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From Cipolla Law Group
Archive for December, 2009
December 23, 2009 – Happy Holidays!!!
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009December 22, 2009 – H1B Visa Cap for FY2010 Reached!
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009Today, 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.
December 17, 2009 – H1B Cap Count Update!
Thursday, December 17th, 2009The 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.
December 14, 2009 – Latest H1B Cap Count!
Monday, December 14th, 2009The 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.
December 14, 2009 – DOS Proposed Rule: Increase in Non-Immigrant Visa Application fees from $131 to $140
Monday, December 14th, 2009A 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.
January 2010 Visa Bulletin
Thursday, December 10th, 2009The 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.
December 10, 2009 – Chinese College Students Flocking to the U.S.
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Foreign Chinese students contributed nearly $18 billion last year in tuition and living expenses to the U.S. economy, according to a November report from the Institute of International Education. This statistic shows that not only that China’s improved economy enabled more parents to afford their child’s education in the U.S. but also indicate a possible change to a friendlier attitude among U.S. embassies and consulates in reviewing F1 visas. Hopefully, with more Chinese students coming to study in the US, more jobs will be created and available to faciliate the talented ones to stay and benefit our country, in addition to the economic benefit of hosting foreign students in the US.
December 10, 2009 – Useful information on the latest DOL’s measure for H1Bs’ Labor Certificate Application Filings
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Due to heavy delays in processing time for certain LCA certificates via the recently implemented “iCERT” system, the Department of Labor announced earlier in November that it would accept H1B petitions with uncertified Labor Certificate Applications filed between November 2009 and March 2010. Yesterday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it would extend this temporary measure a little further to March 09, 2010, which will provide the public with the benefit of the full 120 day accommodation measure since the USCIS last update on Novemeber 10, 2009. To know more about this temporary arrangement, see USCIS update.