The Social Security Administration (SSA) has quietly hit pause on a key program that streamlined Social Security number (SSN) issuance for nonimmigrant and immigrant applicants. As of March 19, 2025, the Enumeration Beyond...more
USCIS has issued updated guidance following the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 19, 2025, decision to grant the Justice Department’s emergency request to lift a March 31 California district court order halting DHS’s termination of...more
6/12/2025
/ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Form I-9 ,
Government Agencies ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration Procedures ,
New Guidance ,
Popular ,
SCOTUS ,
USCIS ,
Venezuela ,
Work Permits
On Jan. 23, 2025, in a suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle by the attorneys-general of Washington State, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon to overturn President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) banning birthright...more
1/24/2025
/ Citizenship ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Executive Orders ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Immigration Reform ,
Injunctions ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
State and Local Government ,
Trump Administration ,
Undocumented Immigrants
This order directs federal agencies to refuse to recognize U.S. citizenship for children born in the United States to mothers in the country illegally, or who are present in the United States on non-immigrant visas, if the...more
1/21/2025
/ Cartels ,
Catch and Release ,
Customs and Border Protection ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Executive Orders ,
Foreign Workers ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ,
Immigration Enforcement ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Immigration Reform ,
Ports of Entry ,
Refugees ,
Terrorist Organizations ,
Trump Administration ,
USCIS ,
Vetting ,
Visas
Just as people were starting to lose hope, USCIS announced that it will soon hold a second round of selections for the FY 2025 H-1B cap. USCIS will randomly select additional registrations for unique beneficiaries from the...more
Good news for those applying for or with pending Employment Authorization Document (EAD) renewals. DHS is temporarily reinstituting its 540-day automatic extension of work authorization for eligible individuals....more
Proper completion of the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 is one of the most important responsibilities of employers, including retailers, at the beginning of the hiring process. Saying it learned from the...more
8/8/2023
/ E-Verify ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Eligibility Verification ,
Foreign Workers ,
Form I-9 ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Required Forms ,
USCIS
Employers whose employees presented expired List B documents for Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification purposes between May 1, 2020, and April 30, 2022, must update Form I-9 with unexpired documents by July 31, 2022....more
Just as the Biden Administration is proposing increased funding for USCIS to help reduce the agency’s backlog, USCIS is announcing future new actions to improve processing times....more
ICE announced that I-9 flexibility will be extended again – this time through the whole summer until August 31, 2021.
Since March 2020, companies that have been operating remotely have been able to inspect Section 2 Form...more
A noncitizen applying for relief from deportation bears the burden of proving all elements of eligibility for relief, including that a conviction under a divisible state statute does not render the person ineligible for...more
Premium processing fees are going up (the bad news), but premium processing will be available for more types of cases (the good news) according to changes included in the recently passed Continuing Resolution (CR) that will...more
Judge Jeffrey S. White has granted the plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunction preventing the continued enforcement of the Presidential Proclamation suspending the entry of certain individuals in H, L, and J status...more
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may resume implementation of the new Public Charge Rule, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled.
The factors that are considered under the new Public Charge...more
Since May, USCIS has been threatening furloughs of three-quarters of its workforce in August if it does not receive a $1.2 billion loan and an average 21% increase in fees to take care of its budget shortfall. Reportedly,...more
The Department of State (DOS) has been collecting (and maintaining) information on social media use from all visa applicants (immigrant and non-immigrant) since June 2019. The DOS’s collection and maintenance of this...more
6/22/2020
/ Applications ,
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Data Privacy ,
Immigrants ,
Online Platforms ,
Personal Data ,
Privacy Laws ,
Social Media ,
US Department of State ,
Vetting ,
Visas
Additional restrictions on entry into the U.S. may be expected soon. Initial indications are that the Administration is considering barring H-1B, H-2B, L-1, and J-1 status among other non-immigrant visa categories.
On...more
USCIS has announced the new Public Charge Rule will become effective on February 24, 2020, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has lifted the injunction.
This Rule affects legal immigrants (those who are legally in the United...more
It is time to start preparing for the upcoming H-1B visa lottery, which begins April 1, 2020, and will be the first one to require an electronic registration for each case.
To be eligible to file a cap-subject H-1B...more
2/3/2020
/ Foreign Workers ,
H-1B ,
Highly-Skilled Workers Visa ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Lottery ,
OPT ,
STEM ,
USCIS ,
Visa Caps ,
Visas
The Trump Administration’s new Public Charge Rule can go into effect (for now, at least).
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, has lifted the injunction that prevented DHS from enforcing its new Public Charge Rule...more
Predictably, the “Presidential Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System” has been blocked from going into effect for the time being. The U.S....more
President Donald Trump’s new “Presidential Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System” likely will reduce drastically the number of legal immigrants...more
Although not legal on the federal level, the marijuana industry is a fast-growing economic sector in the U.S. Thirty-three states have legalized medical marijuana and 10 of those have legalized recreational use. Based on...more
Since 2017, USCIS under the Trump Administration has essentially directed its adjudicators to find ways to deny H-1B petitions. The most recent statistics on Requests for Evidence (RFEs) and denials certainly support this,...more
DHS has proposed a fee of $10 per H-1B petition. The agency considers this to be an “appropriate, nominal fee” to recover some costs involved.
In January 2019, DHS published the rule establishing an H-1B electronic...more