On July 13, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) provided a new policy memorandum. According to this new guidance, effective September 11, 2018, USCIS adjudicators will have full discretion to deny applications, petitions, and requests...
According to a recent new guidance regarding issuances of Notices to Appear (NTA), USCIS will greatly expand its mandate for issuing NTAs without first consulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). USCIS officers will now issue NTAs and thereby place...
Ever since the new administration came to office, a higher level of scrutiny has been applied to H-1B visas by USCIS through increasingly frequent Request For Evidence (RFE) and close scrutiny over wage level 1 positions. On April 11, USCIS conducted two lotteries for...
USCIS has reached the H-1B Cap for the Fiscal Year of 2019. This year, 190,098 H-1B petitions were filed – an approximate 4.5% decrease from last year’s 199,000 filings and still significantly fewer than the record 236,000 H-1B petitions that were filed in 2016. In...
On September 18, 2017, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has resumed premium processing for all H-1B visa petitions selected under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 cap. Likewise, premium processing has also resumed for the...
As mentioned previously, USCIS completed the initial data entry of all 85,000 fiscal year 2018 H-1B CAP petitions that were selected for this year’s random selection process. USCIS will now adjudicate these 85,000 petitions over the next several months. In the event...