The U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for July 2014 contains long-awaited good news for the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category for India. The EB2, India, cutoff date advances to September 1, 2008, effective during the month of July 2014.This forward movement was anticipated,...
On June 9, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow against hopes for a favorable interpretation of family unity-related provisions within U.S. immigration law. The Court held that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had authority to narrowly interpret key protections offered by the...
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed that medical examinations required as part of the permanent residence ("green card") process will have a validity limit of one year. This became effective on June 1, 2014. Those with long-pending adjustment of status (AOS) applications...
On Monday, June 2, 2014, the Murthy Law Firm received our first batch of returned H1B filings for cases that were not selected in this year's H1B lottery. More than two weeks have passed since our firm last received any new receipt notices for H1B...
The U.S. government has brought federal criminal charges against a college president for abusing foreign students. The charges allege that the president of Cathedral Bible College, Mr. Reginald Miller, demanded the students work long hours for very little pay, threatening to revoke the F-1 status...
Maria Odom, the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, gave a presentation on various immigration issues on May 21, 2014. The setting was a meeting of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Washington D.C. Chapter, which was attended by several attorneys...
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) experienced a massive "crash" of its computer systems in April 2014. The EOIR announced, however, that it has been able to recover all of the data, and that portions of its system are once again operational. EOIR Computer Systems Crash,...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed regulatory change related to the country-specific specialty occupation professionals categories, E-3 (for Australians) and H1B1 (for citizens of Chile and Singapore). These changes would provide some clarification regarding the work authorized nature of these categories. Immigration Benefits...
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced the creation of a new website that gives travelers access to five years of their own I-94 arrival / departure and border crossing records. This website promises to serve as a valuable tool to foreign nationals who...
The results of the U.S. Department of State (DOS) diversity visa (DV) lottery for fiscal year 2015 (FY15) are now available. The DV lottery is a DOS program that runs on an annual basis. Eligibility for participation is limited to people from designated countries with...
