Entries by Cyrus Mehta

Advancing a “Social Group Plus” Claim After Matter of A-B-

In Matter of A-B–, 27 I&N Dec. 227 (A.G. 2018), former Attorney General Jeff Sessions overruled a prior Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) precedent, Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), which held  that victims of domestic violence can qualify for asylum based on their particular social group (PSG) of “married women in Guatemala who […]

Trump Administration Imposes Another Unnecessary Obstacle: USCIS to Issue New Version of Form I-539 and New I-539A on March 8

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the revised Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and new Form I-539A, will be published on March 8, 2019, not March 11 as previously reported. USCIS will accept the old form through March 21. Form I-539 is used for a variety of application types, including: […]

Don’t Always Suck Up to Buy American Hire American

President Trump’s Buy American Hire American Executive Order (BAHA) has little relevance in an economy where the unemployment rate is 4% and the Labor Department has reported that there is a record high of 7.3 million job openings.  BAHA has however been deployed to make life harder for legal immigrants who do their best to […]

The Curse of Kazarian v. USCIS in Extraordinary Ability Adjudications Under the Employment-Based First Preference

When Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2010), was first decided, it was received with much jubilation as it was thought that the standards for establishing extraordinary ability would be more straightforward and streamlined. Kazarian essentially holds that a petitioner claiming extraordinary ability need not submit extraordinary evidence to prove that he or she is a […]

H-1B Visa Contest: US Master’s Degree v. Foreign Degree

The Trump Administration has proposed a rule that would require petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions to first electronically register with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during a designated registration period. USCIS said the proposed rule would also reverse the order by which the agency selects H-1B petitions under the H-1B cap and […]

New Mutant H-1B Gene – Undifferentiated Engineering Degrees

It has become harder to obtain an approval of an H-1B visa petition under the Trump administration. The USCIS insists that an occupation must require a degree in a specific specialty. It constantly moves the goalposts to deny H-1B petitions, even if the occupation was previously readily approvable. A position that requires an engineering degree […]