Immigration

Anyone who works in legal or HR and handles work authorizations for their employees will agree that hiring foreign nationals or international transfers has become much more difficult under the current administration and its interpretation of President Trump’s Hire America/Buy America (BAHA) Policy, which he issued by Executive Order in April 2017. The latest statistics issued by USCIS confirm the difficulty of processing H-1B Petitions over the past three years.

In a historic decision on travelers’ rights to privacy at the U.S. border, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston ruled that suspicionless searches at U.S. ports of entry (airports and border crossings) of travelers’ electronic devices violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

This November, the United States Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the case that will decide the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This program, established through executive action, has offered a temporary reprieve from removal (deportation) to nearly 800,000 students and young professionals raised in the United States. While the program protects a generation categorically denied opportunity to gain legal status, it is very limited in scope. Remarkably, DACA does not confer any immigration status itself nor offer a separate pathway to any other status including permanent residency.

This alert covers a November 7, 2019 announcement by DHS that effective December 9, 2019, USCIS will collect a $10 filing fee for each H-1B cap registration.

This alert covers a November 1, 2019 announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that it will extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) documentation of foreign nationals from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan until January 4, 2021.

Read about United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ announced fee increase for premium processing, to $1,440 from $1,410, which takes effect on December 2.

This immigration alert covers DHS’s October 28, 2019 announcement that it will be extending TPS protections for Salvadoran citizens living in the United States.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that effective October 15, 2019, various forms will be updated to coincide with the recent issuance of a final rule on the public charge ground of admissibility (section INA 212(A)(4)) published by the Department of Homeland Security on August 14, 2019.

This alert covers the State Department’s October 2019 visa bulletin and the news that employment-based immigrants may use the “filing date chart” in establishing eligibility to file I-485 applications for adjustment of status.

Processing Delays Expected to Continue For All Trusted Traveler Program Applications

This immigration alert provides an update on the status of the expiring Form I-9 and a heads-up on a major change to the E visa validity period for French citizens.

On August 9, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that over the course of the coming year it will shutter all but 7 of its 23 international offices. Offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Nairobi, New Delhi, Guatemala City, Mexico City, and San Salvador will remain open. In March of this year, Trump administration officials had announced that the administration was planning to close all the international offices.  The recently-announced decision to keep some of them open is therefore a departure from the original plan.

Read about the Office of Management and Budget’s recent clearance of a proposed filing fee rule for USCIS’s H-1B cap registration process.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced the issuance of a final rule which expands the ways in which foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States can be found inadmissible based on the likelihood of becoming a “public charge.” The rule takes effect on October 15, 2019.

Read about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to preserve and extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrian nationals through March 31, 2021.

This Mintz article describes how recent changes in USCIS visa processing policies may affect dependents of nonimmigrant visa holders.

Read about a new Brazilian policy that permits certain citizens of the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan to enter Brazil without obtaining a visa prior to travel.