For the past several years the EB-5 Regional Center program has relied on the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) for the methodology required by the Immigration Service to prove the Regional Center will create sufficient indirect jobs. However, in 2013 the BEA announced its intention to change its methodology which caused panic in EB-5 circles. […]
Almost all of the children currently being held in custody along the Texas border are from Central America. This places them in a special legal category which is discussed below. The important thing to understand about this extremely complicated situation is that a law passed by Congress during the Bush administration in 2008 requires the[…]
Adjustment of status is the process where a foreign national will adjust his or her status from a non-immigrant to an immigrant. It differs from obtaining an immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate in that the entire process occurs in the U.S. Although adjustment of status is one of the most complicated areas of U.S.[…]
Beginning July 1, 2014 we are now eligible to file new H-1 visa applications at US consulates for those employees and prospective employees recently selected under this year’s H-1 lottery. This applies to those who have been out of the US throughout the H-1 petition process with CIS or those in the US who have[…]
A recent decision by an Administrative Law Judge in the Department of Justice has confirmed what the government has been warning employers about since the E-Verify program started several years ago. As background, all employers have been required to fill out an I-9 form since 1986 to verify the identity and employment status for employees[…]
For Canadian nationals entering the US in TN status, their only contact with a government official is at the port of entry since they are visa exempt. We have been able to obtain a copy of the checklist/instructions which are given to each officer at every port of entry. This is helpful since you[…]
H-1 status has several different components and documents which evidence that status. First, there is the labor condition application which is the prevailing wage determination which the employer must meet and which is approved by the Department of Labor. Second, we have the “petition” approved by Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) which states the dates[…]
CIS has announced that beginning May 31, 2014, Adjustment of Status (I-485) cases will not be approved unless the medical examination results are less than one year old. This is a reversion back to the policy CIS followed until 2004 when, due to backlogs in adjudicating AOS applications, the medical exam results were deemed valid[…]
The Dallas Observer has written an interesting article on one of the worst Immigration Judges in the country, who happens to be in Dallas. Immigration Judge Dietrich Sims is a former attorney with the Immigration Service who has established a widely know reputation for unprofessionalism, badgering the foreign nationals and attorneys who appear before him[…]