Automatic Visa Revalidation Restriction Regulation I-140/485 Concurrent Filing Regulation Non-immigrant Allied Health care Worker Visa Screen Requirement Final Rule PERM Final Regulation Home Page: www.immigration-law.com Current Page[03/01/2010 - Present]/Archive XX[05/01/2009-02/28/2010/Archive XIX[10/01/2008-04/30/2009]/Archive XVII[03/31/2008 - 09/30/2008]Archive XVI[08/01/2007 - 03/31/2008/Archive XV [04/30/2007 - 07/31/2007]/Archive XIV[06/15/2006 - 03/31/2007]Archive XIII [12/01/05 - 06/1/06. ] Warning: The postings at this site are protected by copyright. Anyone who copies and publishes without disclosing the sources (www.immigration-law.com) will violate our copyright, not to mention reprehensible and unethical conduct of plagiarism. 03/09/2010: Yesterday's USCIS Announcement of FY 2011 H-1B Cap Filing Guidance and Three Key Points That Deserve Special Attention Readers may misunderstand that this announcement is nothing but another carbon copy of FY 2009 announcement and guidance on the subject. Indeed, most of the guidance follows the last year's guidance, but there are a few which this year's FY-2011 H-1B cap filers should pay a close attention to, including but not limited to the following: Filing address and format: Read caefully any changes in the filing addresses. No forwarding will be available if mailed to a wrong address! Definition of receipt: Package must be delivered and the agency office must have it in their "possession." Postmark does not count when it is filed at the last minute. Additionally, delivery to the agency's Post Office P.O. boxes and reaching the postal station may not be considered accepted until it is picket up by the agency's pick-up crew at the postal stations. Unlike commercial delivery services, U.S. Express Mail has been experiencing this problem because the USPS keeps such express mail delivery in the postal stations until they are picked up by the agency's pick-up crew, which happens only one or two times a day. Must enclose "certified" LCA. The USCIS temporary policy to accept H-1B petitions with the proof of LCA pending and before the LCA certification expires today. For the reasons, the H-1B announcement of yesterday emphasized importance of filing "certified" LCA and any filings without such certified LCA will be rejected or denied. 03/09/2010: Senator Schumer and Senator Linsey, Now After Last Evening's Presidential Meeting, Will the Senate Take an Action on Immigration Reform Soon? These powerful senators were scheduled to meet with the President last evening to discuss the current state of comprehensive immigration reform legislation environment in the Senate. Will these Senators introduce a bi-partisan bill in the Senate soon? After March 17, 2010 Senate Health Care bill deadline, Gentlemen! You'd better not propose that vicious and anti-family "point system" again, Gentlemen! Please stay tuned. 03/09/2010: Lestislative Bills to Restrict Aliens' Rights to Influence American Political Process and Study of its Constitutionality Currently there are at least two such legislative bills pending in the Congress. They are H.R. 3797 and S. 1688, Fairness in Prepresentation Act bills which would amend the federal census statutes to exclude aliens from the population count in apportionment purposes. Such bills will substantially kill potential power of aliens to advocate their voice in the American political process and substantially slice off the continuant base for the immigration advocates in the American political process. A Congressional research study questions constitutionality of such legislation and immigration advocates and immigrants should pay attention to this type of legislative bills. 03/09/2010: Statistics of Use of Twitter Social Network Communications by the Congressmen and Congresswomen and the Senators Report indicates that "205 Representatives and Senators are registered with Twitter (as of September 30, 2009) and issued a total of 7,078 “tweets” during the data collection period of August and September 2009. With approximately 38% of House Members and 39% of Senators registered with Twitter, Members sent an average of 116 tweets per day collectively. Members’ use of Twitter can be divided into eight categories: position taking, policy, district or state activities, official congressional action, personal, media, campaign activities, and other. The data suggest that the most frequent type of tweets were district or state tweets (24%), followed by policy tweets (23%), media tweets (14%), and position-taking tweets (14%)." Power of twitter! Immigration advocates, you got that? 03/09/2010: Total EB Visa Numbers Available for FY 2010 and April 2010 EB Visa Cut-Off Date Determination Data The State Department projects total number of visa numbers available for employment-based categories for FY 2010. It also discloses the data which they used to determine the soon-to-be released April 2010 Visa Bulletion for the employment-based visa categories. Read on. 03/08/2010: USCIS Announcement of Accepting FY-2011 H-1B Cap Filing Beginning From 04/01/2010 and Releases Guidance Announcement Guidance and Instructions Work-Sheet See also TARP Fund Returned Employer Information 03/06/2010: Obama Reportedly Searches for Opportunity to Instigate Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation Report indicates that President Obama is scheduled to meet with Senator Chuck Schumer (D) and Senator Linsey Graham (R) to explore the opportunity for the Congress to initiate the comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Reportedly, Senator Chuck Schumer has been delaying his promised introduction of the Senate CIR proposal in order to search for the support of at least one leading Republican senator to make such proposal a bi-partisan bill. The Republican senator whom they have been talking behind the scene has been known to be Senator Linsey Graham. Even though it may be too late for such move to produce a final fruit, we commend Mr. President's courage to come out of the shell and search a soul openly to find an answer for this national policy issue. However, one thing which is critically important but missing here is his own proposal. The zigzag in the health care reform has taught a lesson to the nation, the Congress, and most importantly, the President that President's role just as an instigator and mediator was ineffective and not enough to achieve any reform policies, particularly to fight against the fast-ticking clock and under the current stalled political landscape, not to mention its potential fall-out of tarnishing image of strong political leadership of the President. Please stay tuned to this website for the development of this news. 03/06/2010: H-2A Final Rule Implementation Update: OFLC Reopens Mailboxes for Inquiries The H-2A Final Rule took effect yesterday and the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) has reopened the following two separate H-2A Regulations mailboxes for public inquiries: H-2A.Regulations@dol.gov: Mailbox for general inquiries on H-2A final regulation TLC.Chicago@dol.gov: Mailbox for case specific inquiries addressed to the Chicago National Processing Center Please make a note of it. 03/05/2010: Bills to Refuse or Revoke Visas if in the Security or Foreign Policy Interests, to Review Visa Applications Before Adjudication, and to Provide for Immediate Dissemination of Visa Revocation Information. Yesterday, Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas introduced these bills (S.3077, H.R. 4758) in the House and the Senate as companion bills which can further tighten visa application consular proceedings at the visa posts and the nonimmigrant and immigrant application proceeding of the USCIS and DHS in the country. Abuse or misuse of the new authority of the DHS and DOS to deny or revoke visas and immigrant and nonimmigrant applications can lead to a serious issue unless there is a mechanism to prevent the agencies from applying the proposed law in broad brush. We will post the full text of these bills as soon as they are made available. Please stay tuned. 03/04/2010: Do You Want to Know How Visa Cut-Off Dates Are Determined Every Month for the Monthly Visa Bulletin by the State Department? Here are some answers. The State Department has released an informational sheet that explains the operation of the immigrant number allotment and control system. As the immigrant community is waiting for the Department's release of April 2010 Visa Bulletin, this informational sheet should help our readers to understand how Mr. Oppenheim of Visa Bureau of the U.S. Department of State works on the Visa Bulletin. Here we go! 03/03/2010: USCIS Temporary Relief Accepting H-1B Petitions "Without Certified LCA and Pending LCA" Will Expire on 03/09/2010 and "Not" 03/04/2010 There has been some confusion in immigrant community and among some employers as to the expiration date of this policy. AILA has just reported that the USCIS has agreed to accept such H-1B petitions until March 9, 2010 instead of March 4, 2010 as published in the USCIS Q&A on this subject. AILA reports that this decision as enunciated in the Q&A will supercede the conflicting date which is found in the Memorandum on the subject. Readers are however cautioned that other than the expiration date of the temporary relief, all other guidances, including the conditions and terms as well as the threshold requirement for this relief, will still be governed by the Memorandum. 03/02/2010: Office of Foreign Labor Certification Offers H-2A Briefing Materials Which Was Used in the Briefing Sessions in Several Cities Last Month The Office of Foreign Labor Certification and the Wage and Hour Division have conducted 3 public briefings to advise stakeholders of the contents of the new H-2A Final Rule, which will be effective March 15, 2010. For the following briefing materials used in the briefings, click here. ETA-OFLC H-2A Rule Briefing Presentation 2010 ETA-OFLC State Map - AEWR-2010 ETA Form 790 AG - Job Order ETA Form 790 AG - Job Order General Instructions ETA Form 9142 Appendix A-2 ETA Form 9142 ETA Form 9142 General Instructions H-2A Final Rule Factsheet OFLC Amend & Extend Factsheet H-2A Final Rule Public Rollout WHD 2010 03/02/2010: Obama Administration and OMB Action to Reverse Past Trend of Outsourcing of Government Services to Private Contractors During Bush administration, a large part of government functions and services were taken away from government civilian employees to private contractors, including the services of the USCIS and Department of Labor relating to immigration and visa application and management system. One of the campaign pledges of Obama was to change this course. In fact, as we reported quite earlier, FY 2010 USCIS budget reflected this new policy. Now, report indicates that the OMB is scheduled to announce the details of areas of government services which will ban outsourcing of the services to private contractors. Should this be implemented, operations of the field offices and some of the headquarter offices of the USCIS may see additional changes in the management of immigration benefits programs. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification of the DOL has already started implementation of program to reduce or eliminate private contractors in the foreign labor certification application processing and management and the number of private contractors are likely to be reduced gradually along the way. We want to watch closely how this change will affect the agencies' efficiency and effectiveness of their services for the consumers. The Chief of Foreign Labor Certification stated sometimes back that the change would bring with it some efficiency and effectiveness in processing of foreign labor certification applications. We will closely watch and monitor the agencies efforts. Please bear with us. 03/02/2010: Monitoring USCIS Ongoing Form Filing Location Changes and Form Changes As part of transition, the USCIS has been actively centralizing filing locations for various immigration and naturalization forms. In parallell with such centralization process, the agency has also been revising the forms as a transition to its long term process of reengineering of management system. We have repeatedly advised our visitor the status of ongoing USCIS immigration program reengineering process and warned that the forms and filing locations will be changed en masse beginning at the end of 2009. This process is anticipated to be accelerated during the month of March 2010. As our visitors have been well advised by our site, the USCIS has been pushing ahead business transformation program over the years. The program centralizes the filing process in two phases: First to lockboxes, and eventually electronic filing, removing paper filing and processing. In this regard, the current activities of centralization of filing and front-end processing of forms at lockboxes may be a transition itself. Once the transformation program is fully launched, the immigration applications and petitions may literally witness a dramatic change in terms of processing times and petitioners and applicants' burden on submitting amount of documents to support such petitions and applications. In preparation for such reform of the immigration programs, the USCIS has already revised its regulation to remove filing "location" and jurisdiction provisions for immigration forms, applications, and petitions. In order to monitor the ongoing changes in forms and filing locations, we have just set up monitors at our home page. Our readers may constantly check the links in this monitor not to experience any disaster. 03/01/2010: Denise Vanison, New Chief, Office of Policy and Strategy, USCIS The USCIS Director, Mr. Mayorkas has been reshuffling the USCIS leadership team very silently for the last two months. One of the key posts in the leadership team is the Chief of Office of Policy and Strategy. This position had been taken by a long-time career USCIS official, Ms. Pearl Chang before she was replaced by Mr. David R. Howell last month as the Acting Chief. Last week, he was replaced by Ms. Denise Vanison, a leading immigration lawyer who had been practicing immigration laws in Washington, D.C. area as permanent Chief of the Office. She is very knowledgeable on all aspects of immigration law, policies, history, etc. We welcome her aboard the leadership team. For her background, please click here. For Pre-March 1, 2010 Postings, Please Click Here.
Current Page[03/01/2010 - Present]/Archive XX[05/01/2009-02/28/2010/Archive XIX[10/01/2008-04/30/2009]/Archive XVII[03/31/2008 - 09/30/2008]Archive XVI[08/01/2007 - 03/31/2008/Archive XV [04/30/2007 - 07/31/2007]/Archive XIV[06/15/2006 - 03/31/2007]Archive XIII [12/01/05 - 06/1/06. ] Warning: The postings at this site are protected by copyright. Anyone who copies and publishes without disclosing the sources (www.immigration-law.com) will violate our copyright, not to mention reprehensible and unethical conduct of plagiarism.
03/09/2010: Yesterday's USCIS Announcement of FY 2011 H-1B Cap Filing Guidance and Three Key Points That Deserve Special Attention
03/09/2010: Senator Schumer and Senator Linsey, Now After Last Evening's Presidential Meeting, Will the Senate Take an Action on Immigration Reform Soon?
03/09/2010: Lestislative Bills to Restrict Aliens' Rights to Influence American Political Process and Study of its Constitutionality
03/09/2010: Statistics of Use of Twitter Social Network Communications by the Congressmen and Congresswomen and the Senators
03/09/2010: Total EB Visa Numbers Available for FY 2010 and April 2010 EB Visa Cut-Off Date Determination Data
03/08/2010: USCIS Announcement of Accepting FY-2011 H-1B Cap Filing Beginning From 04/01/2010 and Releases Guidance
03/06/2010: Obama Reportedly Searches for Opportunity to Instigate Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation
03/06/2010: H-2A Final Rule Implementation Update: OFLC Reopens Mailboxes for Inquiries
03/05/2010: Bills to Refuse or Revoke Visas if in the Security or Foreign Policy Interests, to Review Visa Applications Before Adjudication, and to Provide for Immediate Dissemination of Visa Revocation Information.
03/04/2010: Do You Want to Know How Visa Cut-Off Dates Are Determined Every Month for the Monthly Visa Bulletin by the State Department?
03/03/2010: USCIS Temporary Relief Accepting H-1B Petitions "Without Certified LCA and Pending LCA" Will Expire on 03/09/2010 and "Not" 03/04/2010
03/02/2010: Office of Foreign Labor Certification Offers H-2A Briefing Materials Which Was Used in the Briefing Sessions in Several Cities Last Month
03/02/2010: Obama Administration and OMB Action to Reverse Past Trend of Outsourcing of Government Services to Private Contractors
03/02/2010: Monitoring USCIS Ongoing Form Filing Location Changes and Form Changes
03/01/2010: Denise Vanison, New Chief, Office of Policy and Strategy, USCIS
For Pre-March 1, 2010 Postings, Please Click Here.