• O and P visa processing times have been shortened.
• H-1B processing time has been reduced.
• VAWA applications are at 5 months.
• Employment Cards are still taking over 3 months for the most part.
• U Visa processing is stuck.
• Most EB-1 and EB-2 petitions are around 4 months at the Texas Service Center, but they are taking more time at the Nebraska Service Center. The National Interest Waiver is taking nearly 9 months in Nebraska.
• Fiance and many family-based petitions are taking 5 months for processing.
• An application to remove conditions on permanent residence is taking 10 months for processing.

The post USCIS Processing Times Released appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

A bipartisan bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives to bar certain companies from obtaining H-1B, L-1A, and L-1B visas for their employees.  Those companies are those that employ over 50 employees and have over 50% of their US workforce on H-1B or L-1 visas. Democratic Congresspersons Bill Pascrell from New Jersey and Republican Dana Rohrabacher from California have joined for the H-1B and L Visas Reform Act of 2016. The Congresspersons will introduce this bill because they see foreign companies as insourcing and exploiting foreign workers to abuse visa programs and undercut the American workforce. An interesting side note is that New Jersey and California are two of the states that have the largest concentrations of Indians (both Indians and Indian-Americans) and immigrants in general.

Both Congresspersons introduced similar legislation in 2010 that failed to gain any traction. This legislation comes off the heels of instances of H-1B fraud and additional fees imposed on companies that have over 50 employees and over 50% on H-1B or L visas.

Certain websites have headlines, such as US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Prevent Indian Firms from Hiring on H-1B, L1 Visas. The headlines are not necessarily provocative as to point out blatant discrimination. The reason is that Indian IT firms are among the highest users of the H-1B and L visas. Their business model relies heavily on bringing foreign nationals to work in the US on H-1B and L visas. Indian nationals are the number one beneficiary of H-1B visas.

The post Bill Proposes Barring H-1B and L-1 Visas for Certain Companies appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

Government agencies have an Ombudsman who issues reports to Congress and liaises between consumers and the agency to resolve problems. The USCIS Ombudsman released its report for 2016 at the end of June. Important issues for attorneys, individuals, and employers have been visa RFEs and visa delays, Employment Authorization Document application delays, fee waivers, the EB-5 program, and processing times in general. The Ombudsman’s report is over 100 pages. Here are some highlights:

• The Ombudsman noted the excessive number of Employment Authorization Document applications that are taking over 90 days to adjudicate, despite a regulation that states it must take place within 90 days. One seventh of the Ombudsman’s caseload related to delayed EAD applications. The Ombudsman writes:

“Thousands of EAD applicants and their employers continue to be negatively impacted by the agency’s failure to timely adjudicate Form I-765. The proposed regulatory changes will not improve processing times absent allocation of significant resources to meet processing times goals. The Ombudsman continues to highlight EAD issues as a systemic issue, and will monitor and engage the agency as long as this matter remains unresolved.”

• USCIS has a proposal to eliminate the 90 day adjudication requirement and replace that with an automatic 180 day extension of the employment card’s validity upon a timely filing. That proposal has not been implemented. The Ombudsman repeated that it has made multiple efforts and recommendations to rectify EAD issues over the past 8 years.
• H-1B, L-1A, and L-1B RFE rates have decreased from the previous year. This has been monitored for years because of high RFE rates. There are also discrepancies in RFE rates between the Vermont and California Service Centers. Those discrepancies persist.
• O-1 and P-1 visa petitions are receiving high rates of RFEs (49% and 65%).
• There is mixed data as to whether the Service Centers issue RFEs toward the end of the premium processing 15 day period as a delaying tactic.
• Processing times for Naturalization applications are highly variable by USCIS Field Office. Times range from 4 months to 9 months.
• Processing times for Permanent Residence applications are highly variable by USCIS Field Office. Times range from less than 4 months to over 10 months.

The post appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

H-1B visas are normally subject to a lottery. Specialized jobs that require a Bachelor’s degree generally qualify for the H-1B visa. However, with a demand thrice the amount of the supply of 85,000, nearly 2/3rds of H-1B visa applicants are left on the sidelines without a visa and a lost job opportunity. For many individuals, the H-1B visa is the best and sometimes, only option. There are more than 85,000 visas available in the category. The reason for that is cap-exempt H-1B visas.

Certain institutions are exempt from the lottery, meaning that they can apply for the H-1B visa at any time of the year for a beneficiary. Instead of filing on April 1 for an October 1 start date and subjecting themselves to the randomness of a lottery, they are able to procure H-1B visas if their applications meet the standards for an H-1B visa.

Babson is among 6 US universities that is endeavoring to keep their talent in the United States by petitioning for beneficiaries as entrepreneurs through university-created residence programs. Programs of the sort are popular at universities throughout the United States. Using the program to connect the cap-exempt H-1B visa for foreign graduates is innovative. It is being called a “legal loophole,” but the paucity of visas totally incommensurate with supply has created an atmosphere where employers and universities will invent creative ways to obtain H-1B visas for their desired individuals.

The post H-1B Visas Without Cap appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

It has been a year since the processing times for H-1B cases jumped from an approximate of 2 months to 7 and 8 months. The delays are not just a matter of inconvenience. They have meaningful effects on people’s lives and businesses. A 240 day extension of employment kicks in if an extension of status is filed before the expiration of the previous visa, but there are possible ramifications for renewing Driver’s Licenses and college tuition, among other practical things. The long delays constructively forced businesses and applicants to pay the $1,225 premium processing fee.

Recently many H-1B cases were transferred to the Nebraska Service Center. Our office recently had an H-1B extension case decided in 7 weeks. That seems to signal a return to normal processing times.

Unfortunately, many other kinds of cases are struggling with lengthy delays. Employment Authorization Document applications are not being adjudicated within 90 days, despite regulations that instruct adjudication within 90 days. This is also in spite of case transfers to other service centers. O and P visas are supposed to be adjudicated within two weeks. The Vermont Service Center is hovering at 2.5 months. U visas have finally started to move forward, but the adjudication of those cases has been at a standstill for a year.

The post USCIS Adjudications appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

A new bill – The High Skilled Integrity and Fairness Act of 2015 – is poised to be introduced by two Californian legislators: Zoe Lofgren (D) and Darrell Issa (R). The bill proposes multiple changes to the H-1B visa and employment-based immigration, particularly to the H-1B lottery. The highlights of the bill are listed below:

• It will fundamentally alter the way the lottery works. The lottery process is shrouded in mystery, hence a lawsuit to extract information. Theoretically, all petitions are equally treated. This bill proposes giving employers who pay their prospective H-1B employees the most over the prevailing wage the best chance at success in the lottery. For example, an IT company that is willing to pay its Software Developer 200% of the prevailing wage will have an advantage over the IT company that is going to pay its Software Developer a dollar above the prevailing wage.
• Wages would not solely determine a petition’s chance at success in the new lottery. Also taken into consideration would be companies that hire US workers mainly. H-1B dependent employers would be prejudiced in favor of those companies.
• 20% of the lottery H-1B visas would be allocated to small companies (firms with fewer than 50 employees). This is to address the complaint of small and medium companies that a few large companies eat up all of the H-1B visas in the lottery.
• H-1B dependent employers currently have to pay a $60,000 salary to count themselves as exempt from the recruitment process. That threshold would increase to $130,000 under the bill. There may be a loophole if the employer petitions the employee for a Green Card.
• Per country caps on employment-based immigration visas would be eliminated. There are 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas available a year. The nationals of a country cannot obtain more than 7% of that number. By sheer population, that puts nationals of India and China at a major disadvantage, and they have to spend extraordinary times waiting for their Permanent Residence, despite approved employment-based immigration petitions.
• The L-1 visa remains untouched by this bill. There is no mention of filing fees, which are due to increase anyway. Certain companies have been hit with an enormous filing fee for H and L visa petitions.

List most legislation concerning immigration reform, this could go by the wayside. The legislative process may create even more changes or dilute some of the proposals.

The post H-1B Bill Seeks Changes appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

DHS recently published a rule allowing OPT students in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to extend their Optional Practical Training for 24 months. This is especially beneficial to OPT students who intend to stay in the USA and find post-graduate employment because it allows them more opportunity for the H-1B lottery. The H-1B visa is often the appropriate option for a recent graduate in a “specialty” occupation. All of the fields listed qualify as STEM and for the 24 months.

The post STEM List – 24 Month Extension appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

The American Immigration Council has filed a lawsuit against USCIS, demanding transparency in the lottery process that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals and thousands of companies. With a statutory cap of 65,000 visas in the regular cap and 20,000 visas in the US Master’s cap, the over 230,000 applications that are submitted in the first week of April are subject to a lottery. However, there is no information on how that lottery works. Applications are submitted in early April and then receipt notices and lottery rejections trickle in over the next months.

In some years, the cap is not reached and there is no need for a lottery. However, for the past few years, the number of applications has been over 200,000 and the cap is reached in the first week of April. As this has become consistent, the need for lottery transparency has become urgent for the American Immigration Council. All that is known about the process is that it is random and computer generated. The lawsuit seeks to elicit more information from USCIS in how this process is conducted.

The post H-1B Lottery Lawsuit appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

U Visa processing times have stalled for a year. Since June 2015, U visa applications have essentially not been adjudicated. Congress has mandated 10,000 U visas are available per year. That means once 10,000 U visas are granted, the other approvable U visas are waitlisted and backlogged. USCIS has a practice of placing U visa candidates on a wait list, so at least they can obtain an employment card while waiting for U visa approval.

The U visa is partly a humanitarian safe haven for immigration. It allows an applicant to overcome many grounds to inadmissibility, though a waiver can be required. The U visa is a grant of legal nonimmigrant status to someone who has been the victim of a qualifying crime. It requires certification from a government agency, such as the police department that handled the crime. The applicant must have also been willing to or actually have helped in the prosecution of the perpetrator. There is the potential for adjustment to Permanent Residence for U visa applicants and their derivative family members.

USCIS has had some dismal processing times recently affecting all swathes of the immigration spectrum. H-1B and L-1 processing times have been abnormally lengthy. This has caused issues for employees with driver’s licenses, college tuition, and travel. It has caused employers to pay the $1,225 premium processing fee for occasions that should not require it. U visa applications are at a standstill. Employment authorization applications are taking triple the amount of time that they mandated to take for first time asylum applications, and they are pushing against their regulatory period for all other types of applications. Green Card applications through employment-based petitions are beyond processing times. O and P visa petitions are 5xs beyond normal processing of two weeks. If you look at processing times for the service centers, you will see that they are well beyond their stated goals for processing times. USCIS has blamed the slow processing on a lack of resources, as evidenced in its proposed comment for increasing filing fees by 21%.

The post Demand to Speed Up U Visas appeared first on Wood Immigration Law.

If you are an employer that files immigration petitions, especially H-1B and L-1 petitions, you might have noticed that there was an additional fee levied upon certain employers on file H-1B and L-1 petitions. That was in December. DHS is proposing to increase its filing fees for all of its petitions by a weighted average of 21%. These are what the proposed fees are likely to look like:

E, H, L, O, P, Q, R Petitions – $325 becomes $460

Immigration Petition Fee – $580 becomes $700

Premium Processing Fee – $1225 still, but USCIS would like an increase

USCIS has maintained its fees since 2010. The primary reason for increasing the fees, DHS claims, is that current fees are not generating enough revenue to fund their operations.

The timing of the fee increase seems particularly unfortunate. USCIS is well-behind their stated goals in adjudicating many of the aforementioned petitions. Change and extension of status petitions are taking over 6 months for H and L petitions. O and P petitions are usually adjudicated within two weeks. They are currently approaching three months. Because the timing of adjudication is lengthy, it is causing problems for many employers and employees. Premium processing requests are being foisted because of issues with driver’s licenses, among others. A 240 day extension for employment authorization goes into effect once the employee hits her final day of work authorization on her visa. The extension only goes into effect if the extension is timely filed. The lengthy adjudications have been problematic for months.

The Administrative Procedures Act gives 60 days for comments. July 5, 2016 is the final day to comment. The link to comment is here.

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