I came to the U.S. in 2007, over 15 years ago. I knew before I even came that I wanted to stay indefinitely. My wife was initially sponsored for a J-1 and then quickly switched to an O-1, with myself trailing in the shadows. My wife was and still is a talented fashion designer. She...
Employment-Based Immigration
It’s all over the news. Massive layoffs at Twitter and Facebook. Other companies will no doubt follow the same suit. Cutting employment costs is the number one way that companies deal with reduced profits, diminished demand for products and services, especially during a recession. Unfortunately for foreign nationals being laid off is particularly problematic as...
On August 19, 2022, the Department of Labor stated it would no longer recognize the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges (ACICS) as an accrediting agency. This announcement affects English language study programs and F-1 students applying for STEM OPT extensions. SEVP will notify students if their school is affected by the above and strongly encourage...
This article provides an update on the number of employment-based green cards issued last year and available this year. USCIS confirmed that they were able to use all the employment-based visas in FY 2022, except for 6396 EB-5 visas that had carried over from the previous year. USCIS approved more than 220,000 employment-based adjustments of...
PERM is the first step in the green card process for most employment-based applicants. This requires the employer to conduct a recruitment campaign in good faith to demonstrate that there are no available, willing and qualified US workers to fill the position in question. To submit a PERM application (ETA 9089) the employer is first...
Aug232022
[pdf-embedder url=”https://patel-law-group.local/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Fact-Sheet.pdf” title=”Fact Sheet”]...
Last year USCIS came under heavy criticism for failing to issue all available employment-based green cards. Due to the pandemic, most Consulates were closed or operating at a reduced capacity which meant that unused family-based visas rolled over into the employment-based green cards. This was great news. Typically, there are 140,000 employment-based green cards available...
During COVID, USCIS had allowed applicants an additional 60 days to respond to certain requests, notices, and appeals, such as RFEs, NOIDs etc. However, USCIS recently stated that this would no longer be the case, which meant that applicants would need to respond by the date stated on the notice. Days later USCIS has once...