GT Immigration & Compliance Practice Shareholder Courtney B. Noce and Associate Miriam C. Thompson co-authored an article titled “5 Considerations for Year-End Immigration Budget Planning,” published by Law360.
Click here to read the full article, “5 Considerations for Year-End Immigration Budget Planning.” Subscription required.
The annual U.S. Diversity Visa (DV) lottery registration period for fiscal year (FY) 2025 opened on the U.S. Department of State’s website on Oct. 4, 2023, at noon ET. The free DV lottery offers green cards –permanent residence – through an annual lottery system to eligible applicants. For FY 2025, up to 55,000 green cards
Most employment-based permanent residency applications require the applicant to go through the PERM labor certification process where the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) certifies that there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, available, and qualified to fill a position. However, DOL recognizes nurses and physical therapists as shortage occupations or “Schedule A” occupations
On Jan. 23, 2023, USCIS announced it will issue new Form I-797 receipt notices to newly filed I-829 petitions and eligible conditional permanent residents (CPRs) whose Form I-829 was still pending as of Jan. 11, 2023. The new receipt notices would extend the status of a conditional permanent resident investor and his or her dependents
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that, effective Oct. 1, the COVID-19 vaccine is included in the list of vaccines required for applicants to obtain permanent residence and refugee status. By way of background, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), at section 212(a)(1)(A)(ii), sets out the requirement that, in order to
Greenberg Traurig Shareholder Ian Macdonald was recently quoted in the SHRM article, “Trump Suspends New H-1B Visas Through 2020,” discussing Trump’s executive order signed on June 22 restricting foreign nationals from outside the U.S. from using certain temporary employment-based visas through the end of the year and extending a green card ban enacted in April
On March 14, USCIS released an Inspector General’s report on Green Card Processing Times. The report found that green card processing times exceeded the existing 120-day goal by taking an average of 282 days to complete. The report identified processing times are greatly affected by interviews and vetting occurring at USCIS.
The report made two
USCIS has issued a new online tutorial for immigrants that will help determine when a Form I-485, Application for Adjustment of Status, can be filed with USCIS. For those immigrants who have a family-based or employment-based immigrant petition filed or approved on their behalf, the new Visa Bulletin tutorial details how to determine your priority
Earlier this week, Senators Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio, Coons, Flake and Blumenthal introduced S. 153 the Immigration Innovation Act of 2015 (I-Squared). This bi-partisan bill marks the first positive immigration legislation introduced in the 114th Congress. It is also a solid bi-partisan piece of legislation. Please see a link to the official Senate press release.
Here is an excerpt of the major provisions of the I-Squared Act of 2015:
Employment-Based Nonimmigrant H-1B Visas
Continue Reading First Senate Bill Introduced to Address Legal / High-Skilled Immigration Reform