Pursuant to recent Federal court litigation (discussed previously in TSA emails), USCIS has proposed a new rule for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) optional practical training (OPT). Basically the new rule will allow for a 24 month extension for STEM graduates to the basic 12 months of OPT provided to most F-1 student graduates. […]
Pursuant to a joint effort by the U.S. Department of State and the Immigration Service, for a temporary time (probably only October 2015) the family and employment cut off dates have been accelerated. This is the same window of opportunity which we alerted everyone about last week regarding Registered Nurses. Please see the link below[…]
For the first time in almost seven years, Registered Nurses have the opportunity to obtain permanent residence during the Optional Practical Training (OPT) period immediately after graduation as an F-1 student. The reason for this is actually very simple: the Third Preference and “Other Workers” categories are almost current for all countries except China, India[…]
The US Federal District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that the STEM extension for Optional Practical Training was not properly promulgated by the Immigration Service in 2008 and therefore the regulation has been invalidated (but see the rest of the story below). F-1 foreign students are generally provided with one year of[…]
As background, the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) issued a decision which reverts the H-1 and LCA requirements to their original form from the early 1990s. Specifically, if an H-1 employee is transferred to a new location, and that location is not listed on the original LCA filed with DOL before the original I-129 was filed[…]
Just as a reminder, on April 9, 2015, the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) issued an important decision which significantly changed the process and requirements for H-1 employees who change locations. More accurately, the AAO decision was really a return to the requirements which were in place from the early 1990s until a series of INS/CIS[…]
With the Spring comes the annual CIS attempts to make something simple as confusing as possible. In its most recent press release about the upcoming April 1 filing period (which it again will illegally stretch into a five day filing period), CIS raises the issue of filing the H-1 case using premium processing and paying[…]