On August 3, 2018, the US District Judge for District of Columbia, John D. Bates, ruled that the Trump administration must fully restore the DACA program. In the decision, the court stated, “The Court therefore reaffirms its conclusion that DACA’s rescission was unlawful and must be set aside.” In addition, the court also denied the government’s motion to reconsider, stating that “The Court has already once given DHS the opportunity to remedy these deficiencies—either by providing…

Today, USCIS announced it has completed the H-1B cap FY 2019 random selection process on April 11. This year, USCIS received a total of 190,098 H-1B cap petitions during the H-1B cap FY 2019 filing period, which started on April 2.  The announcement means USCIS has completed the computer generated random selection process and selected enough petitions to meet the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 cap under the U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as…

 The civics test is an oral test which is required in the Naturalization application process. The USCIS Officer will ask the applicant up to 10 of the 100 civics questions and the applicant must answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly to pass the civics portion of the naturalization test. On the naturalization test, some answers may change to reflect the result of federal and state elections and appointment or to clarify content and ensure…

Recently, the American Immigration Council (Council) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) teamed up on a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seeking to “obtain the information needed to provide the public with an understanding of the operating procedures and Defendant USCIS follows when administering the H-1B lottery. AILA seeks declaratory, injunctive and other appropriate relief under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C.…

USCIS has been working on mitigating the impact caused by the processing delay on I-129 petitions. In addition to transferring cases from Vermont Service Center to other Service Centers to balance caseloads, USCIS recently began allowing petitioners who filed Form I-129 requesting an extension of status or change of employer to contact USCIS after the petition has been pending for 210 days or more for an inquiry based on the petition being outside of normal…