USCIS Initiatives on Entrepreneur and EB2

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced new initiatives on August 2, 2011 that would allow entrepreneurs to pursue a green card under the employment based second preference category (EB2). The new policy also clarified that entrepreneurs may qualify for National Interest Waiver (NIW) and H-1B, including an example showing when a sole … Read more

I-140 Approval Rate by USCIS

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published I-140 approval/denial statistics yesterday. However, the data is confusing. Table A is for E-11, which is supposed to be only for Alien of Extraordinary Ability petitions (aka EB-1a). But the description indicates “E-11 Extraordinary Ability, Professors, Researchers, or Executives,” which apparently covers all EB1 categories. Table … Read more

USCIS Office Locations

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has branches and offices throughout the country, including local offices, application support centers, and service centers. USCIS also has operations in many international locations. Here is a Google map that shows all USCIS locations around the world.

USCIS provides an excellent Office Locator on their website, where you can search for a particular office by Zip Code or State. The only tricky part is that for a new immigrant, the differences among various types of offices are not obvious. For example, you want to look for an application support center  (ASC) for fingerprinting needs, but a field office for customer support, even though they may be located in the same city.

Below is a list of most USCIS offices, including headquarters, field offices, service centers and international locations, but excluding application support centers and other specialized offices. They are color coded to separate them into different groups by function.

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Combo EAD and AP Card is Coming

After a few years of working, USCIS is ready to issue combined EAD/AP cards to adjustment of status (AOS) applicants. The new card is essentially an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) with added text that reads, “Serves as I-512 Advance Parole.” And just like current EAD, the new card will be issued with one or two-year … Read more

USCIS Blog is Filled with Comment Spam

The official USCIS blog – the Beacon – is turning into a legitimate spam heaven. I read a few posts today and quickly realized most of the comments were just spam. None of them is sophisticated or innovative in any way; in fact, they are the most common blog spam on the web. From my … Read more

Leaked USCIS MEMO on Potential Immigration Policy Changes

A leaked USCIS document has been quickly circling the blogsphere in the past couple of days . Titled “Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” the internal memo offered a variety of options – relief options – to “promote family unity, foster economic growth, achieve significant process improvements and reduce the threat of removal for certain … Read more

USCIS Top-10 Issues List

USCIS calls it First Ten Areas of Focus for Agency-wide Policy Review, and I renamed it to the Top-10 Issues List.

This is a list USCIS compiled after conducting a survey three months ago asking your input on the areas that USCIS should review their policies and make changes first. It was an important study, and we called for actions in our community forum. Hopefully you had a chance to voice your opinion at that time.

After “nearly 5,600 stakeholders responded to the survey, representing current immigrant and non-immigrant visa holders, employers, immigration attorneys and advocates, among others, in addition to responses from approximately 2,400 members of the USCIS workforce,” the Top-10 list is quite extensive and other than a couple items, I think it hit the nail on the head:

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