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On Dec. 2, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a policy memorandum directing its officers to place an adjudicative hold on pending benefit requests for foreign nationals from 19 high-risk countries identified in the June 4, 2025 Presidential Proclamation, Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States. The purpose of the hold is to allow USCIS time to conduct a comprehensive review of the pending requests.Continue Reading USCIS pause on adjudications for nationals from high-risk countries

On Dec. 29, 2025, the Federal Register published a final rule titled “Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking to File Cap‑Subject H-1B Petitions,” announcing a major transformation of how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) allocates H‑1B visas under the annual cap when random selection is required. Random selection is only implemented when USCIS receives more registrations (or petitions) than it projects to meet the numerical allocations. This final rule becomes effective on Feb. 27, 2026 and will be in effect for the upcoming fiscal year 2027 registration process.Continue Reading New weighted selection process for Cap‑Subject H-1B Petitions

Immigration reform will be a focal point of the new administration in the early days of Trump’s transition back to the White House with a likelihood that some changes initially will come by way of executive action. The practical implications of any immigration policy changes may begin to take shape in the early months of the new administration, but based on his past administration and campaign rhetoric, it is possible that some changes could be swift.Continue Reading Immigration policy considerations for employers as we embark on a second Trump administration

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

At the outset of the COVID pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) responded quickly to employer concerns about how to comply with the requirement to personally review supporting documentation for Form I-9. Because this form must be completed within three days of the first day of employment, compliance was not possible when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended social distancing and work from home protocols were established.
Continue Reading USCIS seeks public input on remote preparation of I-9 forms

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed the H-1B lottery last year with the introduction of a requirement that employers first register their interest to file petitions for the fiscal year beginning October 1 in an online system. The lottery was conducted from the registrations instead of the full petitions, as had been done in previous years. Only those employers whose registrations were selected were able to file H-1B petitions with USCIS. This registration system will remain in place for 2021.
Continue Reading New H-1B petitions for FY2022 again follow online registration and selection process, wage-based selection delayed

On Aug. 21, 2020, Chief Judge Algenon Marbley of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to permit thousands of foreign nationals to work in the U.S. before they receive printed Employment Authorization Documents (EADs). These workers had already been approved to work by USCIS, but they had not received the EADs they must provide to their employers. Although these cards are usually issued within a few days of approval of an application for employment authorization, USCIS had slowed down its production of them earlier this year.
Continue Reading Immigration settlement allows thousands of foreign workers to get back to work

On Dec. 6, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the H-1B cap season 2021 will begin on March 1, 2020 and end on March 20, 2020. Once selections have been announced, those selected will have 90 days to submit the petitions.

H-1B electronic registration requirement

immigration h-1B visa registration

On Jan.…

On Friday, May 3, a Federal District Judge in North Carolina enjoined the Trump Administration’s effort to change the immigration policy on “unlawful presence” as it is applied to foreign students, in Guilford College et al. v. McAleenan, et. a.l. The concept of unlawful presence was first introduced into the immigration laws in 1996 to impose a penalty on those who remain in the U.S. after their authorized period of stay expires. This penalty, a bar, known as the “3/10-year bar,” is imposed from the day the foreign national departs the U.S., preventing their return for either 3 or 10 years, depending on whether they remained more than 180 days or 365 days after their authorization expired.

The key to imposing this bar, however, depends on the calculation of the date the authorized stay expired. For foreign students, who are admitted for the duration of status (d/s), there is no certain date by which they are told they must depart the United States. Therefore, in 1997 Legacy INS announced a policy that students would be deemed unlawfully present only when an immigration officer or Immigration Judge made a determination that they had violated their status. In the event such a determination was made, the student was informed of the decision and then given 180 days to depart the U.S. before the 3- or 10-year bar would be imposed.
Continue Reading Court ruling puts administration’s immigration policy on hold