U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that it is extending for another 60 days, or until November 19, 2020, its relaxed enforcement of the normal requirement to physically inspect the original documents presented by new hires during the I-9 process…
In its ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS is further extending its 60-day deadline extension policy for responses to various agency actions to January 1, 2021. The accommodation will continue to be available to stakeholders responding to or filing the following: …
Effective today, air travelers who are permitted to travel to the United States despite the COVID-19 public health bans in place for Brazil, China, Iran, Ireland, the European Schengen Area, and the United Kingdom, are no longer limited to entering…
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that the Department of Homeland Security may proceed with its long-planned termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, vacating a lower court decision that had blocked…
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a proposed regulation that seeks to broadly expand the collection and use of biometrics in the enforcement and administration of immigration laws. The rule would subject foreign nationals to periodic biometrics collection…
The Department of Homeland Security has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a long-planned regulation to toughen H-1B eligibility criteria and impose new obligations on H-1B employers. OMB review is the next step toward implementing the regulation, which President Trump…
USCIS will implement a new fee schedule on October 2, 2020, and with it, new versions of several key employment-based immigration forms, including new editions of the Form I-129 nonimmigrant worker petition for H-1B, L-1, O-1 and other key nonimmigrant categories. The…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that the agency will avert a much anticipated furlough of more than 13,000 employees through September 30, the end of FY 2020. The furlough had been scheduled to begin on August 30. According to…
The U.S. House of Representatives has unanimously passed an emergency stopgap bill that would expand the premium processing program at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in order to prevent around 13,000 agency employees from being furloughed on August 30. If passed…
According to the State Department’s September Visa Bulletin, cutoff dates for issuance of an immigrant visa will be as follows: EB-1: All countries except for China and India will remain current in September. China and India will advance by three weeks to…