Search Results for: United States

September 5, 2017

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that, effective 1st October 2017, it will eliminate the practice of waiving employment-based adjustment of status interviews, which has been standard practice for approximately two decades. In another departure from previous standard practice, USCIS has now started to deny Advance Parole applications when the applicant departs the United […]

August 23, 2017

The US Department of State has announced that, effective 23rd August 2017, US visa operations across Russia will be suspended until 1st September 2017, at which point all US non-immigrant visa applications will only be processed at the US Embassy in Moscow. Non-immigrant visa interviews at the US Consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok are suspended […]

June 28, 2017

On 26th June 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) partially lifted the injunction and agreed to hear arguments on President Trump’s 6th March 2017 executive order (EO) entitled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. While the Supreme Court announced that it will hear the full case in October, […]

June 14, 2017

On 3rd May 2017, the Department of State requested the right to collect additional information from certain visa applicants worldwide from the Office of Budget and Management. The new information collection powers were quietly implemented on 23rd May 2017. Background The State Department estimates that 0.5% of visa applicants worldwide – about 65,000 individuals per year – present a […]

June 1, 2017

On 25th May 2017, the Federal Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, issued a decision that maintained the injunction on President Trump’s executive order travel ban. The court held that the travel ban, which sought to restrict nationals of six countries from being issued visas and traveling to the US, violated the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection […]

March 17, 2017

Hawaii On 15th March 2017, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) with nationwide effect, blocking key parts of the Trump Administration’s second Executive Order on travel and visa issuance, which was due to come into effect on 16th March 2017. This TRO temporarily suspends section 2 of the Executive Order, which suspends entry for nationals of […]

March 10, 2017

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that, in order to reduce overall H-1B processing times, they will temporarily suspend premium processing for all H-1B petitions starting 3rd April 2017. This suspension of premium processing applies to all regular-cap and master’s-advanced-degree-cap petitions, as well as to cap-exempt H-1B petitions. Last year, in response to […]

March 10, 2017

On 6th March 2017, President Donald Trump released a revised executive order entitled ‘Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States’ (the “Order”) following legal challenges to the preceding order issued earlier this year. The new Order becomes effective as of 16th March 2017, and differs from the previous Order in several important respects. Suspension […]

March 1, 2016

On 18th February the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it is adding Libya, Somalia and Yemen to the list of countries or areas of concern, limiting Visa Waiver Program (VWP) travel for certain individuals who have visited any…

February 2, 2016

Effective 21st January 2016, the U.S. Department of State has implemented changes to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) which will exclude dual nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria, and those who have visited any of those countries since March…