Insight, News, and Strategy on Immigration Matters Around the World
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a Final Rule for the H-2A and H-2B temporary worker programs that will become effective on Jan. 17, 2025.
The Rule is aimed at modernizing the regulations governing the H-2A and H-2B temporary worker programs — programs that are essential for U.S. employers seeking foreign labor for…
New travel authorization systems are being postponed again in the United States and in Europe: REAL ID until May 7, 2025, and ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) until 2024.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) extended the deadline for REAL ID until May 3, 2023. As…
In March 2022, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced it would be implementing measures to conduct gender-neutral screening by enhancing screening technology, reducing the number of pat-downs needed, streamlining identity validation, updating TSA PreCheck, expanding airline partnerships to enhance the overall travel experience, and improving communications with the traveling public.
So far, TSA has implemented…
The State Department, in coordination with the CDC, raised its Travel Advisory for the United Kingdom to “Do Not Travel” because of COVID-19 (Level IV).
Coincidentally, the Department’s move came on the same day Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted most COVID-19-related restrictions in the United Kingdom (yet, excluding Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). He made…
Over 40 percent of counties in the United States are experiencing population declines, and the country is experiencing a decline in the working-age population. Together, these demographics, some say, may signal an eventual slowdown of the economy. How to reverse the trend? Immigrants moving to targeted areas could help stem the decline.
Countries such…
Judge Amit Mehta in Gomez v. Trump ordered the Department of State (DOS) to make good faith efforts to “expeditiously process and adjudicate DV-2020 diversity visa and derivative beneficiary applications” and issue visas to those eligible by September 30, 2020 – the deadline for the Diversity Visa program.
In response, DOS has issued guidance,…
Extra H-2B visas have been put “on hold” and would not be released “until further notice,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced.
Shortfalls of H-2B visas have been a perennial problem. Used for temporary, seasonal, non-agricultural workers, these visas are relied on heavily by the tourist, hospitality, landscaping, and constructions industries. The statutory…
The Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, introduced early in 2019 in both the House and the Senate (H.R. 1044 and S. 386), aims to eliminate the Green Card backlog for Indian and Chinese nationals. In July, the bill passed the House.
The Fairness bill would eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based immigrants…
Courts’ deference to agency interpretations of their own statutes and regulations has been a mainstay of administrative law. The Chevron Doctrine has since 1984 provided that courts should put a “thumb-on-the-scales in favor of the government’s view of the meaning of [a] statute . . .” as long as the interpretation is reasonable. A…
Proposed changes to Form DS-160 would include aspects of “extreme vetting” in all nonimmigrant visa applications. The public has until May 29, 2018, to submit comments to the Trump Administration proposal.
Visa applicants would be required to submit five years of social media handles on specific platforms and five years of phone numbers and email…
