US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that they have reached the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa cap numbers for fiscal year 2018. Additionally, USCIS has also received a sufficient number of filed H-1B petitions to meet the 20,000 US advanced degree exemption numbers, also known as the master’s cap. The agency will reject and return filing fees for all unselected cap-subject petitions that are not duplicate filings. The agency did not specify when the H-1B lottery would occur, but in previous years it typically happens within a few weeks of the filing period being closed.
Read moreState of Exception/Estado de Excepción
Since 2000 over 6,000 migrants have died trying to cross the US-Mexico border. State of Exception/Estado de Excepción, an exhibit at the Parsons School of Design, uses discarded and found objects including clothing, prayer cards, and backpacks to pay homage to those who have lost their lives as well as those who survived the dangerous journey across the border. The materials were collected as part of a research project (called “Undocumented Migration”) by University of Michigan anthropologist Jason De León. He views the “materials as fragments of a history, revealing death, trauma, and suffering on both sides of the border while bringing to light complexities of the migrant experience.”
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 moreAddicted to the Future
H-1B Cap Season: A Minute of Liz's Work Day!
As those in the immigration world know, we are deep into H-1B cap season. Since we can start sending cap cases today for delivery on Monday, April 3, our office is a whirlwind of activity. And no one is more of a whirlwind than our Lizzie B! Although she is fast, we managed to record a minute of one of her days this week. She has so many papers to sign! And people to talk to! And food to taste! Wow, look at her go!
Lesser Known Paths to Permanent Residency
“How do I get a Green Card” is one of the most common questions attorneys at our law firm receive. And while it may be a surprise to many that a Green Card (that is, permanent residency in the US) is not right for everyone nevertheless people are always keen on obtaining one, especially if they have spent a few years in the US. There are generally two paths to permanent residency—via employment or family. But those aren’t exactly the only ways, and we thought it would be interesting to explore several of the lesser-known paths to that coveted Green Card.
Read moreSan Francisco Chronicle: “H-1B visa worries won’t slow applications, experts say”
Beginning next week on April 3 (since April 1 is a Saturday), immigration practitioners and petitioners will be able to file new H-1B petitions for those who have never had H-1Bs, commonly referred to as “cap cases.” Amid the uncertainty over whether President Trump plans to makes dramatic changes to the H-1B program, immigration experts anticipate another record-breaking year of petitions. While some immigration practitioners attribute the expected high amount of petitions to the strong economy and high demand for specialized knowledge positions in hubs such as Silicon Valley, others believe this may be their last shot for an H-1B before it is overhauled. “There are a lot of companies that are saying, ‘Hey, this is my only opportunity to get in under the current H-1B situation,’ because everyone is expecting a change,” Marcine Seid, an immigration attorney in Palo Alto, tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “And they don’t expect it to be for the better.”
Read moreWe Are With You
New York Times: “Trump Administration Orders Tougher Screening of Visa Applicants”
The Trump administration is making it more difficult for millions of visitors to enter the United States by demanding additional security checks before issuing visas to tourists, business travelers, and relatives of American residents, all seemingly in fulfillment of a campaign promise to enact “extreme vetting.” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has sent diplomatic cables to US Embassies and Consulates worldwide with these instructions for stricter vetting, basing them off a March 6 presidential memorandum ordering the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security to “implement protocols and procedures” to enhance visa screening. The new security checks generally do not apply to citizens of countries in the Visa Waiver Program, which includes thirty-eight member countries. The additional scrutiny, for example, will ask applicants about their background and social media history if a person has ever been in a territory controlled by the Islamic State. “Consular officers should not hesitate to refuse any case presenting security concerns,” Secretary Tillerson writes in the cables. “All visa decisions are national security decisions.”
In 2016, the United States issued more than ten million visas, and this additional scrutiny is likely to lengthen the already bureaucratic process. “This will certainly slow down the screening process and impose a substantial burden on these applicants,” Greg Chen, the director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, tells the New York Times. “It will make it much harder and create substantial delays.” Chen questions how a single interviewer who conducts 120 interviews per day—at about five minutes per interview—can improve security. “It’s highly unlikely they could obtain information that demonstrates whether someone is a national security threat in such a brief interview process,” he says.
Future is Goddess
Victim (2015) by Michela Martello.
Future is Goddess, a new exhibit at local gallery Pen + Brush, features the work of Italian-born artist Michela Martello. Her work is a blend of "strength and softness, of domesticity and demolition" and "takes a stand against the anxieties of 2017 and affirms women's power and potential in response to our current political and social uncertainty." The artist, who resides in Brooklyn, has a background in illustration and produces murals and artwork on textiles. This exhibit, an eight-year survey of her work, is an intentional play on the empowering phrase, the “Future is Female,” with the role of Goddess "signifying a transformative rise in feminine power[.]" Among other pieces, the exhibit features a site-specific graffiti mural on the gallery wall with three goddesses representing a mixing of cultural backgrounds, to which viewers are invited to interact by tagging. The exhibit is on view through April 22, 2017.