Insight, News, and Strategy on Immigration Matters Around the World
A change in calculating the availability of immigrant numbers means some foreign national ministers who are in the United States on temporary R-1 religious worker visas and waiting in lines for green cards will have to wait even longer, it seems. Some may even have to leave their congregations.
Ministers entering the United States solely…
Diversity Visa (DV) Electronic Registration for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 opens at noon ET on October 4, 2023, and closes at noon ET on November 7, 2023. There will be 55,000 Diversity Visas available for FY 2025.
There is no cost to register, but, if selected, applicants must pay the visa application or I-485…
Certain foreign entrepreneurs have a new pathway available to enter the United States to develop a business concept through a start-up company. Entrepreneurs who will have a central and active role in a start-up company that has attracted private investment or government funding may benefit from the International Entrepreneur Parole (IEP) program. While complex and…
On January 4, 2023, the U.S. Embassy in Havana will resume immigrant visa processing for immediate relatives, family preference applicants, diversity visa applicants and visas for K fiancées.
Until then, the U.S. Embassy Georgetown in Guyana will continue to process immigrant visa applications for Cubans with appointments scheduled through the end of December 2022.
Consular…
The Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery is open for FY 2024. Applications may be filed online until 12:00 p.m. ET on November 8, 2022.
The DV Lottery program makes 50,000 immigrant visas (“green cards”) available every year to applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Eligible individuals must meet certain requirements…
USCIS is resuming the Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) Program beginning with already pending CFRP applications. This program started in 2007 and has been on hold for some time. It allows beneficiaries of approved Forms I-130, Petitions for Alien Relative, to come to the United States on parole while waiting for an available visa number. …
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is trying to approve as many employment-based green card applications as it can before the annual deadline of September 30, 2022 (the end of the fiscal year).
Primarily due to COVID-19 restrictions, approximately 140,000 family-based visa numbers went unused last fiscal year. As a result, these unused visa numbers…
Federal courts could not review the U.S. Attorney General’s decisions denying discretionary relief from removal – even in a case where the alien contends that the decision was based on a factual error, the U.S. Supreme Court has held, 5-4, affirming the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Patel v.
The Department of State (DOS) has reinstituted talks with Cuban representatives about how to support family reunification and safe, orderly migration from Cuba to the United States.
Talks of this nature were instituted in 1984 and continued biannually from 1994 until 2018 when the talks were paused by the Trump Administration.
The Biden Administration is…
There are further updates from the CDC for all air travelers.
Now, most travelers will have to show a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 and contact information to board an airplane for the United States. As before, U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, U.S. lawful permanent residents, and those entering the United…
