Immigration Blog

On June 26, 2017, the United States Supreme Court issued an order agreeing to hear the Administration’s appeals of the two adverse rulings by Federal Appeals Courts regarding Executive Order 13780 and partially granting the government’s request to stay the lower courts’ injunctions. We will keep those traveling to the United States and partners in the travel industry informed as we implement the order in a professional, organized, and timely way. As of June 29, 2017, at 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time, the Department of State will begin implementing the Executive Order (E.O.) at our embassies

On April 7, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") announced that it had reached the H-1B cap for fiscal year ("FY2018"). The congressionally mandated cap is set at 65,000 H-1B visas plus an additional 20,000 H-1B visas available to foreign nationals with a U.S. Master's degree or other advanced degree obtained in the U.S. As a result of reaching the annual cap within the first five business days of April, USCIS ran a computed-generated lottery system. Per its usual procedure, USCIS first ran the U.S. Master's cap; those not selected in the first run were then placed in the

Family Based Categories: FB-4 (brother and sister of US Citizen) Worldwide: should be watched closely. Following aggressive movement of the final action date in April, this category is not expected to advance. The April movement seems to have stimulated applicants to take action, and increased demand may require a temporary retrogression in this category later this fiscal year. Should retrogression occur, the category would recover completely in October, the first month of the new fiscal year. The final action dates for all other family-based categories are expected remain stable. Employment

On March 6, 2017, the new administration re-issued an Executive Order that halts all refugee admissions for at least 120 days and bans entry into the United States for at least 90 days for persons from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Iraq, which had been included in the prior Executive Order, is not included in this updated version. The notable points of this latest Executive Order ("EO") include: The EO expressly states it revokes Executive Order 13769, originally issued on January 27, 2017. Executive Order 13769 was the subject of dozens of

The 9 th Circuit Court on February 8, 2017, held that the Government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay. The Court cited the lower Washington District Court in alleging that the Executive Order was not truly meant to protect against terror attacks by foreign nationals but rather was intended to enact a “Muslim ban” as the President had stated during his presidential campaign that he would do. The 9 th Circuit court denied the

Since President Trump began issuing executive orders (“EOs”) on immigration last week, there has been outrage, confusion, and chaos within the immigration community. The EOs were clearly not very well thought out, and seem to have been written by someone lacking a comprehensive understanding of America’s immigration law. As a result, several courts have blocked portions of the EOs, and the Administration has walked back one of the more problematic elements of the new rules. There will be time later for an analysis of how all this affects our country’s security and moral standing, but since we