Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan today announced that Kenneth T. (Ken) Cuccinelli will serve as the new acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), effective June 10, 2019. Cuccinelli previously served as Virginia’s attorney general…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to reassign some green card and naturalization cases from local field offices with large backlogs to those with fewer cases. According to the agency, the change is intended to decrease the disparity in case…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that starting June 10, it will accept premium processing requests for all remaining FY 2020 H-1B cap cases (including consular notification cases which were previously ineligible for premium processing). Please seehttps://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/premium-processing-begins-remaining-h-1b-cap-subject-petitions-june-10 for more…
Late Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act. H.R. 6 would provide a path to permanent residence and U.S. citizenship for certain foreign nationals who entered the United States before the age of…
Starting June 10, 2019, eligible New Zealand companies and nationals will be able to apply for E-1 treaty trader and E-2 treaty investor temporary visa status. The Embassy in New Zealand announced the upcoming availability of the E visa categories this week,…
The State Department is now requiring foreign nationals to disclose five years of social media and contact history when applying for a nonimmigrant or immigrant visa. New questions about social media use, prior email addresses and prior phone numbers were…
USCIS will close its international offices, starting with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Manila in the Philippines. All offices, including the main district offices for the separate regions, are scheduled to close by March 10, 2020. According to BuzzFeed, in September 2019,…
The Department of Homeland Security is moving forward with a proposed regulation to charge a fee for filing registrations in the forthcoming H-1B cap online system. The proposed fee – which has not yet been specified – is now under…
Starting June 24, 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will raise individual application fees on F and M students and most J exchange visitors, as well as the application fee for schools seeking initial certification in the Student and…
On May 28, 2019, the Attorney General (AG) certified to himself two cases, Matter of Thomas and Matter of Thompson. 27 I&N Dec. 556 (A.G. 2019). The AG has asked the parties and interested amici to "address whether, and under what circumstances, judicial alteration of…