Texas Immigration Lawyer & Attorney : Kraft & Associates Law Firm : Visas, Green Card, Citizenship, Deportation : Dallas, Texas

On March 26, 2007, a new waiver pilot program began at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. This new program decreases the time it takes for a decision to be reached in I-601 waiver applications.

Under current immigration law, if a person enters the United States illegally (without being admitted and paroled) they are not eligible to receive immigration benefits. It is very common for foreign nationals to enter the U.S. illegally and subsequently marry U.S. citizens. Once this occurs, the citizen will begin the process that will enable the spouse to obtain a green card. This process, however, is not finalized in the U.S., but involves a final interview at a U.S. consulate in the foreign national's home country. For Mexican nationals most interviews are scheduled at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez.

At the interview, the applicant files an I-601 waiver package to request that Immigration Services excuse the prior illegal entry into the U.S. and unlawful presence in the United States. This waiver package normally took between nine months and a year to process and reach final decision. During this time, the applicant was required to remain in Mexico until a final decision had been reached.

With the new Waiver Pilot Program, Mexican nationals may be able to obtain a decision on their waiver packages within less than 48 hours. This is a very exciting program as it makes the waiver process much more practical for most applicants who found it extremely difficult to spend a year outside of the U.S. while their case was pending.

Previously, people had to leave their home, family members, young children, and jobs for up to a year while waiting for a decision. Now, they may only need to wait a week or two for the entire process to be completed.

You may be a candidate for this exciting new program! If you have any questions, or would like to begin the process to use the new pilot program, please contact us.

For more information about immigration news, immigration laws, immigration policies, proposed immigration laws, border enforcement, green cards, citizenship, employment visas, family visas, naturalization, and other immigration subjects, please visit Immigration Law Answers and DFW Immigration Law Blog.

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USCIS has just announced that there are still visas available for those interested in obtaining an H-1B visa as long as they have at least a Master's degree or higher from a U.S. university.

USCIS announced last week that it had received enough H-1B petitions to meet the regular H-1B cap for fiscal year 2008. Each year, however, an additional 20,000 visas are made available to those persons having at least a Master's degree. It is this cap which has not yet been reached.

Our office has been receiving many questions regarding when the Master's quota for H-1B visas will be reached. There really is no possible way to answer this question. USCIS stated in its announcement that it had received 12, 989 cases on behalf of aliens holding a master's degree or higher from a U.S. university. It is extremely difficult to provide an estimate of when the remaining spots will be taken.

If you are interested in obtaining an H-1B visa, and you have at least a Master's degree or higher from a U.S. university, you must begin the visa petition process immediately. The remaining visas may be taken by other foreign nationals any day. We strongly recommend that people who wish to obtain an H-1B visa file the petition at the earliest opportunity to avoid a significant delay in employment authorization.

Please do not hesitate to contact us as soon as possible to begin your H-1B case today!

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Immigration Services announced this afternoon that the H-1B cap has been reached for this year. USCIS began accepting H-1B visa petitions on April 2, 2007, and has stated that they have already received over 150,000 petitions.

Each year, the U.S. government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available to qualified individuals on a first-come basis. The cap has been reached every year for the last several years, although the cap has never been reached on the first day of filing.

USCIS must now perform data entry on all of the visa petitions received on April 2. Once this is completed, the petitions will be subjected to a computer-generated random selection process to determine which petitions will be counted towards the cap. Petitions which are rejected will be returned.

The lottery itself, and the results of the lottery, will not be disclosed to the public for some time because of the high number of filings. The announcement from USCIS does not come as a complete surprise. Immigration attorneys have been predicting for some time that the H-1B cap would be reached on the first day of filing.

H-1B visas are a relatively swift path to work in the U.S. for foreigners with bachelor's degrees and with U.S. companies to sponsor them. Immigrants, along with the U.S. technology industry lobby, have been advocating for an increase in the H-1B quota to reform the visa program. A current bill under review proposed raising the H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to 115,000.

If you would like more information regarding the H-1B visa cap, please read the announcement issued by USCIS.

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There is great concern among immigration lawyers that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may have reached the cap on H-1B visas even before the end of the first day of filing, which was April 2, 2007. Reports are surfacing that USCIS received a huge number of envelopes and packages that day, far more than the 65,000 number of H-1B visas available.

This is all unconfirmed at this time, but if true, could be devastating news to those who did all their paperwork properly, filed on the first possible date, and now may have their application denied.

A previous announcement from USCIS explains that if this situation should occur, all the applications received that date would be sorted in a random manner, by computer, and that will be the order in which the applications are accepted.

What a terrible situation -- to have the future of your immigration status come down to the random "whim" of a USCIS computer.

Here is the text of the USCIS announcement, with the applicable portion bolded:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will, on April 2, 2007, begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2008 (FY08) H-1B cap. Because March 31 and April 1 are non-business days, USCIS will not take possession of mail delivered during the weekend until Monday, April 2, which is the first business day of the FY08 H-1B filing period. USCIS will not reject cases delivered during the weekend. Instead those petitions will be treated as if they arrived on April 2. The deciding factor for USCIS is not when the petition is postmarked, but when USCIS takes possession of and stamps the petitions as received.

USCIS will monitor the number of petitions received and will notify the public of the date USCIS has received the necessary number of petitions to meet the H-1B cap, known as the final receipt date.

The date USCIS publishes information that the cap has been reached does not control the final receipt date. USCIS Announces Direct Filing Instructions for Forms I-129 and I-539 Under the Bi-Specialization Initiative posted on the USCIS website. The filing charts are also available on the USCIS website. For filing updates and additional information or call USCIS customer service at (800) 375-5283.

To ensure a fair and impartial system, USCIS will, if needed, randomly select the number of petitions required to reach the numerical limit from the petitions received on the final receipt date. This selection is computer-generated. USCIS will reject petitions not selected and petitions received after the final receipt date that are subject to the cap.

If the final receipt date is the same as the first date that petitions may be filed, USCIS will randomly apply all of the numbers among the petitions filed on the final receipt date and the following day. This means that, should the cap be reached on April 2, the first day filings can be received, USCIS will perform a random selection of petitions filed on April 2 and April 3 in accordance with the regulations at 8 C.F.R. 214.2(h)(8)(ii).

For questions on the proper filing location please refer to the March 5 update:

H-1B petitioners should insure they follow all regulatory requirements as they prepare petitions to avoid delays in processing and possible requests for evidence.

8 CFR 214.2(h)(2)(B) requires that petitioners provide a detailed itinerary of the dates and places where work will be performed if those services will be provided in more than one location. For example, a labor contractor or consultant who hires H-1B workers to work at client sites must provide, in advance, an itinerary with dates and places where the worker will perform that work.

In addition, 8 CFR 214.1(c)(4) requires that an applicant for extension of status have maintained his or her nonimmigrant status. In situations where an H-1B worker is changing to an employer other than the one for which the initial H-1B petition was approved, USCIS will require that the worker changing employers demonstrate that he or she actually did perform meaningful work for the original petitioning employer under circumstances not reflective of fraudulent intent in the original petition. In situations where the H-1B worker is processing abroad, USCIS will work closely with the Department of State to ensure that this same level of integrity is applied to consular processed H-1Bs.

Please note: Recent materials posted by USCIS indicated that an original copy of a certified labor condition application is required with Form I-129 and should be signed in blue ink. This statement is in error.

A copy of the LCA may be submitted with the I-129 as is current practice. USCIS did not intend to change the current practices regarding filing of the LCA with the petition. For filing updates and additional information or call USCIS customer service at (800) 375-5283.

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Yesterday, large crowds gathered at the Dallas City Hall for an immigration-rights rally. The rally comes exactly one year after the 2006 immigration march which was believed to be the largest social protest in Texas history.

The point of yesterday's rally was specific - to encourage others to become U.S. citizens, to vote and to lobby for immigrant rights in the United States. This year's crowd was smaller in number; estimates put the crowd somewhere between 2,000 and 6,000 people.

Many of the people at the rally were illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Many in the crowd held signs that read "No to 2903" That refers to an ordinance in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch that would make it illegal for landlords to rent apartments to illegal immigrants.

Speakers also asked those who are citizens to vote, and asked those eligible to become citizens to take that step. Volunteers at nearby booths provided information on the rights of immigrants, filing immigration paperwork, and registering to vote.

For more information, please read the article in the Dallas Morning News.

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