Visa Lawyer Blog

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President Obama says he wants to tackle immigration reform; and do it this year. In fact, he says he plans to begin as soon as next month.

According to CNN, the president says he will rely on a bipartisan and diverse group of experts to frame the legislation. But officials say that immigration won’t be “on the same track” as other key initiatives like health care and energy, and “nobody’s promising legislation or a vote this year.”

Nonetheless, it looks like the president will try to make good on yet another campaign promise by working to fix the nation’s broken immigration system during his first year in office. There are an estimated 12 million illegal aliens in this country.

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I made a bet with a few fellow Immigration experts about the timing of the cap being reached. I now admit that I lost. I predicted the cap to be met by the 7th with 85,000 regular H1B’s filed.

Today we got the H1B news, and in line with the current economy.

USCIS has received approximately 42,000 H-1B petitions counting toward the Congressionally-mandated 65,000 cap. The agency continues to accept petitions subject to the general cap. Additionally, the agency has received approximately 20,000 petitions for aliens with advanced degrees;however, they continue to accept advanced degree petitions since experience has shown that not all petitions received are approvable. Congress mandated that the first 20,000 of these types of petitions are exempt from any fiscal year cap on available H-1B visas.

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The H1B visa filing status seems to be the main issue for clients and site visitors in the past week. USCIS announced today that the H-1B cap has not been reached and it continues to accept H-1B petitions for both the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 higher-degree cap. Should USCIS receive the necessary number of petitions to meet the respective caps, it will issue another update to advise the public that, as of a certain date (the “final receipt date”), the respective FY 2010 H-1B caps have been met. So for now, we can keep filing.

Here is the original notice from USCIS Download file

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We are not even one week after H1B filing day and problems are here. AILA Liaison has been advised by USCIS that a small number of petitions submitted for the FY2010 H-1B quota were receipted in error . This means the Immigration already issued receipts, even before any lottery. If this happened to your case, this is a mistake as final count of cases is still going.

Please check your petition to make sure you indicate that it was new employment, a cap submission, and why it is a cap case. See our H1B posting on how to mark a case. This is important to help identify petitions that should be included in the H-1B lottery.

We will keep you posted of any new developments.

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From to time to time, we update our readers on the recent changes and updates coming from the local Immigration office. San Diego has 2 main locations, one in Chula Vista, and the other in Downtown San Diego. Once a month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association local chapter meet, with the government reps and receive updates on recent policy changes. Here are some of the questions discussed:

1. How long is a file held at the District Office after an adjustment or naturalization appointment? There have been reports of files sent to the National Records Center when a naturalization appointment was rescheduled by USCIS or when an applicanUattorney timely rescheduled an appointment If this occurs will the rescheduled appointment be delayed?

Approvals are promptly shipped to the National Records Center or Federal

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Sad day for the US Immigrant community. A gunman opened fire on The American Civic Association a center where immigrants were taking a citizenship exam Friday in downtown Binghamton, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide.

The American Civic Association helps immigrants in the Binghamton area with naturalization applications, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The association describes itself as helping immigrants and refugees with counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators.

Our prayers with the victims’ families

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It looks like there will be a delay in the launch of the new iCert PERM portal for processing labor certifications (LCs). As planned, the new LCA system will launch on April 15, 2009, when employers and attorneys can set up their iCert accounts and begin submitting the new LCA forms through the iCert portal. A month after its launch of the LCA portal, as of May 15, 2009, LCAs will only be accepted through the iCert system. The existing LCA online system will continue to accept LCA filings through May 14, 2009, at which time it will only be online for case status checks and LCA withdrawals.

Employers and applicants should be aware of the upcoming changes to both the LCA and PERM/LC processes. We will continue to track changes to the DOL’s iCert portal system and will update our readers.

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More than a million people immigrate to the U.S. every year. Their children — born in the U.S., connected to two cultures — are the focus of a new series at NPR News. It’s called “Immigrants’ Children,” and it’s an occasional look at how they make their mark and the issues that confront them.

While minority representation on TV is nothing short of abysmal, actors of South Asian descent now appear regularly on Lost, ER, Top Chef, The Office, Chuck, House, Numb3rs, Heroes, 30 Rock, Weeds and Parks and Recreation.

Read more…

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The H1B Frenzy is almost over, see below a sample of what some cases looked like before leaving our office.

It is likely that companies will file fewer H-1B visa applications for Fiscal Year 2010 as a result of the economic recession. However, there will still be demand for the talent and innovation that drives our Nation’s economy. It is unknown how may H-1B professional and specialty occupation visa petitions will be filed tomorrow (when the USCIS begins accepting petitions for FY 2010 tomorrow). It seems almost certain that all 85,000 visas will be utilized before the fiscal year begins on October 1st, 2009.

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The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington recently ruled in Ruiz-Diaz v. United States that a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regulation is “unreasonable and impermissible.” A federal judge has struck down a long-standing government policy that made it tougher for religious workers from other countries to remain in the United States. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik wrote in an order issued last week that the policy was at odds with the intent of Congress.

Ruiz-Diaz potentially provides religious workers who have filed I-360 petitions with the ability to concurrently file adjustment of status applications. This would allow religious workers whose underlying R visa status is expiring (the R is valid for five years) to remain in the U.S. as adjustment of status applicants. At present, the I-360 approval process is lengthy, after which point the religious worker can file an adjustment application, due to the need to conduct a site investigation on each filing.

Under the Department of Homeland Security’s policy, religious workers who came to the United States on a typical five-year temporary visa were not allowed to file for permanent residency — their green card — until a separate visa petition by their employer had been approved.

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