Immigration and Firm News

So sorry to my readers for not posting lately. As Chair of the Washington Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILAWA), I have been very busy the last few weeks writing letters, testifying and attending meetings before the Washington State legislature on several immigration related bills since our fair state decided to get into the immigration business this year. I was also in Washington, D.C. where together with AILA colleagues, we visited the members of the Washington … [Read more...]

In a December 3, 2010 letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated that indirect jobs created by individual investors in an EB-5 regional center may in fact be created outside the geographical boundaries of the certified regional center. The letter sets out USCIS's interpretation from earlier case law that the job-creating businesses themselves must be located within the regional center's geographic limits, and that … [Read more...]

The U.S. State Department announced today that the family-based permanent legal immigration quota will retrogress in January. The State Department makes monthly estimates about visa use around the world through an extremely complex formula that hardly anyone understands. Although the State Department posts a brief explanation online, it does not adequately reflect the true complex nature of calculating when visas are available. Not only does the State Department have to monitor how many … [Read more...]