Employers

Biden Administration Blocks Implementation of Revised H-1B Specialty Occupation, DOL Wage Level Increase and H-1B Cap Wage Priority Rules

Among the many first-day actions taken by the new Biden administration was to immediately put a block (or delay) to some of the last-minute employment-based immigration rules which were sought to be rushed by the prior administration. In a January 20, 2021 memo, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain directed in part, that (a) [...]

By |2021-01-21T08:48:11-05:00January 21st, 2021|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

How to Handle Wage Level I H-1B RFEs?

Our readers and clients who have been involved in the H-1B program over the last couple of years (and especially those participating in the H-1B cap filing season) must have experienced or at least heard about the Wage Level I requests for evidence (RFE) which have been and continue to be issued by USCIS.   [...]

By |2019-05-30T09:57:43-04:00May 28th, 2019|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

Alert: FY2020 H-1B Cap Reached on April 5th

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that, as of Friday, April 5th, they have received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the annual H-1B cap for the 2020 fiscal year (FY2020).    According to USCIS, they have received more [...]

By |2019-04-11T12:31:58-04:00April 11th, 2019|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

Premium Processing for Pending H-1B Cap Cases Reinstated

USCIS has announced that starting January 29, 2019, they will accept requests for premium processing "upgrades" for pending H-1B cap cases which were filed in April 2018.  This reinstatement of premium processing applies only to "regular" and "master's" cap cases which are still pending at this time.   Premium processing remains available for H-1B extensions with [...]

By |2019-01-29T17:53:41-05:00January 29th, 2019|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

USCIS Proposes Rule to Change H-1B Cap Lottery System and US Master’s Degree Lottery

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) has published a proposed rule which seeks to amend in substantial ways the way the annual H-1B “cap” work visa applications and lottery are being filed and how the U.S. master’s degree applications are being allocated under the H-1B cap lottery. Please note that this is a proposed [...]

By |2018-12-06T11:33:00-05:00December 6th, 2018|Articles, Employees, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert, Policy|

USCIS Increases I-907 Premium Processing Filing Fee Starting October 1, 2018

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that they are increasing the I-907 premium processing service filing fee to $1,410.   The new premium processing filing fee increase will become effective for all requests mailed, postmarked or otherwise filed on [...]

By |2018-09-06T11:34:59-04:00September 6th, 2018|Articles, Employers, Fees, H-1B, I-140, News, News Alert|

STEM OPT and Third-Party Worksites: USCIS Reverses Courses, Specifically Permits Placement

USCIS has provided much needed clarification with respect to the ability of F-1 STEM OPT holders to be placed at and provide work at a location other than their employer’s office.     Under the new guidance, USCIS is specifically [...]

By |2018-08-17T13:20:31-04:00August 17th, 2018|Articles, Employers, F-1, News, Students|

USCIS Completes Data Entry and Receipting of H-1B Cap Petitions for FY2019

Many of our readers are aware that as of April 6, 2018, USCIS had received a sufficient number of H-1B cap-subject petitions to fill the annual H-1B quota (total of 190,000 cap applications). As USCIS has been issuing receipt notices for the H-1B cap cases which are being selected for processing, we wanted to provide [...]

By |2018-05-15T16:22:48-04:00May 15th, 2018|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

Last Call for H-1B Cap: Very Short and Busy H-1B Cap Filing Season Expected – April 2-6 (Five Business Days); H-1B Lottery Likely

As we are going into the peak of the H-1B cap season, our office receives many inquiries about the duration of the H-1B filing season this year [...]

By |2018-03-08T12:07:30-05:00March 8th, 2018|Articles, Employers, H-1B, News, News Alert|

USCIS Appears to Question Immediate F-1 CPT Validity for Second Degree Students

Our office has been seeing cases and reports that USCIS is changing their approach and starts to question the validity of F-1 CPT work authorization especially in cases where the F-1 foreign student has used more than 12 months of combined CPT and OPT at the same degree level.     Most often this issue is [...]

By |2019-02-06T20:36:19-05:00February 15th, 2018|Articles, Employers, F-1, H-1B, News, News Alert, Students|

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