On July 20, 2021, USCIS issued a policy alert stating that applicants who are in the process of changing their status to F-1 no longer need to apply to change or extend their nonimmigrant status to “bridge the gap” between the two statuses. Previously, applicants who wanted to change their status to F-1 had to […]
Thousands of undocumented immigrants cross the border into the United States and willingly turn themselves into federal Customs and Border Patrol agents so they can apply for asylum. The journey into this country is long and dangerous, especially for children under the age of eighteen who have no parents or guardians to protect them. These […]
USCIS recently released a Draft Guidance Memo regarding the “extreme hardship” threshold that must be established for Inadmissibility Waivers. The guidance is now in its comments period which ends on November 23, 2015. At that time USCIS will review the public comments and formally finalize the policy memo. The finalized policy memo will be released […]
USCIS recently announced that it will be re-balancing the workload distribution of certain Form I-140 petitions and employment based Form I-485 applications. The workload will be distributed between the Texas Service Center and the Nebraska Service Center. Starting October 19, 2015, if you are submitting a Form I-907 together with a Form I-140 petition for […]
The Visa Bulletin indicates when statutorily limited visas are available to prospective immigrants based on their individual priority date, which is generally the date when the applicant’s relative or employer properly filed the immigrant visa petition on the applicant’s behalf with USCIS. Availability of an immigrant visa means eligible applicants are able to take one […]
Pope Francis arrived in Washington D.C. last Tuesday September 22 for his first official visit as a pontiff. The Pope gave a speech at the White House welcoming ceremony and he later addressed the US Congress. His speeches were loaded with strong messages on the matter of immigration, in relation to both US immigration issues […]
Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, also known as MAVNI, is a U.S. military recruiting program that permits legal non-citizens with high valued skills to join the U.S. Army in exchange for an expedited path to U.S. citizenship. A non-citizen who joins the U.S. Army through MAVNI is able to move from a non-immigrant […]
A recent report by the Migration Policy Institute (“MPI”) has shed some statistical light on the trends in apprehensions and deportations of Central American migrants from the US and Mexico. In the summer of 2014, this migration gained significant media attention, particularly due to the amount of unaccompanied minors coming from the Northern Triangle of […]
The Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that the Republic of Yemen has been designated for Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for a period of 18 months, beginning September 3, 2015 and running through March 3, 2017. The Secretary of Homeland Security designated Yemen for TPS due to the ongoing armed conflict within Yemen, such that […]
On August 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”)’s termination without prejudice of removal proceedings based on respondent’s conviction of an aggravated felony, do not preclude the government from charging respondent with removability again in the future, based on the same conviction. In Calero […]
