February 25th, 2010
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.
Tags: Visa bulletin
Posted in Immigrant visas, Visa Bulletins |
February 3rd, 2010
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.
Tags: Non-Immigrant Visa
Posted in Nonimmigrant visas |
January 21st, 2010
On January 19, 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a final rule that changes the DHS’s regulations by implementing a statutory amendment reducing from three years to one year the length of time a member of the United States Armed Forces has to serve to qualify for naturalization through service in the Armed Forces. In addition, this rule also amends DHS regulations by implementing a statutory amendment to include as eligible for naturalization individuals who served or are serving as members of the Selected Reserve of the Ready Reserve of the U.S. Armed Forces during specified periods of hostility. This rule also eliminates the need to submit G-325B, Biographic Information.
In the past, aliens who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during peacetime were eligible for naturalization only after serving for period of three years and only those who were in active status were eligible to naturalize. Until 2003, the govement reduced the three years requirement to one year for alien Army in active status during peacetime and extended the benefit of naturalization to individuals who have served as members of the Selected Reserve of the Ready Reserve of the U.S. Armed Forces during such periods of hostilities.
Click here to see this final rule in its entirety.
Tags: N-400, Naturalization
Posted in Naturalization |
January 11th, 2010
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
Tags: Visa bulletin
Posted in Immigrant visas, Visa Bulletins |
January 5th, 2010
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 was required. Under the currently law, HIV/AIDS is no longer considered to be a factor to make a person inadmissible. Definitely a positive news for those who suffered long-term seperation from their families and loved ones under the ban. It is time to plan your visit to the US.
Click here if you wish to know more about this USCIS update.
Tags: B1/B2 Visa, Waiver of Inadmissibility
Posted in Current Affairs, Travel, Waiver of Inadmissibility |
December 23rd, 2009
Happy Holidays to all of you!!!! Wish you have a wonderful time with your loved ones, family and friends in this special holiday season. Thank you for reading our blog and we’ll see you next year!!!!
From Cipolla Law Group
Posted in Current Affairs |
December 22nd, 2009
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.
Tags: H1B visa
Posted in H-1B visas |
December 17th, 2009
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that as of December 15, 2009, approximately 64,200 cap-subject H1B petitions had been filed. USCIS will continue to accept cap-subject and advanced degree H1B petitions until it has accepted sufficient numbers of petitions/statutory limit is reached. Click here to see the latest H1B update.
Tags: H1B visa
Posted in H-1B visas |
December 14th, 2009
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that as of December 10, 2009, approximately 62,500 H1B cap-subject petitions have been filed. As we mentioned in our earlier post, the 20,000 Advanced Degree H1B cap was already exhausted for the Fiscal year of 2010, any H1B petitions filed on behalf of these Advance Degree holders will now count toward the general 65,000 H1B cap. As of today, the USCIS will continue to accept both cap-subject and advance degree petitions until the statutory limit is reached.
Click here to view the latest USCIS update.
Tags: H1B visa
Posted in H-1B visas, Nonimmigrant visas |
December 14th, 2009
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.
Tags: Filing Fees, Non-Immigrant Visa
Posted in Nonimmigrant visas |
