Author Archives: Katherine
May 2010 Visa Bulletin
The Department of State has released its latest Visa Bulletin.
The May 2010 Visa Bulletin indicates that Employment based EB3 category are still oversubscribed and EB3 category for Mexico has become “unavailable”. For Employment based EB2 category, it is current for all areas of chargeability or “Worldwide” except for China and India.
Regarding visa availability for family sponsored categories, during the past 15 months, the level of demand family based petitions have been low. As a result, cut off dates for most of these preferences have been moving forward rapidly. If you are considering sponsoring a foreign family member to the United States, you should file your application as soon as you can while the current processing time is relatively short.
Click here to see the full Department of State Visa Bulletin… Continue reading…
April 2010 Visa Bulletin Released
The Department of States released the Visa Bulletin for April 2010. No major movement for EB3 category with only 1 month and 2 weeks for Worldwide; approx. 1 month 2 weeks for Mainland China and 2 months 1 week for India. For employment based second category, there is unfortunately no movement for India; but cut off dates for Mainland China has moved forward approx. a month and 2 weeks. Employment based Other Workers category remains the same and it remains current for the rest of the other employment based categories.
Click here to see the bulletin in its entirety… Continue reading…
H1B Petitions for FY2011
The USCIS announced on March 08, 2010 that it would begin accepting H1B petitions subjects to Fiscal Year 2011 on the April 1, 2010. H1B visas are non-immigrant employment based visa primarily used by U.S. businesses who employ foreign employees in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields such as scientists, engineers or computer programmers. An approved H1B visa allows a foreign worker to legally work in the U.S. temporarily and potentially leads to a permanent residence greencard.
In the past, Cipolla Law Group successfully represented U.S. companies and foreign workers to obtain approved H1B visas, including Architects, Biotechologists, Engineers, Musicians, Psychologist, Social Workers, Scientists, Foreign Teachers etc… If you are considering applying for a H1B visa this year, please contact us today for a consultation.
Click here to see the USCIS update.… Continue reading…
March 2010 Visa Bulletin
The Department of State released its Visa Bulletin for March 2010, it predicts the availability of Immigrant Visas in March 2010. According to this latest bulletin, priority dates for Employment based immigrant visas continued to advance modestly. For EB2 Mainland China, priority cutoff dates have moved approximately 6 weeks forward to 08 July 2005 and only about a week for India to 01 Feb 2005. For the Third Employment based category, the priority dates have moved approximately two months and three weeks for Mainland China and Worldwide to 15 Dec 2002, and roughly a week for India.
Click here to see the Visa Bulletin in its entirety.… Continue reading…
Approval Notices “Recall”?
Yesterday, the USCIS posted an update to alert certain non-immigrant worker and change/extend non-immigrant status applicants that their approval notices may be incorrect/incomplete and should be disregarded.
Between January 20 and January 27 this year, the USCIS issued approximately 500 incorrect approval notices for certain I-129 and I-538 petitions. If you happened to be one of the 500 recipients of these incorrect/incomplete notices, the USCIS advised that you should not attempt to use them. The USCIS has started mailing new approval notices with corrected information to affected I-129 and I-538 petitioners.
Click here to read this USCIS update.… Continue reading…
February 2010 Visa Bulletin
The Department of State has released its February Visa Bulletin, it predicts the availability of Immigration numbers during February 2010. There will be a modest advancement for EB2 Mainlanad China as their priority cut off dates have moved approximately 3 weeks forward to May 22, 2005. For the third employment based category, cut off dates will advance approximately 7 weeks for Mainland China and worldwide to September 22, 2002. Applicants from India and other countries within the EB2 and EB3 catagories remain unchanged.
Click here to see the full February Visa Bulletin… Continue reading…
US lifts Immigration Ban on HIV/AIDS
After 22 years of immigration ban preventing anyone with HIV/AIDS from entering the U.S., the ban has finally come to an end. As of January 4, 2010, HIV infection is no longer defined as a communicable disease of public health signficance and HIV infection will no longer make an alien inadmissiable under 212(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is definitely a positive move, as President Obama said in the White House yesterday: “We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic, yet we are one of the only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering…if we want to be the global leader on combating HIV/AIDS we need to act like this”.
In the past, a person with HIV/AIDS who wanted to visit the US, would need to file a Waiver of Inadmissibility. The application usually involved a tremedous amount of stress and an application fee … Continue reading…
H1B Visa Cap for FY2010 Reached!
Today, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released an announcement that H1B cap subject visas have been reached, meaning that the 65,000 H1B statutory cap visas are fully used up for the fiscal year of 2010. Any cap-subject H1B petitions that were properly filed and received by the USCIS on December 21, 2009 will be subject to a computer generated random selection process. The USCIS will utilize this process to select petitions to meet the statutory cap.
Click here to see the latest USCIS update.… Continue reading…
DOS Proposed Rule: Increase in Non-Immigrant Visa Application fees from $131 to $140
A newly proposed rule by the Department of State may amend the application fees for most Non-Immigrant Visa Applications from $131 to $140. The rule also provides new application fees for certain areas of petition based non-immigrant visas, treaty traders and investor visas.
The Department of State intends to implement this proposed rule, after the 60-day public comment period following the proposed rule’s publication in the Federal Register today, and after they had the opportunity to consider all the public comments. If you have any comments on this proposed rule, you may send an written comment to the Department of State to the following address:
Department of State
Office of the Executive Director
Bureau of Consular Affairs
U.S. Department of State
Suite H1001, 2401 E Street
NW., Washington, DC 20520
or Email: fees@state.gov
Click here to see details of this publication.… Continue reading…
January 2010 Visa Bulletin
The Department of State has just released its January 2010 Visa Bulletin. Again, no major movement for employment based preference categories, although it did, as compared to last month’s Visa Bulletin, move forward slightly for the second and third preference categories. For the second preference employment based category, cut off dates for applicants from China has moved a month forward. For the third preference employment based category, almost all countries have moved forward for at least a month except for Mexico.
Click here to see the January 2010 Visa Bulletin.… Continue reading…
