News

USCIS has revised Form I-912, Request for Fee Waiver, by removing the means-tested benefit criteria. Individuals may still request a fee waiver if their documented annual household income is at or below 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or if they demonstrate financial hardship. Fee waiver applicants must submit the 10/24/19 version of this […]

  President Trump issued a proclamation suspending the entry of immigrants who “will financially burden the U.S. healthcare system,” effective at 12:01 am (ET) on 11/3/19. Immigrants must have approved health insurance coverage within 30 days of entry, or be able to pay for reasonably foreseeable medical costs. This proclamation shall apply only to aliens […]

DOS released the >> November 2019 visa bulletin. 

Immigration lawyers, tech-industry trade groups and universities asked the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration whether the planned new registration system for H-1B visa applications would be imposed next year, but failed to get a firm answer. In a letter to acting agency director Ken Cuccinelli, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and other groups […]

A PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION by President Trump requires future green card applicants to show they can afford health care. On Friday night, the White House announced that immigrants applying for visas starting November 3 would have to show they have health insurance within 30 days of entering the country or the financial capacity to pay for […]

DOS released instructions on how to apply for the 2021 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. For FY2021, 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available. Registration begins at 12:00 pm (ET) on October 2, 2019, and will continue until 12:00 pm (ET) on November 5, 2019.   Source: AILA Doc. No. 19092730.

President Trump is proposing a refugee ceiling of 18,000 for FY2020. The United States expects to receive more than 368,000 new refugees and asylum claims in fiscal year (FY) 2020. This includes a proposed 18,000 refugees and more than 350,000 individuals in new asylum cases.   Source: AILA Doc. No. 19092701.

  DOJ announced that DHS is automatically extending certain EADs issued under the TPS Syria designation. Specifically, DHS has automatically extended through 3/28/20, the validity of EADs with an “A-12” or “C-19” category code and an expiration date of 9/30/2019.   Source: AILA Doc. No. 19092330.  

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) has issued a Final Rule aimed at helping Americans find open agricultural jobs by modernizing the labor market test for H-2A temporary agricultural labor certification in the Federal Register. The Final Rule changes the labor market test for H-2A labor certification by […]

The U.S. State Department has just posted the Visa Bulletin for October 2019. As was expected, as the new fiscal year begins in October, and the entire new supply of immigrant visas is issued, the cutoff dates in the October 2019 Visa Bulletin have advanced for many categories that were retrogressed over the previous few […]