Hooray! My Employee's H-1B Visa Was Finally Approved! Now Why Am I Getting This Revocation Notice?
6/19/19
By: Ken Levine For the past two years, USCIS has ramped up revocations of approved H-1B petitions. While there are no reliable government statistics, word of mouth in the immigration legal field, as well as increased federal litigation concerning H-1B revocations, clearly underscores the existence of this trend. Under 8 C.F.R. 214.2(h)(11) USCIS must satisfy…
Latest Update on the H-1B Visa Application Process
2/11/19
By: Layli Eskandari Deal The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a final rule implementing changes to the H-1B visa program for petitions filed under the H-1B cap (better known as the H-1B visa lottery). The rule reverses the order whereby USCIS selects H-1B petitions for the standard allotment of 65,000 visas and…
USCIS Reverses Course – STEM OPT Students May Now Work At 3rd Party Client Sites
9/18/18
By: Ken Levine On August 17th U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted an announcement on their website to publicize the agency’s decision to once again allow STEM OPT F-1 students to engage in training programs at a third-party client worksite. This update supersedes the Agency’s policy change in April 2018 which disallowed STEM OPT students…
H-1B Visa Lottery: More Than One Ticket to the Jackpot?
4/5/18
By: Layli Eskandari Deal The answer is No. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has adopted a ruling made by the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) to prohibit multiple H-1B visa request by related entities on behalf of the same beneficiary for the same fiscal year. Under the H-1B visa cap, employers are only allowed to…
Planning To File Your 2018 H-1B Cap Case Under Premium Processing? Not So Fast…
3/27/18
By: Kenneth S. Levine On March 20th USCIS announced an indefinite suspension of the premium processing program for H-1B visa petitions that are subject to the 2018 statutory cap. The annual statutory cap limits the total of H-1B visas that can be approved in any one year to 85,000, 20,000 of which are set aside…
1/14/16
By: Nina Maja Bergmar With less than three months left before the FY 2017 filing period, it is high time for employers to start gearing up for this year’s H-1B season. Under the current cap system, the USCIS allots a mere 65,000 visas per year for applicants with a Bachelor’s degree and 20,000 additional visas…