Applicants pursuing a green card through a U.S. embassy or consulate are running into an unexpected roadblock this fall. A State Department official confirmed on August 25, 2026, that immigrant visa interview appointments have been paused across posts worldwide so that consular officers can go through additional training — leaving many families...
On August 24, 2026, DHS announced a proposed rule that would add a new $103,265 fee to all H-1B cap-subject petitions, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register on August 25, 2026. This is not the same as the $100,000...
A pattern reported by immigration attorneys earlier this year is worth flagging for any H-1B employer or employee who travels internationally while working remotely. Officers at the CBP preclearance facility in Abu Dhabi reportedly began asking H-1B travelers pointed questions about remote work performed while outside the United States, and in at...
At a glance
Moderna and Merck's mRNA melanoma vaccine, intismeran autogene, succeeded in a late-stage trial announced August 19–20, 2026. The underlying mRNA science traces to Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian immigrant and 2023 Nobel laureate. Moderna was co-founded by Noubar...
On August 4, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI and its former subsidiary Statsig over how the companies recruited for a small number of positions tied to green card sponsorship. Fewer than ten roles were at issue, but the size of the penalty signals...
Immigration rules and enforcement priorities continue to change across the United States and Canada. In this edition of the NPZ Law Group U.S. and Canadian Immigration Newsletter, we highlight important developments affecting employers, foreign nationals, international students, families, and travelers.
Key topics include USCIS's August 2026 policy concerning denials...
USCIS released updated Policy Manual guidance on August 18, 2026, spelling out exactly how officers will apply the public charge ground of inadmissibility once the rescission of the 2022 rule takes effect on September 18, 2026. This is the practical follow-up to the rule change DHS announced in July, and it answers...
A proposed rule that would eliminate the 60-day grace period for nonimmigrant workers whose employment ends has cleared White House review and was formally published in the Federal Register on September 11, 2026, opening a 60-day public comment period. The rule, tracked under RIN 1615-AD22, would affect E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1,...
USCIS has widened a tool inside E-Verify that flags employees whose work authorization has been pulled, and the change means a lot more employees could now show up on it. E-Verify first rolled out the Status Change Report back in June 2025 as a narrow...
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has corrected its guidance for the R205(b) C20 Reciprocal Employment work permit category. The correction removes a recently published restriction that would have required applicants to already be employed by the company abroad. The C20 category remains an important LMIA-exempt option for qualifying multinational employers, academic...
