U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced a Temporary Final Rule that will increase the 180-day automatic extension period for some Employment Authorization Documents (“EADs”) to 540 days beyond the EAD’s expiration date. The rule, which was published as a response to massive USCIS delays in processing EAD renewal applications, became effective immediately on May 4, 2022, and will remain in effect until October 27, 2023.
In order to benefit from the new rule, an applicant must have timely filed an EAD renewal application and fall within an eligible ...
On January 22, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began requiring all non-U.S. individuals entering the United States by land or ferry across the U.S./Mexico or U.S./Canada borders to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The new guidance applies to those non-U.S. individuals who are traveling for both essential and non-essential reasons but will not apply to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, or U.S. nationals.
Any non-U.S. individual entering the United States through land point of entries or ferry must provide proof of a CDC-approved COVID-19 ...
Last week, USCIS announced the H-1B visa cap registration deadlines for FY2023. Registration is mandatory for employers wishing to sponsor a candidate for an H-1B visa in the FY2023 H-1B cap cycle. Registration is an annual electronic process through which USCIS receives registrations from employers for the H-1B lottery. USCIS has historically conducted a random H-1B lottery because more visas are requested each year than are available. Registrants are selected at random for an opportunity to fill one of the H-1B cap positions.
The H-1B cap registration period for Fiscal Year 2023 ...
Effective December 31, 2021, the United States began permitting noncitizen arrivals from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. A Presidential Proclamation went into effect on November 29, 2021, suspending entry into the United States for individuals who were present in the aforementioned Southern Africa countries within a 14-day window before their planned date of entry. The Presidential Proclamation was a result of the World Health Organization’s report identifying an area of increased presence of COVID-19 variants in ...
Employment Authorization Document (EAD) processing times have been severely delayed in recent years, rendering certain dependent nonimmigrants temporarily ineligible to work and causing gaps in some U.S. employers’ workforces. An EAD can take over 12 months for adjudication under current processing times. Recently, USICS issued guidance expanding its automatic EAD extension rules to apply to additional foreign nationals. The agency further confirmed L-2 and E-2 dependent spouses are considered eligible to work “incident to status,” meaning they no longer require ...
On October 25, 2021, President Biden announced plans to revoke the current country-by-country travel restrictions to the United States which have been in place since January 2020. The order outlines new air travel policies for foreign travelers seeking to enter the United States as nonimmigrants, which relies primarily on COVID-19 vaccination status and effectively revokes Presidential Proclamations 9984, 9992, 10143, and 10199, all of which restricted entry to the United States from Brazil, China, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the Schengen countries in Europe, Ireland ...
The White House recently announced that travel restrictions for all international travelers entering the United States by air will change in early November 2021. Since 2020, several Presidential Proclamations have instituted regional COVID-19 travel bans by restricting travel to the United States for international travelers physically present in China, Iran, the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, and India during the fourteen-day period prior to U.S. entry with limited exceptions. With holiday travel fast approaching, the White House will ...
Beginning October 1, 2021, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) will require COVID-19 vaccinations for all applicants applying for lawful permanent residence (i.e. green card) with some exceptions. Specifically, all green card applicants who receive their medical examination from a designated civil surgeon/panel physician (“Physician”) on or after October 1, 2021 must complete the COVID-19 vaccine series and provide documentation of vaccination. This change will impact applicants who have their Physician complete Form I-693 ...
On October 7, 2020, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced an Interim Final Rule titled, “Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States” would go into effect on October 8, 2020. The rule would have amended the regulatory scheme used to calculate prevailing wages for foreign workers being sponsored for an employment-based Green Card through the PERM process as well as the H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 nonimmigrant visa programs. In effect, the rule would have resulted in significant increases to the mandatory ...
The Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record is a document U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issues to all persons entering the United States except U.S. citizens, returning Legal Permanent Residents, and immigrant visa holders. It is important that nonimmigrants keep track of their I-94 record because it controls how long they can remain in the United States. For nonimmigrant workers, CBP officers typically issue an I-94 to match the period of immigration status approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). However, there are instances where an I-94 will be ...