreed that Texas would be financially harmed given the added strain undocumented immigrants would have on Texas’ health care and education system.

Judge Tipton also found that President Biden’s actions violated the law and the Administrative Procedure Act which requires the government to provide adequate justification before enacting such a change in policy.

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Welcome back to Visalawyerblog! In this post we bring you some breaking news about what you can expect to see from the Biden administration with respect to immigration in the coming days.

Tomorrow January 29th President Biden is expected to issue several important executive orders and memorandums aimed at reversing former President Trump’s damaging policies on immigration.

It is rumored that as part of these new orders, the President will be rescinding Proclamations 10014 and 10052.

As you may recall, Proclamation 10014 established a 60-day ban on the issuance of visas worldwide for a wide variety of immigrants including those who (1) were outside of the United States as of April 23rd and (2) who did not have a valid immigrant visa or official travel document as of that date.

Prior to its expiration, the President signed Proclamation 10052 to extend enforcement of Proclamation 10014 and expanded the categories of immigrants affected.

Overview of Proclamation 10014

When Proclamation 10014 was first issued on April 22, 2020, it rocked the world of immigration because of the wide variety of immigrants that were swept up in its grasp.

Among those impacted were the following classes of immigrants applying for a visa at a United States Consulate or Embassy abroad from April 23, 2020 to the present:

  • Spouses and children of green card holders (US citizens were not affected) applying at the consulate
  • Parents of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Brothers and sisters of US citizens applying at the consulate
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of US citizens applying at the consulate (children under 21 years old of US citizens were not affected)
  • Sons and daughters (meaning over 21 years old) of green card holders applying at the consulate
  • EB1A extraordinary abilities and their family applying at the consulate
  • PERM EB3, PERM EB2, NIW employment based and their family applying at the consulate
  • EB4 religious workers immigrants applying at the consulate
  • H1B and H4 dependents applying at the consulate
  • L1 and L2 applying at the consulate
  • J1 applying at the consulate  

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President Biden has been hard at work during his first days in office, releasing a flurry of Proclamations and Executive Actions on immigration, that reverse many of the controversial policies passed by former President Donald Trump.

Due to the volume of Proclamations being signed, our office will break down each of these actions on immigration during the next few weeks, and provide you with detailed information on what each Proclamation means and how you may benefit.

We encourage our readers to bookmark this page and follow our social media platforms as the Biden administration gears up to release even more executive actions on immigration in the coming days.

What is the Biden Proclamation all about?

On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed a number of orders including, “Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States.” This Proclamation immediately revokes the four presidential actions taken by the previous administration, which banned individuals from predominantly Muslim and African countries from entering the United States.

The presidential actions being revoked are as follows:

*A brief overview of each action is discussed further below

(1) Executive Order 13780 “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” 

(2) Proclamations 9645 “Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats”

(3) Proclamation 9723 “Maintaining Enhanced Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats” and

(4) Proclamation 9983 “Improving Enhanced Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats”

What do you need to know about Biden’s Proclamation?

Biden’s decision to revoke these actions by his predecessor means that all Embassies and Consulates must immediately resume visa processing for nationals affected including Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, Chad, Venezuela, North Korea, Burma (Myanmar), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.

Of course Embassies and Consulates are still conducting a phased reopening of routine visa services and are operating on a limited post by post basis. However, this is a step in the right direction because it means that Embassies and Consulates can no longer refuse to issue visas because these Proclamations are no longer in force.

Most importantly, President Biden has directed the Department of State to develop a system by which previous applicants who were being considered for a waiver of the restrictions can expedite their pending visa applications.

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The nation awoke with a new President of the United States, and although President Joe Biden has been in office for less than one day, his administration is already planning sweeping immigration reforms and policy changes that will unfold throughout the coming months.

This is just the start of President Biden’s plan to reverse the numerous damaging policies and executive orders passed by the Trump administration during the past four years.

This morning, the White House issued a press release outlining President Biden’s commitment to modernize the U.S. immigration system by way of a legislative bill that will be introduced before Congress in a matter of days.

The new bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, proposes to overhaul the current immigration system to more effectively manage and secure our country’s border.

According to the Biden administration, the purpose of the bill is to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system….” providing “hardworking people who enrich our communities every day and who have lived here for years, in some cases for decades, an opportunity to earn citizenship.”

The bill will prioritize family reunification, address root causes of mass migration from Central America, and among other things ensure that the United States remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution.

Most importantly is the bill’s commitment to create a path to citizenship for eligible undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers and essential workers who have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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