The changes made to the priority date system in the October 2015 Visa Bulletin have been positive and will provide much relief to beneficiaries of visas petitions caught in the employment and family-based backlogs. There will be two dates for the very first time: a filing date and a final action date. The filing date […]
Gary Endelman and I have advocated for administrative fixes to improve the immigration system since March 2010. In The Tyranny of Priority Dates we proposed that foreign nationals caught in the crushing employment-based (EB) or family-based (FB) backlogs could file an adjustment of status application, Form I-485, based on a broader definition of visa availability. […]
The Board of Immigration Appeal’s decision in Matter of J-R-R-A-, 26 I&N Dec. 609 (BIA 2015) is a milestone decision in protecting an asylum applicant who presented competency issues that were not appropriately assessed by the Immigration Judge. It also untangles the ethical conundrum that a lawyer has when the client is unable to testify […]
Donald Trump advocating that the United States should end birthright citizenship in his immigration reform plan is nothing new. Politicians have frequently brought up the so called dangers of birthright citizenship to pander to their base. Recently in 2011, Steve King (R-IA), one of the most anti-immigrant members of Congress, proposed the Birthright Citizenship Act […]
Adversity is the mother of progress Mahatma Gandhi I was at first greatly disappointed to find out that a federal district court judge vacated the 2008 STEM Optional Practical Training rule that extended practical training to F-1 students by an additional 17 months. However, if one reads Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) v. DHS […]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued final guidance on July 21, 2015, instructing when an employer should file an amended or new H-1B petition following Matter of Simeio Solutions, LLC (Simeio). In Simeio, a precedent decision issued on April 9, 2015, the Administrative Appeals Office concluded that changes in the H-1B beneficiary’s places of […]
The greatest bane for green card aspirants with Indian degrees is the uncertainty that they will be recognized as single source degrees. If an Indian degree is recognized as the single source equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree, it can provide the basis for an I-140 immigrant visa petition under the employment-based second preference […]
Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate mogul and GOP Presidential candidate, has called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers who are demoralizing the country. His popularity among a certain section in the Republican party has surged as a result, and Trump continues to stand by his demagogy. Trump’s latest foray into immigrant scapegoating for political gain is […]
President Obama’s healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is here to stay especially after the law withstood a challenge in King v. Burwell that allows the federal government to provide subsidies to poor and middle class people to buy health insurance on a nationwide basis. Even non-citizens who are lawfully present may access the health exchange to buy […]
Senator Grassley’s latest angry missive to the DHS protests the proposed increase of F-1 student Optional Practical Training (OPT), which was part of President Obama’s executive actions of November 20, 2014. While the Senator’s rant against any beneficial immigration proposal is nothing unusual, it reveals for the first time DHS plans to unveil an OPT […]
