Other Non-immigrant Visas

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  • A federal district court has vacated USCIS policies that paused adjudication of immigration benefit requests filed by nationals of 39 countries.
  • The court ruling could allow affected adjustment of status, employment authorization, naturalization, and certain asylum-related applications to proceed.
  • The government is expected to consider appellate options, and employers should continue to monitor developments.
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  • A new USCIS policy memorandum emphasizes that adjustment of status is a discretionary benefit and that consular processing abroad is the “ordinary” pathway to permanent residence.
  • The memo does not eliminate employment-based adjustment of status or create a formal new rule requiring all applicants to consular process.
  • Significant questions remain, including how USCIS will
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The Department of Labor (DOL) has published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to revise how prevailing wage levels are calculated for the H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, and PERM employment based non-immigrant and immigrant visa programs.

The March 27, 2026, proposal seeks to increase the four-tiered prevailing wage structure for these visa programs by aligning them…

The Department of State has announced an expansion of its 2025 visa screening and vetting process for certain nonimmigrant visas to other classifications. The new policy is scheduled to go into effect March 30, 2026.

Consular officers will be broadening “online presence review” as part of adjudicating certain nonimmigrant visa applications. Groups already subject to…

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) that removes the long‑standing requirement that R‑1 nonimmigrant religious workers who have exhausted the maximum five‑year period in R‑1 status must spend one full year abroad before becoming eligible to return in R‑1 classification.

Under the IFR, an R‑1 nonimmigrant who has…

  • USCIS has confirmed its Dec. 2 policy memo, which listed only a narrow set of applications, was not exhaustive and that it has
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After temporarily pausing a recent Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) interim final rule, the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. has taken the additional action of granting an emergency stay order over the rule.  

The rule is aimed at limiting issuance and renewal of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for numerous groups of non-citizens legally…

The federal appeals court in the District of Columbia has placed a temporary administrative stay on implementation of a recent Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) interim final rule that would limit issuance and renewal of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for non-domiciled applicants individuals. Lujan, et al. v. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, et al.…

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced that it has strengthened requirements for issuance and renewal of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for non-domiciled applicants individuals.

The FMCSA’s interim final rule limits issuance of non-domiciled CDLs to individuals with specific lawful employment-based nonimmigrant status categories (H-2A, H-2B, or E-2). 

The rule also requires…

The current government funding expired at the end of the fiscal year without a continuing resolution, resulting in a government shutdown. A federal government shutdown can create ripple effects across immigration processes, but the impact varies depending on the agency.

Since USCIS is fee-funded, most operations — like processing petitions and applications — continue as…