As a reminder to all U.S. employers, H-1B season is almost here! United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”) will start accepting new H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2018 on Saturday, April 1st, 2017. As such, employers should start immediately identifying current and future employees who will require sponsorship for new H-1B petitions. By...

The nonimmigrant E-2 visa for treaty investors has as its underlying policy the aim of incentiving foreign nationals to come into the U.S through business investment. This investment could either consist in creating a new company, buying an existing one or purchasing a franchise. Also, this company can have a foreign national come and...

President Obama signed a 10-week stopgap continuing resolution into law on September 29th, 2016 that included the extension of three visa authorizations. The extension of these visa programs will expire on December 9th, 2016. The three visa programs are the CONRAD State 30 Program, the non-minister special immigrant religious work program (SR visa), and...

EB-4 and Certain Religious Worker (SR) Preference Categories. As predicted last month, the final action dates for EB-4 India and EB-4 Mexico will be current again in October and the priority dates for EB-4 El Salvador/Guatemala/Honduras will advance to June 15th, 2015. While DOS considered establishing a separate final action date for Guatemala and...

The 2018 Diversity Visa Lottery Program (DV-2018) will commence at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 4th, 2016, and will close at noon, EDT, Monday, November 7th, 2016. Applicants must submit entries electronically during this registration period using the electronic DV entry form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov. Paper entries will not be...

We would like to share two important updates to filing Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, now that it is processed electronically. All applicants (except those who reside overseas):

• No longer need to submit two passport-style photographs. We will capture their photographs when they appear at the Application Support Center (ASC) for their biometrics appointment.

• Will...

 

On August 25th, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved a revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. USCIS must publish a revised form by Nov. 22nd, 2016. Employers may continue using the current version of Form I-9 with a revision date of 03/08/2013 N until Jan. 21st, 2017. After Jan. 21st, 2017, all...

As many Human Resources Professionals may be aware, the “new” Form I-9 (the Employment Eligibility Verification Form) will be provided soon. On August 25th 2016, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that it has cleared the revised Form I-9. For the time being, employers should continue to use the Form I-9...