Only five days after the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) opened the 2020 H-1B petition season, the agency announced on Friday that it had already received enough petitions to reach the 65,000 H-1B regular cap visas that Congress issues each fiscal year. » Read More
Yesterday, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it immediately resumed premium processing for all H-1B petitions, following a halt on the service for several months to allow USCIS to bring current applications that were then pending for extended durations. » Read More
Starting April 1, 2019, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) will accept new H-1B Quota-Based Visa Petitions for the 2020 Fiscal Year, for an employment start date of October 1, 2019.
USCIS’ regular H-1B visa cap limits annual H-1B approvals to 65,000 visas, with an additional 20,000 H1-B visas for individuals who earned a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. » Read More
E-Verify expired as a result of the government shutdown. Employers will not have access to E-Verify to initiate new employee verifications, resolve non-confirmations, and verify employment authorization. » Read More
On Friday, I was honored to join a group of today’s business leaders and innovators at WeWork, who are shaping tomorrow, for a discussion on immigration. In a room nineteen floors above the rumbling of New York’s traffic with sushi in hand, two concerns quickly became central to our discussion: (1) the growing barrier of US businesses—small, mid, and large—to access to the global workforce; and (2) the foreign entrepreneur’s inability to enter –or even attempt to enter—as a start-up in or expansion to the US market. » Read More
Raymond G. Lahoud, a Member with Norris McLaughlin, P.A., and Chair of its Immigration Practice Group, is pleased to present a complimentary Q&A session covering immigration issues. Human resource professionals, business owners, compliance officers, administrators, and management at organizations and companies in every industry of every size are urged to attend. » Read More
Today, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana use with the enactment of Canadian House Government Bill C-45. Pretty nice, right? Yes, it is. But citizens of Canada who travel to the United States under employment-based non-immigrant visas, visitor visas, and those seeking lawful permanent residency must be on notice: just because you can legally possess and distribute marijuana in Canada does not excuse you from the archaic and complex Immigration & Nationality Act (the “INA”). » Read More
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a nearly 15% fee increase for its premium processing service. The current $1,225 fee will increase to $1,410, effective October 1, 2018.
Premium processing is an optional service USCIS offers to employers that for an additional fee allows for 15-day processing of certain immigrant and non-immigrant employment-based visa petitions. » Read More
After a period of uncertainty, the Trump Administration extended Temporary Protected Status, or “TPS,” to certain Somalis living in the United States. The extension granted them the right to live in the United States until at least March of 2020, at which point the U.S. » Read More
Agriculture and Construction Industries are Concerned About Labor Shortages
Despite lower unemployment across the country, agriculture and construction companies continue to face vacant positions, and are arguing for increased immigrant labor. For example, in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, there is greater demand for construction work, but there are approximately 38,000 unfilled position in the industry. » Read More
