American Immigration Blog

H-1B Registration Starts March 1, 2020. 

The new USCIS registration process for companies seeking to file petitions for H-1B employees  starts March 01, 2020.
The H-1B visa is one of the most valued options for company who wish to hire foreign nationals for professional positions in the United States. Demand for the H-1b visa far exceeds the supply which is subject to an annual cap of 65000 visas. An additional amount of 25,000 visas have are allocated from graduates of U. S. universities with Master’s Degrees.

Earliest Date for filing H-1B Petitions  this year is April 2020
Each year the H-1B filing season begins and ends in the first week of April because of overwhelming demand by employers and potential employees to be selected to obtain a coveted H-1 B visa no. USCIS conducts a lottery to randomly select petitions for the annual visa allocation. Most years the selection process or lottery is closed for further applications by the end of the first week of April.
For more information on the H-1B Visa process please contact us for a free initial telephonic consultation. Please see our website for more information on H-1 B visas as well as other visa options.

India's economy is booming and its Government is now aggressively competing with China for manufacturing jobs by reducing corporate tax rates to 22%. Increasing real estate values and stock market investments have made the EB5 investment visa option available to many Indian nationals from all parts of the country and from different sectors of society. Now, the rush is on for investors to select a Regional Center Investment to qualify for the $500,000 minimum investment needed for the EB5 visa before the amount increases to $900,000 on November 21, 2019. The EB5 visa remains the only effective means of obtaining permanent resident status for most Indian nationals because of visa retrogression in the employment and family  visa categories. H-1b and L-1 are non-immigrant visas and do not automatically convert to permanent resident status. Persons with H-1b status  who are fortunate to have been sponsored by employers for labor certification  and are approved for EB2 or EB3 visa categories may still  wait years for a permanent employment visa to become available. The uncertainty and risk of changes in employment or company structure have caused many H-1B holders as well as others to turn to the EB5 visa because of the relatively shorter time frame to obtain permanent resident status. The increase in interest may also lead to visa retrogression for Indian Nationals. Chinese investors are now facing visa quota waits which have been estimated to be longer than 10 years because of the country quota limitation. Time is of the essence to invest before the minimum investment amount increases and to avoid visa retrogression.

Today, immigrants make up around 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet they play a great role in entrepreneurship and business formation relative to their overall numbers. According to a report from the Kauffman Foundation, immigrants continue to be almost twice as likely as the native-born to become entrepreneurs.

President Obama will announce a major executive action on immigration reform on Thursday, the White House said today. In his address to the nation, president Obama will lay out his plan to fix our broken immigration system.The president will use an 8 p.m. EST address Thursday to announce his measures. The president will then travel to Del Sol High School Las Vegas on Friday and will sign the executive actions.

Immigration activists, frustrated with the rate of deportations under Obama and further exasperated with the delay in Obama's immigration action, have been urging the White House to go big and expand the deferred deportation order in a way that allows the maximum number of people to stay. But many who have been watching the process closely believe the eventual announcement will fall short of those appeals.

As early as this week, officials said, Mr. Obama is expected to announce plans to shield up to five million people from deportation and provide work permits for many of them. Mr. Obama’s actions come after a concerted lobbying campaign by immigration advocates demanding presidential action in the face of 400,000 deportations every year.  

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security will be addressing the Dream Act July 23, 2013. The committee will be working on proposing a bill that will address the “immigration Status of Illegal Immigrants Brought to the U.S. as Children.” The House of Representatives is tentatively calling the new bill they plan to propose the Kids Act while the very similar Senate Bill is called the Dream Act.  

http://www.azcentral.com/news/...

Americans are becoming more accepting of increased immigration to the U.S. than they were a few years ago. Although the majority of Americans were not in favor of increased immigration, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 23% of Americans currently support it, the highest percent of pro-immigration Americans ever recorded by Gallup.

“Americans More Pro-Immigration Than in Past”: Gallup.com, July 11, 2013 http://www.gallup.com/poll/163457/americans-pro-immigration-past.aspx

Only one month after the Obama administration announced the acceptance of applications under the Deferred Action program on August 15, 2012, and we now have the first set of approvals granted this week. This signifies that as early as this month many of these young immigrant students will have received deferrals. 

In the absence of definitive regulations, it is important to review all possible legal issues before filing for Deferred Action (DACA). We will continue to update our blog and website as more information becomes available and in the meantime will post blogs on frequently asked questions and other issues related to DACA

USCIS announced today August 3rd, 2012, the new procedures that will be implemented for the Deferrred Action program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA), which starts August 15, 2012. For full details go to our deferred action site.

The new Deferred Action program is a very exciting opportunity for more than a million persons who came to the United States when they were young and remain undocumented. The program, when implemented, requires completion of an application, which is submitted to the Department of Homeland Security. 

President Obama’s announcement on June 15th 2012, means that the Department of Homeland Security will stop all deportation of young immigrants that meet certain criteria and conditions. 

New Regulations for deferred action expected by August 16, 2012

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today announced that effective immediately, certain young people who were brought to the United States as young children, do not present a risk to national security or public safety, and meet several key criteria will be considered for relief from removal from the country or from entering into removal proceedings. Those who demonstrate that they meet the criteria will be eligible to receive deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal, and will be eligible to apply for work authorization.