The Alcorn Immigration Law team’s H-1B season began in December. Since then, we’ve been working with employers preparing H-1B visa applications for the April lottery. Given the increased scrutiny, requests for evidence (RFEs), and denials these applications face, employers and H-1B candidates should focus on assembling the strongest petition they can. Delays, uncertainty about visa…
Medical and recreational use of marijuana is legal in California and Canada, but its use remains illegal under U.S. federal law. Immigration law is enforced at the federal level. Given that, if you want to immigrate to the United States, you should be very cautious about any marijuana use or connection to marijuana anywhere in…
New data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shows denials for all immigration benefits have increased sharply during the past year. Nevertheless, the Alcorn Immigration Law team has maintained its more than 95 percent client success rate. Denial rates for all immigration petitions during the first nine months of fiscal year 2018 (October 2017…
Under a new policy, if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denies a visa, an extension, or another immigration benefit, the agency will immediately begin deportation proceedings against the foreign national. That means doing it yourself now carries a higher risk of deportation. USCIS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to impose new restrictions making it more difficult to attract and retain highly-skilled foreign nationals and international students who attend a U.S. university. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley last month, USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna outlined a series of measures that the agency…
It’s much easier to check your immigration case status online! U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) upgraded its case processing times page, making it easier to figure out whether there’s been a delay in your case and if you should follow up. The redesigned page calculates the range of processing times based on the form…
If U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services more strictly monitors employees who make immigration benefits decisions, what could this mean for immigrants? USCIS is creating an internal division to monitor and investigate agency employees and has already begun transferring workers to staff the division, according to the Washington Post. The Organization of Professional Responsibility (OPR) division…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo stating that computer programming is not considered an H-1B “specialty occupation.” The H-1B visa allows U.S employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. A “specialty occupation” requires “theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge.” A specialty occupation also requires “a bachelor’s or…
The Trump administration put a freeze on all new and pending regulations, including the International Entrepreneur Rule, the Obama Administration’s creative substitute for a startup visa. Last week’s freeze was expected. Typically, new administrations taking over from the other party halt new and pending regulations to review them before they’re finalized. Regulatory Process Before…
Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York issued an order temporarily prohibiting the enforcement of Trump’s Executive Order banning visa holders from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States. You can read the ACLU’s motion and the judge’s order of the temporary stay at Mother Jones. This ruling will be in effect…