Siskind Susser, PC

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Coronavirus Immigration Blog

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Jalisa McGaha
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Siskind Summary – The US Citizenship Act (the “Biden Immigration Bill”) By Greg Siskind (gsiskind@visalaw.com) Here’s a PDF of this document. The bill states as its purpose “to provide an earned path to citizenship, to address the root causes of migration and responsibly manage the southern border, and to reform the immigrant visa system, and for other purposes. Initial observation – The bill is 353 pages which is considerably shorter than previous comprehensive bills (probably…
President Biden is expected to sign legislation very early on in his tenure relating to the COVID and will likely use the House’s Heroes Act as the model. That bill, passed last May, had significant COVID-related immigration provisions. The provisions included deferred action relief for undocumented essential workers modified immigration procedures when agencies can’t function as normal because of COVID (video interviewing, forgiveness for delayed filings, etc.) more visa flexibility for health care workers and…
Greg Siskind is co-counsel on this case which is filed with lead co-counsel Jeff Joseph of Joseph and Hall in Denver, Chuck Kuck of Kuck Baxter in Atlanta and Jesse Bless with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. On October 6th, the Department of Labor posted an interim final rule (the “IFR”) dramatically changing the way it calculates prevailing wages in H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, and PERM labor certification cases. The rule was made effective on October 8th and a…
Judge Jeffrey White of the US District Court for the Northern District of California has issued a preliminary injunction halting the June 22nd nonimmigrant visa ban. This is a stinging blow to an Administration that has used the ban to block the entry of hundreds of thousands of H-1B, H-2B, J-1, and L-1 workers and their families. The order is limited to the plaintiffs. However, the main plaintiffs are massive membership organizations that represent the…
The Senate has passed HR 8337, the continuing resolution bill funding the government until December 11th. President Trump will sign this evening in order to avoid a government shutdown at midnight. In that legislation, Congress has included important changes to the USCIS Premium Processing Program that will also allow USCIS to avoid threatened furloughs of a high percentage of its workforce. Here are the details: Section 1 – The title of the bill is the…
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While it might seem counter-intuitive for an employment-based immigrant visa category that requires an advanced degree like a master’s or doctorate to have longer waiting times than a category that requires a bachelor’s degree or lower, this happens occasionally. Such was the case in 2013 when EB-3 cutoff dates for China were more recent than EB-2 cutoff dates. And it has just happened again for India with EB-3 dates more favorable than EB-2 who are…
USCIS posted the following notice regarding interpreters at asylum interviews: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a temporary final rule to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) by using government-contracted telephonic interpreters for affirmative asylum interviews at no cost to the applicant. This temporary final rule changes for the next 180 days the requirement that asylum applicants who do not speak English must bring an interpreter to their affirmative asylum interview. Under…
In news welcomed by the immigration bar, USCIS just sent the following email announcement extending the policy of allowing an extra 60 days to respond to RFEs: In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is extending the flexibilities it announced on March 30, 2020, to assist applicants, petitioners, and requestors who are responding to certain: Requests for Evidence; Continuations to Request Evidence (N-14); Notices of Intent to Deny; Notices of…
Dear Clients: I hope this email finds you all well and enjoying the summer.  Siskind Susser continues to operate 90% remotely with a few people in the physical office each day. As you recall, on June 22nd President Trump issued a proclamation suspending the issuance of H, L and J visas through the end of the calendar year.  This primarily applied to foreign nationals outside the US at that time without valid visas.  The Proclamation…