Insight, News, and Strategy on Immigration Matters Around the World
In March 2022, USCIS published a final rule expanding its premium processing service to include additional immigration petition and application types. This announcement was welcome news to businesses and foreign nationals dealing with extensive delays in the processing of immigration benefits.
On May 24, 2022, USCIS announced that premium processing will begin as of June…
The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) grant for Afghanistan will go into effect on May 20, 2022, with publication of the notice in the Federal Register with instructions on how to apply for TPS and for Employment Authorization.
In March 2022, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that Afghanistan was added to the…
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…
The Jumpstart Our Legal Immigration System Act (Jumpstart), introduced by Zoe Lofgren (D-Calf.) in the House of Representatives, if passed, could revolutionize the green card process. The legislation would recapture thousands of unused family- and employment-based visas and allow beneficiaries to expedite their processes by paying additional fees.
The Jumpstart Act would help to…
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a Federal Register notice with instructions on how to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for both Ukraine and Sudan. Both designations run for 18 months, until October 19, 2023.
When Ukrainian TPS was originally announced, only individuals who had continuously resided in the United States…
The Department of Homeland Security has announced the designation of Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months.
The designation is based on the ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon. Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas stated, “Cameroonian nationals currently residing in the U.S. who cannot safely return due to the extreme violence perpetrated by government…
On April 18, 2022, USCIS announced that it had received 483,927 registrations for the FY 2023 H-1B Cap. This is the largest number ever received – almost 200,000 more than the total count of 308,613 for FY 2022.
Out of the 487,927 registration applications, USCIS selected 127,600 to fill the 85,000 available spots. Employers whose…
A new Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification is in the works. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking comments on its proposed changes to the form.
Used by all employers, Form I-9 has always had many traps for the unwary. DHS, with its proposed changes, is trying to simplify and clarify things.
The proposed…
As they did for last summer, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) will make available an additional 35,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas for the second half of FY 2022. This more than doubles the usual 33,000 allocation or cap for the summer.
Of the new 35,000 visas,…
The Department of Homeland Security set out the specifics about the upcoming new premium processing benefits in the Federal Register on March 30, 2022. The details, however, did not include any specific implementation dates, which it said depends on when the revenues exist to cover potential costs.
