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On January 15, 2016, USCIS announced new final regulations (Enhancing Opportunities for H-1B1, CW-1 and E-3 Nonimmigrants and EB-1 Immigrants) that will streamline certain country-specific work visa status for citizens of Australia, Chile, Singapore and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). These nationals are entitled to a variation of the professional worker H-1B visas (although CNMI is based on place of work v. nationality.) Australians can get E-3 specialty occupation … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2016
January 18, 2016 by ·
January 16, 2016 by ·
The F-1 Foreign Student Visa Optional Practical Training (OPT) program affects thousands of foreign students in the USA every year. Recently, OPT has been the subject of litigation, proposed regulations and changing adjudication trends. This blog post covers each of these topics below as well as what does it mean for the thousands of students, schools and employers out there whose status could possibly be terminated next month. OPT is authorized off-campus paid experiential work status for … [Read more...]
January 5, 2016 by ·
L-1 and H-1B visa petition fees are increasing for companies that employ 50 or more employees and have more than 50% of their US workforce in H-1B or L-1 nonimmigrant status. On December 18, 2015, Congress passed and the President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. The previous supplemental fees for this group of employers expired. Therefore, this bill extends and raises the fees through September 30, 2025. L-1 petition fees will increase from $2,250 to $6000 per covered … [Read more...]
