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CNN reports on a heartbreaking story Dangerous path to legal status about a young woman, Tanya Nava, who applied for her immigrant visa or green card at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, and now regrets that she ever did. Her husband, Jake Reyes-Neal, an American citizen and father of their child, had sponsored Tanya, only to be killed in the process while waiting with his wife to get her visa. Because Ms. Nava evidently had been in the U.S. illegally since she was a young girl, her physical … [Read more...]
The Perils of Immigrant Visa Processing Abroad: Why Congress Should Eliminate the 3 and 10-Year Bars
February 9, 2012 by ·
February 3, 2012 by ·
Washington State appears poised in the next few days to be the seventh state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. It would go into effect on June 7, 2012. Assuming expected legal and referendum challenges fail, what would that mean for immigrant couples? Visas and Green Cards for Binational Couples Unfortunately, it will still be impossible to obtain a green card or permanent residence through sponsorship by a gay or lesbian US citizen or permanent resident spouse until Congress … [Read more...]
January 10, 2012 by ·
Today, I attended a USCIS Public Engagement Teleconference at which USCIS and State Department officials provided further details about the January 6, 2012 USCIS Notice of Intent to issue regulations, discussed in my earlier blog post, USCIS Proposes Stateside Processing of I-601 Waivers: Know Before You Go?. Recapping briefly the USCIS proposal, regulation will be issued for public comment describing new procedures for how and where immigrant visa applicants will file their waiver applications … [Read more...]
January 6, 2012 by ·
Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a "Notice of Intent" that it is considering issuing a rule change to allow a narrow class of specified immigrant visa applicants to process their I-601 waivers of inadmissibility in the U.S. This means that they would have a provisional decision about their waiver eligibility BEFORE they leave the U.S. to complete interviews at U.S. consulates abroad. The rule itself has not been issued. There will most likely be a period for … [Read more...]
January 5, 2012 by ·
On January 5, 2012, USCIS issued new draft templates for Requests for Evidence (RFE) concerning L-1 Intra-Company Transferee visas for multinational managers, executives and those with specialized knowledge. USCIS has been reviewing its policies and trying to streamline adjudications of different visa categories to insure more consistent adjudications among officers and offices. Over the last year, the agency has issued draft RFE templates and implementation policy memos in the temporary and … [Read more...]
December 15, 2011 by ·
Most people are confused about green card quotas and how they impact application processing times. Permanent immigration through a relative or work can take many, many years. This is because our legal immigration visa allocation system was established in 1965 and has only been amended a few times since, mostly dealing with how unused numbers spill into other categories. In 1965, Congress changed the visa allocation system from race based to country based calculations, designed in part to … [Read more...]
December 9, 2011 by ·
USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced in October 2011 a new "Entrepreneurs in Residence" program to promote job growth by improving existing employment based immigration categories that expand opportunities for job creation. However, we haven't heard any more about this program until today when USCIS posted a job announcement for the tactical team entrepreneurs in residence. Except for a minor attempt to deal with per country caps, and a flawed Start-Up Visa Act that has gone nowhere … [Read more...]
November 23, 2011 by ·
USCIS is reporting today that the H-1B Cap count as of November 22, 2011 has been reached for Fiscal Year 2012 that expires September 30, 2012. This means that employers wanting to hire H-1B workers this year and next will have to wait until the new filing season begins on April 1, 2012 for jobs with start dates of October 1, 2012. The 65,000 cap was reached earlier this year compared to last fiscal year when it was reached in January. Although the economy has been sluggish, employers continue … [Read more...]
November 12, 2011 by ·
In an earlier post on Immigration Issues and the Military: Honoring our Veterans and Their Families, I focused on the citizenship benefits for active duty and honorably discharged service members including potential citizenship status on their descendants. This article focuses on how our immigration laws help, or don't help, the dependent family members of our servicemen and women. Help for Dependents of Military Service Personnel Today, many members of the military have spouses, children and … [Read more...]
November 11, 2011 by ·
How do our immigration laws help (or hurt) our members of the military and their families? There are several programs that expedite citizenship for those who have honorably served in the military. Other programs help families with lawful permanent residence (green cards) and expedited citizenship. This firm has had the honor to handle a number of military related immigration and citizenship cases. Even the show "Army Wives" has an episode devoted to the issue of immigration problems of a … [Read more...]
