Year: 2022

As published in the Immigration Daily on August 23, 2022

1. USCIS pronounces finality to H-1B selections

USCIS has been giving case alerts for the past few days requesting H-1B petitioners and representatives to login to their H-1B registry accounts only to find that registry cases are now being marked “not selected”. To most practitioners, it appeared that there would not be a second selection for FY-2023. With the steady stream of non-selections, most petitioners/representatives had already seen the vast majority of their “submitted” cases move to “not selected”. Perhaps it was the sheer volume of candidates that caused the non-selection process to play out over a period of days. For FY-2023, USCIS received 483,927 H-1B registrations and selected 127,600 projected as needed to reach the fiscal year’s numerical allocations. That left 356,327 previously standing “submitted” registrations. USCIS ended the suspense this morning with an announcement that it had reached the fiscal year 2023 H-1B cap and had completed sending non-selection notifications to registrants’ online accounts. One would hope that USCIS in future years will make the announcement first so that registrants do not entertain false hopes of being selected.

2. Consular Practice.

It may be worth repeating that in the DOS/AILA (Department of State/American Immigration Lawyers Association) liaison committee meeting of 6/9/22, consul posts are the final arbiter of whether original signatures are required or not; there is a known issue with CEAC (Consular Electronic Application Center) requesting police certificates for some applicants who lived in another country for less than one year and if you are not required to submit a police certificate that CEAC is asking for, you should instead submit an explanatory comment (NVC (National Visa Center) follows the guidance in 9 FAM 504.4-4 (B) for collecting police certificates for countries in which individuals previously resided for a year); and to the complaint that, where a US citizen spouse is regularly residing overseas and an applicant is relying upon assets to establish eligibility for the affidavit of support, NVC is requesting W-2s and a joint sponsor –NVC answered that its processes for affidavit of support eligibility remain the same as per 9 FAM 601.14-6 d to request W-2s for the periods of employment if a sponsor submitted a copy of the tax return (1040) regardless of filing status or if the sponsor submitted an original tax transcript and is only using his or her income to meet the poverty guidelines. (We have found that explanations have been useful here).

3. Happiness or Sadness When IJ’s Dismiss Cases.

Are you happy or are you sad and does it depend upon what kind of case you have? TRAC reported on July 29, 2022, that DHS is failing to file NTAs (Notices to Appear) with the courts, and this is leading to one out of every six new cases being dismissed by the court. According to the article, Border Patrol agents are given the ability to use the immigration courts’ Interactive Scheduling System (ISS) to directly schedule an initial hearing. Supposedly, the actual NTA is created at the same time and a copy given to the asylum-seekers with the scheduled hearing location and time they are to show up in court noted on the NTA. CBP (Border Patrol is part of Customs and Border Protection) then only has to follow up with the task of seeing that the court also receives a copy of the NTA. The article opines that with the implementation of the court’s ECAS (EOIR and Appeals System) system of e-filing, this should make the process quick and straightforward (ha ha!). The article says that the failure to have this done suggests that there is a serious disconnect between CBP personnel entering the cases on an NTA and other CBP personnel responsible for submitting a copy to the court. The article further says that this is exceedingly wasteful of the court’s time and problematic for the immigrant and possibly the attorney if they show up at hearings only to have the case dismissed by the IJ because the case has not actually been filed with the court. Question – in weak cases, don’t you think that the alien and his or her representative will be jumping up with joy?

4. Little to Do in Office with September Visa Charts.

The one thing to be said about the September Visa bulletin is that it simplifies the job in many law offices of tracking the movement of cases occasioned by changes in the monthly charts. The September bulletin is a repeat from August with the only change being in China’s EB-5 (Immigrant Investors) final action date moving up one month to 12/22/15 and dates of filing one week to 1/1/16. It did give DV (Diversity Visas) cut off dates for October and finalized numerical limitations for FY-2022 as being 226,000 for the worldwide family sponsored preference limit, and 281,507 for the worldwide employment-based (EB) preference limit. It remains to be seen whether USCIS/US consular posts will be able to use up most of if not all of the EB numbers.

5. NRC News.

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that shed some light on the National Record Center (NRC), a place where USCIS has occasionally informed us that some of our cases are located that we are tracking at one time or another. NRC in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, is the central hub of storage, preservation, and overall management of A-Files prior to their long term, inactive storage in a NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) Federal Records Center and eventual permanent transfer to the National Archives. According to the article, NARA/National Archives is a federal storage facility that had all but closed for Covid-19; that the National Archives operates miles of limestone caves beneath the Kansas City Metro area, where millions of individuals’ immigration histories are stored. This article was occasioned by a suit for delayed citizenship revealing that citizenship officers are required to look through the histories when considering an immigration application; and that before the pandemic, USCIS routinely requested immigration histories from the archives in Kansas City without issue, but due to COVID and to minimize the time employees spent underground, the National Archives stopped responding to all but emergency requests. Finally in March, the archives fully reopened its facilities and as of May, it was processing all incoming requests. At the time of writing, there were 87,500 pending requests for immigration histories, down from a high of 350,000 in January. 

6. ETA 9089 Filling Where No Sunday Newspaper.

In the 2022 AILA Spring conference and DOL’s Open Forum on the question of how employers should complete the mandatory Sunday newspaper advertisements where there is no Sunday newspaper of general circulation like in North Dakota where the newspapers have transitioned to weekend editions released on Saturdays, OFLC (Office of Foreign Labor Certifications) said employers should still place their Sunday newspaper ads in the weekend edition of the newspaper. On the 9089, the employer should say “no” in section I.c.8 requesting whether there is a Sunday edition of the newspaper; and then after including the newspaper’s name in section I.c.9, the employer should indicate “Weekend Edition – No Sunday Edition Available”.

 

As published in the Immigration Daily on July 22, 2022

1. Contacting USCIS on rejected and no receipt cases.

Filers of immigration cases are occasionally frustrated in submitting petitions and applications to a USCIS lockbox and having their packages rejected and returned with little explanation. The Ombudsman’s revised June 2022 handout “When to Contact a USCIS Lockbox” outlines the procedure for seeking clarification on why USCIS rejected the form, or when more than 30 days have passed since USPS or a courier service confirmed delivery and USCIS has not taken the money, or 30 days have passed since USCIS processed the fee but has not given a receipt notice. For these situations, it advises that individuals should email queries to lockbox support@uscis.dhs.gov and include the

• Form number.
• Receipt number, if available.
• Petitioner/applicant’s name (include the beneficiary’s name, if applicable).
• Mailing address of the petitioner/applicant.
• Delivery confirmation tracking information (if you are seeking to locate a package).
• Payment type submitted and if USCIS received payment.
• Do not provide A numbers or Social Security numbers.

While this is not a perfect system in our experience, following the outlined steps can help in many cases.

2. 3/10 year bars can be satisfied in some cases while living in US.

There is an interesting 6/24/22 policy alert from USCIS affecting the 3 and 10 year bars in which the bars will continue to run regardless of whether a person is outside or reentered the US – however, that a person who has reentered the US and is in unlawful status may accrue another 3 or 10 year bar.

Under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), most individuals staying in the US illegally for more than 180 days or one year or more after April 1, 1997, are barred from returning to the US for three or 10 years respectively.

How would this policy work in practice? Under the alert, for example, it would appear that a person who overstayed for six months or one year, left and reentered the US with H-1B or L-1 visa along with a nonimmigrant waiver of the bar, might be able to run out the 3 year bar and possibly the 10 year bar while in the US dependent upon when he or she reentered. If in the same classes and coming in without a waiver, he or she could theoretically exhaust the 3 or 10 year bar while living here, but then subject himself/herself to inadmissibility based upon visa fraud/misrepresentation in reentering without a waiver. And if a barred individual reentered the country illegally, he or she could theoretically stay up to 180 days without incurring a new 3/10 year bar, but could be subject to the permanent bar (only able to apply for a waiver after 10 years) for reentering the country illegally if he or she had previously spent one year illegally in the US.

3. NYC CIS District Office policy changes coming.

Applicants for immigration having interviews in the New York District office of USCIS have long been able to enjoy two advantages that applicants in many other USCIS offices have not had – Service provided interpreters and the certainty of married couples not being separated for questioning at first interview. In part, the interpreter advantage was occasioned by unscrupulous consulting agencies providing interpreters who did not interpret statements that were unfavorable to the applicant. That led to the New York District providing interpreters at the time of interviews and rejecting those brought in by applicants unless the District was unable to provide an interpreter in the same language. The current Acting District Director, Denise Frazier, indicated that those policies would change in a stakeholder meeting on June 22, 2022. On interpreters, New York will start following the practice of most of the rest of the country and applicants will have to begin bringing in their own interpreters telephonically. Director Frazier said that the District would begin messaging everyone on this in the coming days so that no one is surprised. On marriage interviews, it was conceded to this writer’s question at the meeting that New York historically has not separated couples at the time of first marriage interviews. The Brooklyn field office is conducting a pilot program under which it has been sending out notices saying “Stokes” on some initial interview notices for marriage-based adjustment cases or standalone I-130s and then having a normal interview conducted – to which the Brooklyn section chief said that this was part of a movement in which officers evaluate in phase 1 whether to have an interview at all and in phase 2 to decide that such is necessary and that the Stokes language is in line with the Stokes agreement.[1]  Director Frazier said that this was a pilot program in which Brooklyn was participating, but that the entire District would be sending out such notices by July and August. The upshot is that New York will begin having the ability to separate people at the initial interviews and questioning them under Stokes procedures and that it will be up to the officer whether to conduct a normal or Stokes interview.

4. Flexibility period for RFE’s, RFI’s, NOIDS’s, etc. likely at an end

The final flexibility date may be July 25, 2022. In its last release of flexibility dates on 3/30/22, USCIS said that it anticipated that this may be the final extension of those flexibilities which have allowed an additional 60 days in most cases to respond to USCIS communications. If such is true, the extra time will be missed as many organizations and individuals have not returned to pre-Covid operational levels. USCIS has added to the list of included actions occasionally during the flexibility time of March 1, 2020 – July 25, 2022, and the current list covers:

• Requests for evidence (RFE’s);
• Continuations to request evidence (N-14);
• Notices of intent to deny (NOID’s);
• Notices of intent to revoke (NOIR’s)
• Notices of intent to rescind;
• Notices of intent to terminate regional centers; and
• Motions to reopen an N-400 pursuant to 8 CFR §335.5, receipt of derogatory information after grant.

Applicants and petitioners should look at the Request for Evidence or other to see whether it was issued on or before 7/25/22 for entitlement to the extra 60 days.

USCIS will also consider a Form I-290B Notice of Appeal or Motion, or Form N-336 Request for Hearing on a Decision in Naturalization Proceedings if:

• The form was filed up to 90 calendar days from the issuance of a decision; and
• USCIS made the decision between November 1, 2021 – July 25, 2022 inclusive.

5. August visa chart shows multiple FB and few EB changes.

The August visa bulletin arrived fairly early on July 12 –fairly early given the lateness of most of the recent bulletins. F-2A (spouses and unmarried children under 21 of LPR’s) remains current on both “final action dates” and “dates of filing” charts except for Mexico with a backup date of 4/22/19 for final action dates. Otherwise, FB (family-based) final action dates: Everything remains the same from last month. FB dates of filing: F-1 (unmarried sons and daughters over 21 of USC’s) moves forward one month and one week to 8/8/16, F-2B (unmarried sons and daughters over 21 of LPR’s) three months to 1/1/17, F-3 (married sons and daughters of USC’s) one month and one week to 11/8/09, and F-4 (siblings of USC’s) one month and one week to 12/15/07. Of the three countries with differences, Mexico and the Philippines were static from last month and India’s F-4 remains the same at 2/22/06. EB (employment based) final action dates: Very much the same from July’s chart except that China EB-3 (professionals and skilled workers) advances one month to 4/22/18, and India’s EB-3 and EB-3W (other workers) advance one month to 2/15/12. EB dates of filing: The only changes are China EB-3 advancing one month and three weeks to 5/22/18, and India’s EB-3/EB-3W moving one month to 2/22/12. DV (Diversity visas): All countries are current.

The Government fiscal year closes at the end of September, so no large changes are expected in the next visa bulletin. One can only hope that the charts advance significantly with the opening of FY 2023 in October.

For August, USCIS is choosing the “dates of filing” chart for FB and “final action dates” chart for EB cases to decide who can submit I-485 adjustment of status applications for permanent residence.

[1] The Stokes judgment was a 1976 consent agreement of the New York District office comprising 56 points elucidating the rights of individuals at marriage interviews and the procedures under which they were to be interviewed including written notice of the procedures and rights which “shall” be included as part of the call-in forms.

 

As published in the Immigration Daily on June 20, 2022

1. Some movement on July visa bulletin.

Finally, some movement on family-based (FB) cases on the dates of filing chart although the employment-based (EB) categories hardly moved with the exception of the China and India EB-2 categories on both dates of filing and final action charts. The July visa bulletin is out with the following developments – FB final action dates – Only Mexico advanced, F-1 moved 1½ months to 3/15/00, F-2B two months to 4/1/01, F-3 one month to 10/15/97, and F-4 three months to 6/1/00. FB dates for filing had a lot of movement as worldwide F-1 advanced 1½  months to 7/1/16, F-2B one week to 10/1/16, F-3 one month one week to 10/1/09, and F-4 one week to 11/8/07. The rest of the action here was Mexico’s F-1 moving forward seven months to 12/1/01, F-2B three months one week to 8/8/01, F-3 1 ½ months to 4/15/01, and F-4 two weeks to 3/15/01. It should be noted that F-2A remains current for all countries under both charts. EB final action dates – China EB-2 moved one month forward to 4/1/19, and the big story is that India EB-2 moved three months to 12/1/14. EB dates of filing saw China EB-2 moving forward one month to 5/1/19 and India’s EB-2 moving forward one month to 1/1/15. The Central American countries El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras EB-4 and certain religious workers categories advanced almost 6 months to 12/8/17. Diversity cases – all DV numbers in July are current for all countries except Egypt, Nepal, and the Bahamas, and all numbers for all countries will be current for August.

It should be noted that USCIS is using dates of filing for FB cases and final action dates for EB adjustment of status applications.

2. Renewed guidance on distance learning.

ICE reaffirmed to all SEVIS users on 5/31/22 that the policy of allowing schools and students to engage in distance learning in excess of regulatory limits due to Covid-19 only applies to students who were actively enrolled on 3/9/20, and have continually complied with the terms of their nonimmigrant status. Students enrolling after 3/9/20 must adhere to the existing regulations regarding online learning. Under the March 2020 guidance, active F and M students are permitted to temporarily count online courses towards a full course of study in excess of the regulatory limits. Under the regulatory limits, online courses cannot count toward a full course of study for M and English language training students, and only one online or distance learning class can count toward a full course of study for an F-1 student during each term or semester.

3. Changed lockbox for some I-485 EB filings.

Be aware that for cases with pending or approved I-140s, there is a change of address for I-485’s beginning on 6/6/22 for persons residing in New Jersey or New York. The I-485’s must now be sent to the Elgin lockbox. If filing concurrent I-140/I-485’s, those still go to the Dallas lockbox. The address of the Elgin lockbox is:

USPS

USCIS
Attn: NFB
PO Box 4115
Carol Stream, IL 60197-4115

Courier

USCIS
Attn: NFB (Box 4115)
2500 Westfield Dr.
Elgin, IL 60124-7836

4. NVC current processing times.

In responses provided to the American Immigration Lawyers Association in lieu of the National Visa Center participating in the Spring 2022 liaison meeting, NVC acknowledged that its processing times continue to be lengthy due to substantial backlogs and that practitioners should refer to the NVC time frames page on travel.state.gov to track the current public inquiry form response time and that the processing dates are updated weekly. It should be noted that NVC is also no longer answering its telephones so that it can catch up on the backlog. NVC now wishes everyone to look at its site for processing times before sending in inquiries which are not yet up to the date of processing. The site can be accessed at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/nvc-timeframes.html, or you can just type in on Google “NVC processing times”.

Currently NVC is taking two weeks to create a visa case and enter the data from the petition into the system after getting the file from USCIS (working on cases received 6/2/22 as of 6/13/22); taking 2 ½ months to review documents being sent to them (reviewing documents sent to NVC on 3/30/22 as of 6/13/22); taking one month and three weeks to respond to inquiries (responding to inquiries received on 4/22/22 as of 6/13/22).

5. USCIS says “go Fish”

We realize that USCIS is behind the 8 ball in many areas, but it should improve especially in providing information to individuals on the status of their cases. The superficial improvements to the published processing times are not very helpful, especially when applicants are given an unrealistic distant date in the future on which they can inquire about their cases after putting in their receipt dates and clicking onto “Get Inquiry Date”. Also the site’s assurance that a person’s case is processing normally is based on no actual knowledge whatsoever. More disturbing is the lack of accommodation in the local USCIS offices with the mantra that everything has to go through the USCIS Contact Center before appointments can be scheduled locally. The difficulty here is that live representatives in the Contact Center are hard to reach and ofttimes unwilling to set up appointments for people to go to the local field office. A further problem is the nonsensical and essentially “go Fish” answers that are being given by USCIS on case inquiries that take about a month to respond to and can come from a variety of immigration offices and service centers that clearly have not even looked at or studied the case, most likely have not even accessed the file, and do not know what to do except to give platonic and not useful answers. For example, on an I-212 (Application for permission to reapply for admission into the US after deportation or removal) case remanded to the New York District office over a year ago, our most recent response last week was from the California Service Center thanking us for the inquiry with the message, “We will review your request and provide notification if additional information is needed.” At the very least, USCIS should make an effort to really solve people’s problems than to provide answers from a service center having nothing to do with the case, having no knowledge of it, and giving the appearance of merely satisfying a USCIS scorecard by racking up robot answers.