As part of litigation by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”), Edakunni v. Mayorkas, the Acting Associate Director of Service Center Operations (“SCOPS”) for USCIS confirmed in a declaration that starting around May 17th it will no longer require biometrics for the dependents of H-1B, L-1, and E-2 visa holders. AILA has also requested that USCIS return […]
The U.S.Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced Thursday, January 7th, 2021, the final rule to amend H-1B regulations governing the process by which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) selects H-1B registrations for H-1B cap-subject petitions.
Under this new rule, which takes effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, USCIS will […]
Tuesday, October 6th, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security H-1B Strengthening Rule and DOL Prevailing Wage Interim Final Rules were posted for public inspection. Both DHS and DOL have issued press releases regarding these changes.
Both the DHS and DOL regulations will be published tomorrow in the federal register publish and have a 30 […]
On October 1, 2020, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”), which is housed within the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”), marked as “withdrawn” both the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) and U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) Interim Final Regulations (“IFR”). In an unusual move, OIRA has decided to not review these regulations […]
On August 14, 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began updating it’s H-1B portal with new Registration Selections, reflecting additional H-1B cap registrations had been selected in a second lottery cycle for FY 2021. USCIS selected additional H-1B cap registrations because it did not receive enough filed H-1B petitions from the first lottery to […]
On Monday, May 11, 2020, USCIS issued a policy memo titled, “Temporary Policy Changes for Certain Foreign Medical Graduates During the COVID-19 National Emergency.”
This USCIS memo addresses a few of the many issues currently facing International Medical Graduates (“IMG”) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
At the beginning of each new year, employers inevitably start preparing for the annual H-1B Cap lottery system. This year, USCIS is changing the way it is running the H-1B Cap lottery by implementing a pre-registration process and charging $10 for each H-1B registration. It is also moving up the date to register any desired […]
On September 3, 2019, USCIS announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require US Employers seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions to pay a $10 fee for each electronic registration they submit to USCIS for the H-1B cap selection process. This is just a proposal, and USCIS will accept comments from stakeholders through October […]
Attorney Sarah Peterson was quoted in Bloomberg discussing the new Labor Condition Application (LCA) secondary entity disclosure requirements. If you have questions on how this new disclosure information may be used, or how to use the H-1B program, please contact SPS Immigration.
On Friday, June 7th, USCIS announced that starting Monday, June 10, it will begin premium processing services for all FY 2020 H-1B cap subject petitions. This means that individuals who were previously not eligible to file using premium processing are now eligible to convert their case to the premium service.
USCIS also announced that it will […]
