August 2013 Visa Bulletin was released today by the Department of State. EB2-India finally started moving, advancing more than three years to 2008-01-01. Family-sponsored F2A category abruptly became “Current” for all countries. EB-3 categories, however, remained largely unchanged after enjoying significant forward movement over the past few months. Cut-off Date Movement from July to August … Read more
Form I-94 is the Arrival/Departure Record issued to foreign visitors when they enter the United States. Form I-94 used to be in paper format, stapled to a visitor’s passport by a Customs and Border Protection(CBP) officer. Since April of 2013, however, CBP has implemented the electronic I-94 process across the nation’s ports of entry. Most … Read more
I’v always wondered why immigrants are called aliens. Isn’t that a term more appropriate for creatures from another planet? But after a while I got used to it: Maybe the word alien simply means foreigners, in addition to ugly looking dudes trying to destroy Earth. After all, it is a legal term – a word … Read more
The Department of State today released the May 2013 Visa Bulletin with some good news for EB-3 categories. ROW, China and Mexico have all moved forward by more than five months! The rest of EB-3 and China EB-2 made small progress, while India EB2 remained unchanged. See the table below: Cut-off Date Movement from April … Read more
Here is another way to look at how quickly the annual H-1B cap has been reached over the past four years. In 2010, the annual cap for FY-2011 was reached 302 days after the season started on April 1st. This year, it took all of 5 days to do the same. According to USCIS, approximately … Read more
H-1B visa cap has been reached one week after the season opened. USCIS announced today (April 5, 2013) that it has received a sufficient number of petitions to reach both the regular H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption cap. As a result, USCIS will no longer accept H-1B petitions for the entire fiscal year … Read more
Green card applicants filing for adjustment of status (Form I-485) are required to submit Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record. The form must be completed, signed and sealed by a designated civil surgeon. Form I-693 is used by USCIS to determine whether an applicant is inadmissible to the United States on public … Read more
I received an email today from S.B. Woo, President of the 80-20 National Asian Am. Educational Foundation, with an open invitation to comment on a NY Times debate with regard to top colleges intentionally limiting the number of Asian students. Ivy League schools strongly deny it, which means that even they think the policy is … Read more
USCIS finally released the pending I-485 inventory today with employment-based data as of October 4, 2012. This has been a long wait: Five months after the last release on May 3rd, which is supposed to be on a quarterly basis. Anyway, better late than never. The green card tracker has now been updated with the … Read more
I have been waiting for the oath ceremony since my citizenship interview on September 18, 2012. Today my USCIS online status finally changed: On September 27, 2012, we placed your application in the oath scheduling que. We will send a notice when the ceremony is scheduled. If you move prior to the scheduled ceremony, please … Read more
