Immigration and Firm News

The primary trend for family immigration is a slow down in processing of all petition and application types at USCIS, at the National Visa Center, and at US consulates abroad. And, interviews are taking longer as part of the "extreme vetting" campaign.  I mentioned in an earlier post that mandatory interviews for employment based adjustment of status applicants is impacting processing times for family based adjustment of status and naturalization interviews. Here in Seattle, where once upon a … [Read more...]

I previously reported on the new Filing Date v. Final Action Date policy of the US State Department and USCIS concerning the quota, and the debacle resulting from the State Department rolling back some filing dates between September 9 and September 25, 2015 for the October 2015 Visa Bulletin.  On September 28, 2015 a lawsuit was filed against the State Department, Mehta v. DOS, in which the plaintiffs sought declaratory relief from the court.  Plaintiffs ask the court to order the State … [Read more...]

In a prior blog post, I reported on the new State Department and USCIS policy permitting early filing of some adjustment of status and immigrant visa petitions in advance of the quota being current.  However, on September 25, 2015, the State Department revised its October 2015 Visa Bulletin. In particular, it rolled back both Final Adjudication and new Filing Date priority dates for certain applicants from India, China, the Philippines, and Mexico.  (See also the USCIS announcement about the … [Read more...]

On September 9, 2015, the US State Department (DOS) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a new joint policy regarding early filing of green card applications for people stuck in the quotas.  All business and family green card categories EXCEPT for "immediate relatives" (spouses and children under 21 and parents of U.S. citizens) are subject to annual category and per country limits.  When demand exceeds supply, there is a backlog or quota, and applications for green cards, … [Read more...]