Posts From June, 2026

For Afghan allies and their families, the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) picture has two parts that are easy to confuse — and the difference between them can affect critical decisions about your case.  First, the program is now closed to new applicants. The deadline to file an application for Chief of Mission (COM) approval — […]

If you have an asylum application pending with USCIS, there is an important deadline you cannot afford to miss. As of May 29, 2026, USCIS will reject a pending Form I-589 if the applicant fails to pay the Annual Asylum Fee (AAF) on time. This change comes from an interim final rule published on April […]

In one of the most significant immigration developments in months, a federal court has ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to restart the adjudication of applications it had frozen for nationals of 39 “travel-ban” countries, a list that includes Afghanistan.  On June 5, 2026, Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of the U.S. District […]

On June 8, 2026, a federal judge in Massachusetts vacated, nationwide, the September 2025 presidential proclamation that had imposed a $100,000 fee on most new H-1B petitions. Ruling in State of California v. Noem, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin sided with a coalition of twenty states that had challenged the policy.  The court concluded that […]