Photo of Laura Jurcevich

Practicing business immigration, Laura Jurcevich counsels employers and employees on immigrant and nonimmigrant matters. Laura has helped her clients secure permanent residency status, nonimmigrant visas, temporary protected status, asylum and waiver of foreign residency requirements.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the H-1B cap initial registration period for fiscal year 2024 will be from March 1, 2023, 12 p.m. EST to March 17, 2023, 12 p.m. EST. During this time, employers and their representatives may submit an H-1B registration for a chance to be selected among one of 85,000 employers to proceed forward to the next stage of the H-1B process. Continue Reading H-1B cap registration period opens March 1, 2023

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a COVID-19 temporary policy for List B identity documents when completing a Form I-9 for a new hire. As a reminder, the Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification requires the employer to verify the identity and employment authorization of employees not later than three days after the first day of employment. List A includes documents that establish both identity and employment authorization. List B includes documents that establish identity. List C includes documents that establish employment authorization. The employer must physically examine one document from List A or a combination of one document from List B and one document from List C to verify both identity and employment authorization. The employer records information from the documents in Section 2.
Continue Reading Completing the Form I-9 when COVID-19 prevents renewal of your employee’s identity document

President Donald Trump released a “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Immigrants Who Present Risk to the U.S. Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following COVID-19 Outbreak” on Wednesday, April 22, 2020. This proclamation provides the legal context and direction to implement a Monday night tweet asserting his intention to “suspend immigration.” While we analyze the legal implications of this proclamation below, it is also important to understand the context. As a practical matter, the limitation on the issuance of immigrant visas has been the result of the COVID-19 closure of consulates around the world. There have not been interviews in the past six weeks, and it is not certain when they will resume. Thus, there has already been a halt in the issuance of immigrant visas. Therefore, the practical effect of this order is limited.
Continue Reading Parsing President Trump’s latest tweet and proclamation on immigration