USCIS announced today that they are once again extending their flexibility in responding to agency requests, expanding on their previous announcement from back at the end of March. The flexibility now applies to any RFEs, NOIDs, NOIRs, etc. received between March 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021, and extends the response deadline an additional 60 days[…]
Announcement: After 14 years of being at our office location at 1001 4th Avenue, we sadly had to say good bye our beloved office space. The Business Service Center was an incredible location for us. We are so grateful to Tammy Loud and her entire team who were our landlords. They consistently had gone above[…]
After months of uncertainty, USCIS confirmed today that, for the time being, it has managed to avoid furloughing nearly 70% of its workforce, at least through the remainder of this fiscal year (so through September 30th). While this is welcome news in the short term, the announcement also comes with warnings that the agency had[…]
In this on-again, off-again legal battle regarding ‘public charge’, we’re in the on-again state of affairs I’m afraid. Today, the federal court in the Second circuit lifted the nationwide injunction and allowed the injunction to remain only in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. If you do not live in one of those states, you must[…]
Copied from the Department of State website: National Interest Exceptions to Presidential Proclamations (10014 & 10052) Suspending the Entry of Immigrants and Nonimmigrants Presenting a Risk to the United States Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak Last Updated: August 12, 2020 On June 22, the President signed Presidential[…]
A New York federal judge imposed an injunction on the public charge rule yesterday. As a result, USCIS has updated its website confirming that adjudications will revert back to old rules. This means that for filing green card applications, at least for now, we do not have to file the dreaded Form I-944! The I-944[…]
In a surprising move, today the Trump Administration pulled back on its previously issued student visa policy, which would have prevented foreign students from remaining in the U.S. to complete their studies if their schools switched to an entirely online/remote format in the autumn. The move was met with widespread criticism and outrage, and rightly[…]
Covid19 has given the administration the perfect vehicle for dismantling our immigration system one visa category at a time. The latest casualty, in quick succession to the previous one (see our blog post from last week), is student visas or F1. Since covid19 hit, some accommodations were made for online classes so that foreign students[…]
Dear Readers, We hope you are staying safe wherever you are in the world. The below newsletter was sent over the last weekend. But since then, the administration has put severe restrictions on student visas (news from Monday July 6th). We’ve been busy dealing with that fall out but will write about it shortly. In[…]
Many of you may remember one of our previous blog posts on USCIS proposed fee increase last year- well, it is time to pay attention again. USCIS is likely to raise fees as soon as this month. Below is a list of the proposed fee chart. If you are sitting on an application that needs[…]