With the wage-weighted H-1B lottery making new cap cases harder to win, more employers are recruiting professionals who already hold H-1B status with another company. These hires can usually be filed at any time of year without a new lottery selection, and under the portability rules in 8 CFR 214.2(h), the...
H-1B status generally ends after six years. Workers whose green card cases started early can often extend past that limit, but many cannot: the PERM case started too late, the employer's case was delayed, or the person never entered the green card process at all. For a company that does not want...
H-1B status is generally limited to six years. Many workers reach that point while a green card case is still moving through the Department of Labor or USCIS, and a delay at the PERM stage, such as the October 2026 suspension of eight large employers from the program, makes the question more...
Short answer: Many nonimmigrants with an expired U.S. visa stamp can return from a trip of 30 days or less to Canada or Mexico using a valid I-94. This is called automatic revalidation, and it ends the moment you apply for a new visa during the trip.
Key...
A proposed rule published in the Federal Register on October 14, 2026 would repeal the regulation that directs USCIS to follow its own earlier approvals of Form I-129 extension petitions. DHS calls it Removing Deference to Prior USCIS Determinations of Eligibility (Docket No. USCIS-2026-0529). The provision at issue, 8 CFR 214.1(c)(5),...
U.S. employers that sponsor skilled foreign workers are watching several changes at once, including the proposed OPT fee and the October 8 announcement that Microsoft, Adobe, and others are suspended from PERM, which we cover separately. Some are asking whether part of a team could work from Canada. Here are the main...
On September 30, 2026, a federal judge in the Northern District of California issued an order in Global Nurse Force v. Trump that stops federal agencies from carrying out the $100,000 H-1B payment requirement. This is the second court to block the policies behind the fee. In July we reported on...
President Trump signed two H-1B-related actions on September 18, 2026: a proclamation extending the $100,000 H-1B fee originally imposed in September 2025 for another 12 months, and a separate Executive Order directing agencies to weigh an employer's recent layoffs when reviewing its H-1B petitions. The fee extension takes effect at 12:01...
As employers turn to budgeting and headcount planning for 2027, there's a step worth adding to that process that doesn't usually make the list: a review of where your sponsored foreign national employees actually stand. This year alone has brought an unusual volume of change to employment-based immigration, and a number of...
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...
