Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security must post public notice no later than Monday, December 7, 2020 that DHS will begin to accept first-time Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) applications, renewal requests, and advanced parole travel documents on the terms that existed before September 5, 2017, which is when the current administration tried to end the DACA program.
In the aftermath of the December 1, 2020 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that had blocked the further implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s Interim Final Rule (IFR), Strengthening the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program, (in the matter of (Chamber of Commerce, et al. v. DHS, et al., 12/1/20), the USCIS has announced that it will fully comply with the court’s ruling.
The DHS’s regulations that were scheduled to take effect on Monday, December 7, 2020, would have allowed the DHS to change the regulatory definition and standards for determining what a “specialty occupation” is, and it would have greatly shortened the validity period of H-1B approvals for third-party placement H-1B petitions to maximum of one (1) year.
U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Certification (OFLC) has announced that it will begin to comply with the recent U.S. District Court rulings regarding DOL’s prevailing wage rule.
In a 2-1 ruling on December 2, 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the preliminary injunctions that had been issued by the Northern District of California and the Eastern District of Washington against the Department of Homeland Security’s Public Charge Rule.But the same Appeals Court also vacated the Eastern District of Washington’s entry of a nationwide injunction against the Public Charge Rule.
The U.S District Court for the Northern District of California has blocked the further implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s Interim Final Rule (IFR), Strengthening the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program, as well as the Department of Labor’s interim final rule, Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States, in the matter of (Chamber of Commerce, et al. v. DHS, et al., 12/1/20)
Shortly after the publication of the December 2020 visa bulletin by the U.S. Department of State, the USCIS has announced that it will continue to follow the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications for the December 2020 Visa Bulletin.
USCIS has announced its formal plans to introduce a revised version of the naturalization civics test. The USCIS had previously announced their plans to revise and update the civics portion of the naturalization test in July 2019.
Naturalization applicants who apply for naturalization on or after December 1, 2020 will take the updated version of the test. Those naturalization applicants who apply before December 1, 2020 will take the current version of the naturalization test.
On November 2, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge in the Northern District of Illinois vacated the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Public Charge regulation and ruled that it had violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). This ruling takes effect nationwide and with immediate effect. This means the USCIS cannot enforce the public charge rule and this will directly impact applicants who are filing for nonimmigrant change of status and extension of status petitions, as well as those applicants who are applying for adjustment of status petitions with the USCIS.
In the follow-up to the highly anticipated October 2020 Visa Bulletin, the USCIS has decided once again to follow the same filing charts for the November 2020 Visa Bulletin.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced a proposal to change the process by which the USCIS selects the H-1B cap-subject petitions each year. Instead of the random selection process that has been in place for many years, DHS proposes that a new wage-level based selection process be implemented in its place.
USCIS has announced that it is increasing the premium processing fee that is utilized for H-1B, and L-1 and various immigrant visa petitions (such as I-140) from $1,440.00 to $2,500.00 starting on Monday, October 19, 2020.
Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor have simultaneously announced regulations that would not only restrict H-1B eligibility by redefining H-1B specialty occupation and the employer-employee relationship but also raise the wage minimum levels for the H-1B and the alien labor certification PERM filings
As part of the U.S. Senate’s continuing resolution bill that funds the U.S. federal government until December 11, 2020, Congress has included some interesting and impactful changes to the USCIS premium processing service that will expand the premium processing option to more visa categories, and allow the USCIS to set higher premium processing fees in order to help bridge the gap in the USCIS’s budgetary shortfall.
On September 29, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California imposed a preliminary injunction on the Department of Homeland Security to enforce its new fee rule that was set to take effect on
For the much eagerly awaited October 2020 Visa Bulletin just published by the U.S. Department of State, the USCIS has decided to continue to follow the previous months’ filing procedures and set that for family-sponsored filings, filers should continue to follow the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications for the October 2020 Visa Bulletin.
In light of the recent stay of the July 29, 2020 nationwide injunction on the public charge rule by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, USCIS has announced that it will once again apply the Public Charge rule to all relevant petitions and applications that are postmarked on or after February 24, 2020.
U.S. Department of State has announced that its U.S. consular posts will begin to process K-1 fiancé(e) visa applications as local conditions permit. Applicants should check the website of their nearest U.S. embassy or consulate to check what types of services the particular cost is offering right now.
The U.S. embassy in India has announced that the consular sections in its embassy and all the U.S. consulates in India are able to resume accepting drop box applications for F, M, and J visa renewals, and also for H and L visa renewals who qualify under the national interest exceptions of the Presidential Proclamations that had originally imposed visa bans on those particular visas.
Starting on August 14, 2020, employers and legal representatives have begun to receive e-mail notifications from the USCIS regarding the second round of H-1B lottery selection for the Fiscal Year 2021 H-1B cap. These cases have been selected from the same H-1B registrations that were initially submitted during the March 2020 H-1B cap registration window, but were not selected in that initial lottery process.
USCIS has announced that it will be able to avoid furloughing more than 130,000 of its employees, which is almost 70% of its workforce, after originally planning to begin the furlough on August 30, 2020. USCIS explained that they are able to avoid the furlough due to unprecedented spending cuts and a steady increase in daily incoming revenue and receipts.
