Posts From August, 2020

On Tuesday, USCIS cancelled its plan to furlough 70% of its workforce. However, since USCIS is still low on funding, the savings will now come from spending cuts that will affect operations. The deputy director of policy for USCIS said that the agency was avoiding these cuts, but since it has not received emergency funding from Congress, […]

From the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today provided guidance on how it will implement Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf’s July 28 memorandum regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. Under USCIS’ implementing guidance, we will reject all initial DACA requests from aliens who have never previously received DACA […]

With approximately 23 million immigrant women and girls in the United States, over half of the foreign-born population is female. Unfortunately, women are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. Issues such as domestic violence, human trafficking, and exploitation in the workforce present unique challenges to noncitizen women due to the added vulnerability created by their immigration […]

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has announced that anyone who has a form I-797 approval notice for an employment authorization card can use this approval notice as evidence of work authorization. This applies to approval notices issued between 12/1/19 through 8/20/20.  This announcement comes after reported long delays in the production of employment authorization […]

On August 18, USCIS published a reminder for those on F-1 visas doing post-completion Optional Practical Training (OPT) to enter their employer information into the SEVIS system. Designated School Officials (DSOs) must enter the information as well. If the information is not entered into the system, it could lead to the student exceeding employment limits or otherwise […]

In the past week, there have been reports that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was planning on holding a second H1B lottery. Recently, the Anwari Law Firm began receiving notifications that some of our clients’ registrations (that were submitted in March 2020) have now been selected. Each employer for these selected registrations is […]

Published by Leslie Dellon, Immigration Impact U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has imposed new requirements on its officers for exercising discretion that will substantially increase time and expense for the agency and applicants. Applications for work authorization will be particularly impacted. On July 15, USCIS issued updates to its Policy Manual. This manual contains the agency’s […]

On Monday, the president signed an executive order which aims to block U.S. agencies from outsourcing jobs to foreign workers. The order specifically requires federal agencies to prioritize U.S. citizens and green card holders before hiring workers under H-1B visas. The order was prompted by a controversial move by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federally owned […]

The Trump Administration can, for now, enforce a rule allowing it to deny legal immigration status to noncitizens likely to receive public benefits like Medicaid, public housing assistance, or food stamps for a certain amount of time, the Fourth Circuit said Wednesday, 8/5/20. View Article Here

On Tuesday, the Trump administration confirmed that it would resume processing DACA renewals and employment authorizations. However, since the government is considering trying to end the program once more, it will only resume one-year renewals instead of the usual two.   – Weekly Immigration Briefing by Olivia Hester, Immigration Law Analyst at Docketwise