The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reported today that as of its most recent count, 41,900 H-1B visa applications have been accepted for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011.  The USCIS will accept applications until the annual quota of 65,000 visas authorized by Congress is reached. When we last reported on the acceptance rate of H-1B visas on October 6, 2010, the USCIS has accepted about 1,000 applications per [...]

The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) published an alert today informing foreign nationals from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua who have re-registered for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), about how they can prove their continued eligibility to work until their new employment authorization cards arrive. While these foreign nationals wait for their new employment authorization cards to arrive, they can provide their current cards as [...]

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced yesterday that it will conduct an agency-wide policy review to examine and potentially change its policies concerning the adjudication of applications for benefits and customer service. The USCIS has selected the following ten (10) areas to examine in its policy review: National Customer Service; H-1B visas; Citizenship & Naturalization; Employment based green cards in general; Employment [...]

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seeks public comments on its proposal to increase filing fees for the adjudication of applications, and to recover costs in administering the immigration laws. The proposal was posted yesterday in the Federal Register.  The proposed increase would raise filing fees for most applications by 10%. The comment period begins on June 11, 2010 and ends on July 26, 2010.  [...]

The New York Times reported recently that the hiring records of the Gervais Family Farms in Bakersfield, Vermont were inspected as part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (USICE’s) enforcement efforts to inspect the employment records of 1,000 businesses across the United States.  The businesses that were inspected were either known or suspected to have hired undocumented immigrants. The USICE imposes [...]

The Orlando Sentinel reported recently that the system both Congress and the President direct employers to use called E-Verify to combat the hiring of illegal immigrants, is actually failing to identify over half of the unauthorized workers it checks, a research company named Westat has found. The research company found that E-Verify failed to detect so many illegal workers mainly because the system [...]

The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reported that effective today, applicants for work authorization under the various categories are required to submit their application to the designated lockboxes in Phoenix or Dallas depending on where the applicant resides. The USCIS’ designation of these lockboxes is part of their effort to reallocate resources and relieve some of the workload from the USCIS Service Centers to [...]