Corporate Immigration Law News

In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it adopted measures to assist applicants and petitioners who are responding to certain Requests for Evidence (RFE) and Notices of Intent to Deny (NOID). This alert clarifies that this flexibility also applies to certain Notices of Intent to Revoke (NOIR) and Notices of Intent to Terminate (NOIT) regional investment centers, as well as certain filing date requirements for Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion.

Notice/Request/Decision Issuance Date:

This flexibility applies to an RFE, NOID, NOIR, NOIT or appealable decision within AAO jurisdiction and the issuance date listed on the request, notice or decision is between March 1, 2020 and May 1, 2020, inclusive.

Response Due Date: 

Any response to an RFE, NOID, NOIR, or NOIT received within 60 calendar days after the response due date set in the request or notice will be considered by USCIS before any action is taken. Any Form I-290B received up to 60 calendar days from the date of the decision will be considered by USCIS before it takes any action.

USCIS is adopting several measures to protect our workforce and community, and to minimize the immigration consequences for those seeking immigration benefits during this time.

USCIS will provide further updates as the situation develops and will continue to follow CDC guidance. Education and precautions are the strongest tools against COVID-19 infection. Please visit uscis.gov/coronavirus for latest facts and other USCIS updates.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Anthony F. Siliato or Scott R. Malyk.

It’s a year of uncharted waters.  A new on-line registration process for the FY21 H-1B Cap and a viral pandemic that has changed the way we are conducting everyday business.

Regardless of the havoc that COVID-19 has wreaked on our way of living and conducting business, the USCIS has continued its operations, and the FY21 H-1B cap registrations continued to be filed on-line until the deadline of today, March 20, 2020, at 12:00pm EST.

While we cannot fully assess the overall utility and success of the new registration process until the results of the lottery are completed and shared, in looking back at the last 20 days, we can say that the on-line platform was largely successful, while saving our clients the expense of preparing and filing full H-1B petitions in order for their candidates to be considered in the H-1B lottery.

The on-line registration opened on Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 12 noon, EST.  The most notable technological glitch occurred in the completion of the Notice of Representation (Form G-28) where attorneys were forced to choose between submitting the registrations as early as possible due to fear of an overall system crash (which required attorneys to wrongly indicated that they were unauthorized to practice law or under an order of suspension) or exercise patience and wait until the glitch was fixed by USCIS.  The Immigration Law Group at Meyner and Landis chose the latter, which was the correct choice, as after a number of practitioners sounded alarm bells, USCIS rectified the issue within in 3-4 days.

Overall, the platform functioned well and, for the most part, the interface and process followed the protocols outlined in the webinars conducted by the USCIS prior to opening of the registration period.

Our primary criticisms with the USCIS Registration platform, while minor, are as follows:

• Attorneys were able to “Add a Client” but when beginning a registration form, the client name had to be re-entered.  Similarly, once a registration was submitted, if a company added new beneficiaries, there was no pre-population of company information so that all company information had to be re-entered again, increasing the likelihood of typographical errors.
• The system did not allow employers to modify the “account type” that they had created, so if the employer created the wrong account type, they were forced to open a new account under a different email address.
• Once the G-28 has been initiated, the registration form became un-editable. If a change needed to be made, the registration had to be deleted and prepared anew.

Given the fact that there are growing pains with all new processes and all new on-line platforms have technological issues, our overall assessment of the H-1B registration process (pre-lottery results) is positive.

We will update our assessment once the results of the lottery are posted.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Anthony F. Siliato or Scott R. Malyk.

Last week, the U.S. announced a travel ban in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

This 30-day travel ban initially applied only to individuals entering the U.S. who have traveled to the 26 countries that make up the European Union, in the past 14 days. These 26 countries include:  Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

This ban has now been expanded to include the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The expansion of this ban to include the UK and Ireland is set to begin on Monday March 16th at 11:59 pm. Flights that are in the air from Europe at that time will be permitted to land in the U.S.

If you are currently a national of the UK or Ireland, and hold a non-immigrant visa (or travel frequently on the visa waiver), and need to be in the United States in the next month, we advise re-entering the United States today if you are currently outside of the U.S.

If you are a non-immigrant visa holder from Europe, including the UK and Ireland, we also recommend not leaving the United States at this time, as we do anticipate that this ban will be expanded to include more countries, and possibly for a longer period, if the virus continues to spread.

We will continue to provide updates as they become available.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Anthony F. Siliato or Scott R. Malyk.

In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. has announced an Executive Order instituting a 30-day travel ban on foreign nationals entering the U.S. who have traveled to the 26 countries that make up the European Union, within the past 14 days. These 26 countries include:  Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. This ban does not include the United Kingdom.

It is not an option to get around the travel ban by transiting through a country that is not part of the travel ban.  Foreign nationals will not be permitted to enter the U.S. if they have been to one of the 26 countries listed above in the past 14 days. While the President stated that “we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days” it is important to note that this ban does NOT apply to U.S. Citizens, permanent residents and their families.[1] Regardless of this exemption, we advise that any immediate family of a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident, who are currently outside the U.S., and holds a nonimmigrant visa or travel permit (advance parole card) return to the United States immediately in order to avoid being separated from your family for at least a month. Read additional details here.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Anthony F. Siliato or Scott R. Malyk.