The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that they will be decommissioning the St. Albans, Vermont facility. As of June 25, 2021, the Vermont Service Center is no longer receive any incoming mail at the St. Albans, VT facility.
Read moreAILA Report: Vermont Service Center (VSC) Reopened (UPDATED APRIL 13, 2020)
The Vermont Service Center (VSC) has re-opened after a temporary closure, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Last week, USCIS temporarily closed the VSC after a presumed positive COVID-19 case, but since the test results came back negative for the individual, the VSC is now able to accept cases and/or any other form of correspondence.
AILA Report: Vermont Service Center (VSC) Temporarily Closed
UPDATE APRIL 13, 2020: The Vermont Service Center has re-opened.
We have received reports through the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) that the Vermont Service Center (VSC) has been temporarily closed due to a potential COVID-19 exposure. Reports indicate that the VSC will likely be closed at least until Wednesday, April 15, 2020, for a deep cleaning. During this time, it appears that mail or packages cannot be delivered to the VSC. AILA National has reached out to USCIS for confirmation of closure and guidance on how filings should be handled during the VSC closure. We will provide updates as we receive them.
USCIS: Change of Filing Addresses and Workload Transfers
Every so often, US Citizenship & Immigration Service Centers—located in California, Nebraska, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia—experience lengthy backlogs and delays in processing cases. To balance workloads and “promote timely processing,” USCIS occasionally changes filing addresses for certain petitions to direct cases away from the service centers experiencing these significant delays, as well as transfers cases from center to center. USCIS announced this week they are doing both.
Read moreNew York Times: “Visa Applications Pour In by Truckload Before Door Slams Shut”
Yesterday, Monday, April 3, was the first day that US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting H-1B specialized knowledge cap petitions for fiscal year 2018. At the USCIS California Service Center in Laguna Niguel, delivery trucks carrying H-1B petitions began arriving at dawn. While the official USCIS count of total petitions received won’t be released for at least a few weeks, many immigration experts are predicting more H-1B petitions will be filed than in the previous years because many are concerned of possible changes to the H-1B program under the Trump administration. For the last few years, USCIS has received so many petitions that they’ve closed the filing period after only one week. Last year USCIS received over 236,000 H-1B petitions in the filing period.
Read moreReminder: NSC Now Accepting Certain H-1B and H-1B1 Petitions
Effective July 1, 2016, the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) is accepting certain H-1B and H-1B1 (Chile/Singapore Free Trade) petitions which were previously required to be filed at other service centers. The NSC is now accepting H-1B and H-1B1 I-129 petitions if the petitioner requests a “continuation of previously approved employment without change from the same employer” in response to Question 2 and also requests that US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) “notify the office in Part 4,” “extend the stay of the beneficiary,” or “extend the status…based on a free trade agreement” in response to Question 4.
Read moreMatt and Protima at the Vermont Service Center
Excuse me, where I can deliver this H-1B petition?
Matt and Protima are in beautiful New England for the Vermont Service Center Fall Stakeholder Event. These stakeholder events are important since they allow US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) to discuss key immigration issues and topics with lawyers and other stakeholders. On the agenda for today were roundtable events related to business-related immigration case types, family-based immigration case types, student-based case types, customer service issues and concerns, as well as—the best part really—a tour of the Vermont Service Center (VSC)! For security reasons, the VSC doesn't allow photos of their buildings, but this street sign is perfect: the regular Vermont Service Center is on Lower Welden Street and H-1B cap processing is on Lemnah Drive—this truly is one of the great crossroads of the immigration world!