The Department of Homeland Security issued final regulations on November 17, 2016 entitled “Retention of EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers” to provide relief to high skilled workers born mainly in India and China who are caught in the crushing backlogs in the employment-based preferences. While the […]
Our role as immigration lawyers has never become more important since the morning of November 9, 2016. Notwithstanding his conciliatory speech after his upset win, President elect Donald Trump will have to deliver on some of his campaign promises that got him votes such as building a wall, extreme vetting and cancelling Obama’s executive actions […]
The United States has always prided itself as a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately, however, there has been disturbing rhetoric against immigrants and refugees in the current presidential election season. This has been exemplified in racist taunts and epithets against Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant of Kurdish descent, who is the founder of the highly successful […]
“In the realm of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary” ― Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed David Bier of the Cato Institute in No One Knows How Long Legal Immigrants Will Have To Wait calculates that there are “somewhere between 230,000 and 2 million workers in the India EB-2 and EB-3 backlogs, […]
A proposed rule would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use its existing discretionary statutory parole authority for entrepreneurs of startup entities whose stay in the United States would provide a “significant public benefit through the substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation.” Under this proposed rule, DHS may […]
Although medical and recreational marijuana activities are illegal under federal law, at least 25 states have legalized marijuana for medical use. Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska have gone even further by legalizing some forms of recreational marijuana, including its production and sale. This conflict between federal and state law creates a curious anomaly for the […]
A class action lawsuit, Tenrec, Inc. v. USCIS, challenging the annual H-1B lottery recently overcame a motion to dismiss, and will move forward. There is a decent chance that the plaintiffs may prevail and employers will no longer be subject to the H-1B lottery. The annual H-1B visa cap forces employers to scramble way before the […]
In addition to our blog, we also regularly post immigration updates twice a month on our website at www.cyrusmehta.com. The latest Mid-September 2016 Immigration Update is available at https://blog.cyrusmehta.com/blog/2016/09/15/mid-september-2016-immigration-update/. While our blogs provide an interesting insight into an interesting contemporary immigration issue, our immigration updates comprehensively cover many significant developments twice a month. We extract, […]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) proposed a rule allowing certain international entrepreneurs to be considered for parole (temporary permission to be in the United States) so they may start or scale their businesses in the United States. This is not the first administrative initiative for entrepreneurs. In 2011 the USCIS provided guidance on how […]
The ability for a foreign national worker to move to a new job is crucial in an age of never ending backlogs in the employment-based (EB) immigrant visa preferences. If an I-485 application for adjustment of status has been filed and been pending for more than 180 days, under INA 204(j), the I-140 immigrant visa […]
