Visa Lawyer Blog

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Great news for Indian Nationals! The United States Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs recently released the August Visa Bulletin which summarizes the availability of immigrant visas for the month of August for family-based and employment-based visa preferences. According to Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) the allotted number of employment based visas is set to at least 140,000 visas for the worldwide level. The Visa Bulletin for August indicates that the second preference EB-2 employment-based category for India has advanced by 5 years when compared to the Visa Bulletin in the recent year. The advancement of the employment based second preference EB-2 category provides Indian nationals whose Form I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker was approved and whose priority dates fall before January 22nd of 2009, with the opportunity to apply for their green cards beginning August 2014. For priority dates related to family sponsored preferences and diversity immigrant categories please click here to read the August Visa Bulletin. For legal questions please contact our office and we would be happy to help.

Employment Based

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Want to track the status of a pending case? Moving to a new address? Want to report a problem with your case? No problem!

Our loyal fans and followers, who communicate with us through our various social networking sites and web page, often ask our law office how they can track or check the status of their pending case, how they can change their address with USCIS while their case is pending, and how they can report a problem with their case. These are all very important questions. It is imperative that all applicants who have pending cases with USCIS regularly check the status of their case both online and by calling USCIS. There are several ways to communicate with USCIS. You can check the status of your pending case online, submit a service request online, schedule an Infopass online, and submit a change of address online.  For time sensitive issues, applicants should check the status of their pending case or report a problem with their pending case by calling USCIS directly by phone. In this post we will walk you through the steps of how to communicate with USCIS via all of these methods.

How to check the status of a case online:

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By Ekaterina Powell, Esq.

Since the H-1B season kicked off on April 1, 2014, USCIS has started issuing Requests for Evidence (RFE). This article will address the RFE trends and practice tips.

Below are 4 main points USCIS addresses in the RFEs:

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The Law Office of Jacob J. Sapochnick is delighted to introduce associate attorney, Ms. Ekaterina Powell,  for our second staff spotlight.

Ms. Powell has worked for our firm since June 2010 and is one of six attorneys working in our law office. Ms. Powell specializes in various family-based, investment-based, and employment-based immigration matters. Ms. Powell’s specific focus of work is on nonimmigrant and immigrant work and investment visas, extraordinary ability petitions, national interest waivers, EB-5 investment petitions, waivers of inadmissibility, VAWA cases, H-1B/LCA compliance matters, government worksite audits and investigations, as well as complex requests for evidence, motions and appeals.

ekaterina
Bio: After receiving her law degree in Russia in 2007, Ms. Powell decided to make California her permanent home. Within only three years of immigrating to the U.S., Ms. Powell graduated from an American law school and became a California licensed attorney.

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USCIS recently announced new policy changes regarding Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record. Starting June 1, 2014, USCIS has limited the validity period for all Forms I-693 to one year from the date that USCIS receives the form. This updated policy applies to any Form I-693 supporting a benefit application that USCIS adjudicates on or after June 1, 2014.

If you are applying for adjustment of status, you may submit Form I-693 in one of the following ways:

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By Lupe Lopez

Daniel couldn’t take it anymore.  Here he was being tortured, humiliated, and abused in the country where he thought he would be able to live a better life.  He could recall the excitement he felt when he first arrived in the United States.  He was young, inexperienced, and hopeful of living the “American Dream.”  Instead, Daniel was in a living nightmare.  He was trapped (or so he believed) in a marriage that was filled with verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.  He believed that there was nothing he could do but to ride it out.  Now that he was here, he was ashamed to go back to his home country having failed at marriage and at life.

Daniel had come to the United States as a tourist.  Daniel met Bethany through a friend and from the moment Daniel met her, he thought this was the woman of his dreams.  He fell in love with her immediately.  They began dating and soon after they decided to room together; not just to save money, but also to spend more time together.  In the beginning all went well.   But when it was time for Daniel to go home, Bethany begged him to stay.  Bethany immediately proposed to him and told him that he couldn’t leave without her.  Daniel was elated and accepted her proposal.  They married soon after.

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By Marie Puertollano, Esq. 

Form 1-131 Application for Travel Document is the form you must file with immigration when requesting a travel authorization from USCIS. This Application for Travel Document can be requested in various situations for the purposes of obtaining a reentry permit or advance parole.

One of the most common Form I-131 application’s we file within our practice, is the advance parole for an applicant who has a pending I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status application for a green card. While awaiting a decision from USCIS about the green card application, the applicant CANNOT leave the United States without a travel authorization issued by USCIS, or the application will be considered abandoned.  Given that many applicants need to travel while their green card application is pending, we submit an I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status application along with Form I-131 Application for Travel Document to request an advance parole which will allow the green card applicant to travel once it is issued by USCIS, approximately 60-90 days after being filed. The applicant need not pay any fees for the I-131 Application for Travel Document, if it was submitted with an I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, to obtain a green card.

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For many, the American Dream has proved to be far beyond reach. This is the story of our client, Rafael Espinoza Iniguez, as told by his wife, Maria:

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are birth rights our government sought to protect through a living breathing document known as the Declaration of Independence. These “inalienable rights” have been challenged at times by life’s many obstacles and ironies, some of which are brought about by medical conditions, which are alleviated by research institutions, by economic difficulties, which are alleviated by charities, by social pressures, which are alleviated by advocacy groups, and by injustices, which are alleviated by our government; the institution which has declared to protect our rights as citizens. Our government was designed in its inception as a progressive government by our founding fathers, who were dissatisfied by the tyranny of monarchies, and created this nation with the goal of establishing a just government, recognizing the rights all human beings are entitled to. And so, in pursuing our own life, liberty, and happiness, this is our family challenge:

To present our story in order to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that will allow entrance into the United States for law abiding and deserving individuals, who have come to this great nation in the pursuit of that same happiness our founding fathers were in search of. 

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