Consular Issues

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The Department of State has released the Visa Bulletin for September 2015. There was forward movement in most employment-based and family-based visa categories, however, EB-2 China and India experienced severe retrogression (to 1/1/06). This represents a retrogression of nearly 8 years for China EB2 and almost 3 years for India EB2. Also included is…

In our continuing series of reports, Charles (“Charlie”) Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division, U.S. Department of State, shares his most recent analysis of current trends and future projections for the various immigrant preference categories with AILA (the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association).

Below are highlights from the most recent “check-in with Charlie”…

H-1B petitioners and beneficiaries alike should soon have “closure” regarding the FY 2016 H-1B cap season.

A cap-subject H-1B petitioner (and beneficiary) may have held a glimmer of hope if it hadn’t yet received its returned H-1B petition, but the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS or the Immigration Service) announced today (July 14, 2015) …

Good news.  The Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that starting today, July 13, 2015, it will again accept premium processing requests (Form I-907 Requests for Premium Processing Service) for H-1B extension of stay petitions.

This is ahead of schedule because USCIS had estimated that H-1B extension of stay premium processing would be temporarily suspended until July …

The Department of State (DOS) has issued an updated alert to report that 165 posts, representing more than 85% of the nonimmigrant visa demand worldwide, are now online and issuing visas.

On June 25, 2015, DOS updated their alert with the following language:

  • The Bureau of Consular Affairs reports that 165 posts, representing more than

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Beginning June 9, 2015, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began publishing processing times for certain benefits processed at its international offices and International Operations Division headquarters.   Currently, processing times for Forms I-130, I-131, and I-730 are available online.  According to USCIS, if the field office completed less than 10 cases of one of these…

The US Department of State (State Department or DOS) computer systems are not expected to be online again before next week after experiencing “technological systems issues” (a hardware failure) on June 9th. This information came from the State Department yesterday, June 17th, in an update following their initial announcement regarding the…

The State Department continues to report that “technical problems” with overseas systems preventing the Bureau of Consular Affairs from issuing visas, passports and other travel documents, since last week.

Most U.S. Consulates and Embassies websites contain this (or similar posting):

“The Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs is currently experiencing technical problems with our…

The US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has updated its May 19, 2015 alert announcing temporary suspension of premium processing for certain H-1B petitions.  http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-temporarily-suspends-premium-processing-extension-stay-h-1b-petitions

Here are the highlights:

  • May 26, 2015 – July 27, 2015*:  Premium processing is suspended for all H-1B extension of stay petitions with extremely limited exceptions for cases meeting the

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You’ve likely been flooded with information regarding H-1B season from multiple sources.  Yesterday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) issued its own information(http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-will-accept-h-1b-petitions-fiscal-year-2016-beginning-april-1-2015) regarding Fiscal Year 2016 (FY 2016) H-1B petitions.

Here is a summary:

  • USCIS will accept cap-subject FY 2016 H-1B petitions beginning April 1, 2015.
  • The FY 2016 H-1B

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