On January 21, 2022, the White House announced that the Departments of State and Homeland Security are undertaking several new actions to help attract to the U.S. and retain international talent in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (“STEM”). The Biden-Harris administration stated that, “These actions will allow international STEM talent to […]
Friday, February 26, 2021, USCIS announced flexibility for OPT receipt delays and improper rejections. These flexibilities apply only to OPT submissions received by USCIS on or after October 1, 2020 through May 1, 2021. USCIS’ flexibility includes the following:
14-month OPT Period Flexibilities
F-1 students are eligible for 12 months of post-completion […]
Monday, July 7, 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) announced that international students who attend universities that are exclusively online this fall may not enter the U.S. ICE provided these updates for Fall Semester 2020:
On May 5th, 2019, the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina enjoined “in all applications,” the USCIS memo titled “Accrual of Unlawful Presence and F, J, and M Nonimmigrants,” issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) on August 9, 2018, as well as the memorandum with […]
USCIS announced on May 11, 2018 that it intends to make a major policy change relating to how it calculates the accrual of unlawful presence for students and exchange visitors in F, J and M nonimmigrant status in the United States. USCIS is accepting comments on this planned policy change […]
The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) has made several revisions to the Foreign Affairs Manual (“FAM”) directly reflecting the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order (“EO”) 13788 that was signed by President Trump in April 2017. The FAM is the authoritative source containing policies and procedures to guide DOS consular officers to effectively carry out […]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released today the STEM OPT Regulations, titled Improving and Expanding Training Opportunities for F-1 Nonimmigrant Students With STEM Degrees and Cap-Gap Relief for All Eligible F-1 Students. The new regulation goes into effect May 10, 2016.
The regulations confirm that eligible F-1 students can extend OPT for two […]
On March 2, 2016, the Office of Management and Budget announced that it has approved the final version of the STEM OPT regulation. Based upon this approval, we expect to see the rule published in the Federal Register within a matter of days. There is likely to be a 60 day implementation period, which […]
On January 23rd, 2016 the United States District Court for the District of Columbia extended through May 10th, 2016 the current STEM OPT program. This means that F-1 students can continue to work pursuant to valid STEM OPT documents and can continue to apply for the 17-month STEM OPT extension until May 10th, 2016, […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it had received more than 50,000 comments on the proposed STEM OPT rule, which is discussed in SPS Immigration’s October 26, 2015 post. Many of the comments were from individuals, but a number of businesses and industry groups also provided comments, including the U.S. Chamber […]
