USWorkVisa.com News Archive
for May 4th, 2008

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 8, 2008, that it had received enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year (FY) 2009. USCIS announced a preliminary number of nearly 163,000 H-1B petitions received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008. More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree exemption. On April 14, USCIS conducted the computer-generated random selection process to select which H-1B petitions for FY 2009 will continue to full adjudication. If approved, those H-1B petitions will be eligible to receive an H-1B visa number. Read the rest of this entry »

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an interim final rule, effective April 8, 2008, that extends the maximum period of optional practical training (OPT) from 12 months to 29 months for F-1 students who have completed a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree and accept employment with employers enrolled in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS’) E-Verify employment verification program. Currently, F-1 students who have been enrolled on a full-time basis for at least one full academic year in a Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)-certified college, university, conservatory, or seminary are eligible for 12 months of OPT to work for a U.S. employer in a job directly related to the student’s major area of study. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 24, 2008, that it has revised the Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) to include additional eligibility codes under the Department of Homeland Security’s interim final rule regarding Optional Practical Training (OPT), published on April 8, 2008. The rule modifies the conditions and duration of OPT for qualified F-1 nonimmigrant students.

USCIS will accept the July 30, 2007, edition of the form through July 8, 2008. As of July 9, USCIS will only accept the revised Form I-765, dated April 4, 2008, and will reject all requests using previous editions of the form.

The Department of State has released a cable sent to the field on March 11, 2008, regarding student (F and M) and exchange visitor (J) nonimmigrant visa issues. Among other things, the cable notes that first-time visa applicants may be the highest priority when scheduling appointments, and repeat applicants may be scheduled on a lower-priority tier. The cable also clarifies some information on the DS-2019 form, and discusses new Exchange Visitor Program (EVP) sanctions regulations and new Termination of Designation and Revocation of Program regulations, which took effect January 22, 2008. Specifically, some of the major changes in the sanction and termination process include:

• Sponsors who were at risk of losing their program designations will have their cases heard through a paper review instead of an in-person review.
• A revised suspension process will freeze sponsors’ operations for 120 days while their qualifications are under review.
• A new provision allows the Department to terminate an entire class of designated exchange visitor program sponsors if it believes specific programs, sponsors, exchange visitor category(ies), and/or activities compromise the national security of the U.S. or no longer further the Department’s public diplomacy mission.
• Sponsors on whom the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs imposes lesser sanctions are no longer allowed to appeal.

Statistics and data tables about foreign students and exchange visitors are available here.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released the projected times for local offices to complete processing of citizenship applications filed during the summer of 2007. Projected processing times at the end of September 2008 range from a high of 14.7 months for Washington, D.C., to a low of 5 months for Helena, Montana.

Last July, USCIS received 460,000 applications for naturalization, which was three times the record for any previous month. For the year, USCIS received 1.4 million naturalization applications, almost double the normal annual volume.

USCIS said it is hiring and training hundreds of additional immigration officers to adjudicate these cases. The agency is also conducting naturalization interviews on weekends, after normal business hours, and in additional locations.

The processing times, USCIS said, “provide a sense of how quickly a case may be processed if there are no complicating factors,” noting that some cases will take longer to complete; for example, if an applicant has been asked to submit additional information or fails the naturalization test, or if the FBI namecheck is in progress.