San Francisco Immigration Law Blog

H1B Cap Reached U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reached the 65,000 H-1B regular cap for fiscal year 2018 and 20,000 H-1B U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap. The USCIS will reject and return all cap-subject petitions filed after April 7, 2017. H1B Lottery The USCIS will conduct a random selection process for the advanced degree exemption first.

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously defending an appeal of a law suit to terminate H4 EAD has now filed a Motion with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia requesting the court hold the proceedings in abeyance for 180 days to permit DHS to reconsider the H-4 EAD rule. (Save Jobs USA v. DHS, 4/3/17) Revision,

California Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye Objects to Immigration Enforcement Tactics at California Courthouses California Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye issued a letter to Attorney General Sessions and DHS Secretary Kelly expressing her deep concern about reports from trial courts that immigration agents appear to be “stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests… Courthouses should not be used as bait.”

Beginning April 3, 2017, USCIS will make targeted H1B site visits across the country to H-1B petitioners and the worksites of H-1B employees for: • Cases where USCIS cannot validate the employer’s basic business information through commercially available data; • H-1B-dependent employers (those who have a high ratio of H-1B workers as compared to U.S. workers, as defined by statute);

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap on April 3, 2017. All cap-subject H-1B petitions filed before April 3, 2017, for the FY 2018 cap will be rejected. The H-1B program allows companies in the United States to temporarily employ foreign workers in occupations that require the application

USCIS Confirms a FY2018 H-1B Cap Lottery USCIS confirms the process for receiving and receipting H-1B cap cases for Fiscal Year 2018 will be the same as with prior years, including a random lottery. If 65,000 H-1B Regular Cap and / or the 20,000 U.S. Masters Cap are received between April 3-7, 2017. As in the past, a random computer

March 23, 2017, NSC Announces Delays For Concurrent H-4/EAD filed With H1B Premium Processing The Nebraska Service Center (NSC) has advised that, due to the high volume of incoming premium processing requests, H-4 I-539 and H-4 I-765 EAD applications concurrently filed with premium H-1B petitions before the April 3, 2017, premium processing suspension may not be adjudicated concurrently with the

We met with a nurse last week who had heard and read reports that certain nurses were being denied admission in TN status. We took the opportunity to ask CBP whether there is a Trump policy change for TN admissions generally and TN nurse admissions particularly. CBP provided the following response: U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not had any

Update from March 10, 2017: OFLC updated its website with the following alert on March 10, 2017: In light of stakeholder input, which the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) is considering, OFLC has temporarily removed from its website PERM FAQ Round 14 regarding Actual Minimum Requirements, originally published on March 6, 2017. OFLC will clarify and republish PERM FAQ

USCIS has resumed the processing of EB-2 Waiver of the Labor Certification Requirement in the National Interest (EB-2 NIW) cases affected by the Matter of Dhanasar precedent decision. EB-2 NIW case processing was temporarily on hold pending guidance and training of USCIS staff. On December 27, 2016, the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) announced in Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N