USCIS, July 16, 2024 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is issuing policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address the new provisions added to the Immigration and Nationality...
DOS, July 15, 2024 " On June 18, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration announced actions to more efficiently process employment-based nonimmigrant visas for those who have graduated from college...
Cyrus D. Mehta and Jessica Paszko, July 13, 2024 "Portability under Section 204(j) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows certain employment-based green card applicants to change jobs...
This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 07/12/2024 "The Department of State (the Department) publishes a final rule revising the Code of Federal Regulations to amend...
Visa Bulletin for August 2024
Ira Kurzban writes: "My firm filed the attached complaint and thought it would be of interest to Bender’s readers. We are challenging the failure of USCIS to provide employment authorization to all TPS applicants upon filing the application. Under the INA 244(a)(4)(B) applicants for TPS “shall” receive employment authorization upon establishing a prima facie case. USCIS, as a practical matter, never makes a prima facie determination of a TPS applicant’s claim. Instead, it treats the fully completed application as having made the claim but does not grant employment authorization upon filing. The case, if successful, will affect tens of thousands of TPS applicants who have waited until their TPS applications are approved to receive employment authorization. But even then, many wait for months if not years until an I-765 is approved. TPS applicants, however, are entitled to receive employment authorization incident to their status as “applicants” and later as persons “approved” for TPS, see INA 244(a)(1)(B) without filing an I-765. The complaint is not filed as a class action because of the bar under INA 242(f)(1). However, we believe that approval of these claims will result in approval of all TPS applicants because the issue is the same, that is, applicants for TPS are entitled to employment authorization incident to status."