How a derivative beneficiary (of an immigrant petition) should answer the question on a DS-160 nonimmigrant visa application, “Has an immigrant petition ever been filed on your behalf” is not clear and often perplexing. On its face, it appears th… Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union, environmental groups, Texas landowners, and 16 states have filed lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border as an unconstitutional overreach of exe… Read More

Inexplicably, numerous FY 2019 H-1B cap-subject petitions (filed in April 2018 for visas that became available on October 1, 2018) remain pending with the California Service Center. USCIS has indicated that it is unable to provide a timeframe for the… Read More

USCIS announced that it has revised Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and that starting March 11, 2019, it will only accept the new version of the form. A new Form I-539A, also effective March 11, replaces the amendment pa… Read More

According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, the administration’s plan to shrink the ballooning backlog of immigration cases by mandating that immigration judges hear more cases has failed, according to the latest data, with the average… Read More

Recent data released by the Department of State reveal that it too is laying brick after brick of an invisible wall that is curbing legal immigration to the United States. Visa inadmissibility statistics in FY 2018 reveal an uptick in just one year o… Read More

On January 25, 2019, the Department of State announced that the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, suspended routine visa services due to the ordered departure of non-emergency personnel. The consular section advised that it is focused on providing… Read More

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) recently analyzed published USCIS data for fiscal years 2014 through 2018 and found a crisis-level of delays in the agency’s processing of applications and petitions for immigration benefits under… Read More