Tag: USCIS

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released its preliminary fiscal year (FY) 2021 agency statistics and accomplishments. These preliminary statistics highlight the work accomplished by USCIS in FY 2021 to address processing delays and enact operational and policy changes. Processing Highlights USCIS continued flexibilities in response time to certain USCIS requests and notices.  237,000 employment-based Green Card applications were […]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS has announced that it is extending the flexibilities initially announced on March 30th, 2020. These flexibilities are designed to assist applicants, petitioners, and requestors who are responding to certain: Requests for Evidence; Continuations to Request Evidence (N-14); Notices of Intent to Deny; Notices of Intent to Revoke; Notices […]

USCIS offers immigration services that may help people affected by a natural disaster, such as the recent tornadoes in Kentucky and surrounding states. To seek relief because of a natural disaster, you must still file any regularly required USCIS form(s) for your specific request, and then explain how the natural disaster created a need for the […]

USCIS recently announced that they will be selecting additional registrations to reach the fiscal year (FY) 2022 H-1B visa numerical allocations that include the advanced degree exemption. Currently, Congress has set the FY H-1B visa cap to 65,000, with this third random selection hopefully meeting the cap. The petition filing period based on registrations selected […]

Every year on November 11th the nation honors those individuals who have served in the United States armed forces and defended our freedom. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it will honor this year’s Veterans Day by holding more than 90 naturalization ceremonies that will naturalize more than 4,400 current and former […]

According to the CDC, the COVID-19 virus meets all the criteria to make it a Class A Inadmissible Condition. This essentially means that without vaccination against COVID-19, or a valid waiver (which will be described later), applicants will be denied their green card. The COVID-19 vaccine is now a requirement for all eligible green card applicants and […]

According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GOA), the backlog of applications for eligible immigrants to become U.S. citizens has more than doubled between 2015 and 2020. The report found that the USCIS backlog increased 85% from fiscal years 2015 through 2020. USCIS cited the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in the application process, and staffing […]

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received enough petitions for H-2B visas to reach the congressionally mandated capacity for the first half of the fiscal year 2022.  USCIS allows for 66,000 total H-2B recipients per year, with 33,000 recipients each half-year.  H-2B visas are granted specifically for companies to bring foreign nationals to work […]

As of Friday October 1, 2021, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted a new edition of Form I-693, the Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record.  This new version of Form I-693 requires all green card applicants to receive a full series vaccine for COVID-19. The new form is dated 9/13/2021 and as of October 1, 2021, USCIS will only accept the 9/13/2021 […]

On September 24, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will once again be extending the flexibilities it announced on March 30, 2020, in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. At the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, USCIS announced it would give certain applicants, petitioners, and requestors more time to respond to […]