Good News for Spouses and Children of Lawful Permanent Residents

The U.S. Department of State recently released the August Visa Bulletin. You can find a copy of this Visa Bulletin at United State government web site: visa bulletin. Immigrant visas will be current for the F2A category, which includes spouses and children of lawful permanent residents (i.e. LPR's or Green Card Holders) regardless of the beneficiary's native country. It is important to keep in mind that the term child is specifically defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as unmarried son or daughter under the age of 21. If your son or daughter has turned 21 while the immigrant visa petition has been pending, it is important you contact an experienced immigration attorney as soon as possible to determine if he or she still qualify for an immigrant visa under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA).

If your spouse and/ or children are currently residing outside the United States, it is important that you take the time to notify U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or the National Visa Center (NVC) of any changes in contact information. You do not want to cause undue delay in immigrant visa application process, because you did not receive notifications from USCIS or the NVC. You can find information on notifying USCIS of a change of address at USCIS government web site. You can find contact information for the NVC at immigrants travel state government visa info. However, if your spouse and/or children are currently in the United States, you should consult an experienced immigration attorney about their eligibility to seek adjustment of status in the United States.

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States. 

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

USCIS to Review Immigrant Visa Petitions Filed By Same Sex Spouses

In rather rapid development a week after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Windsor, overturning Article 3 of DOMA, President Obama has instructed USCIS to start immediately reviewing immigrant petitions filed by same sex spouses. “President Obama directed federal departments to ensure the decision and its implication for federal benefits for same-sex legally married couples are implemented swiftly and smoothly.” Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano wrote on the DHS website.

DHS also provided a short Q&A, were the answers where rather vague. For instance, to the question of whether I-130 can be filed by the same sex spouse, the answer was that it can be and will not be “automatically denied as a result of the same-sex nature of your marriage.” The Secretary added, that USCIS Director was instructed to now start reviewing I-130 petitions filed by the same sex spouses. Whether reviewing means duly processing and approving those on the merits, which warrant approval remains to be seen.

Read Full text of the Secreatry's Statement and the Q&A.

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

Senate Passes Immigraiton Reform Bill

Two days ago the Senate overwhelmingly (68-32) passed the Immigration Reform Bill knows as S 744. The 1198 pages document attempts to overhaul U.S. current immigration system by modernizing it and re-tuning its priorities. The Bill would increases H1B visa CAP from 65,000 visas annually currently to 155,000 visas per year, setting 25,000 additional visas for people with advanced degrees in technology, science, engineering, and mathematics, provided they have graduated from U.S. based colleges and universities. The Bills leaves open the door for further increase in the H1B program with the CAP of up to 180,000 visas annually, if the demand warrants such increase.

The Bills also purports to change H1B worker spouse's situation by allowing H4 derivative visa holders to obtain employment authorization in the USA.

The Bill would correct the student situation by attaching dual intent to the F1 student visas and thus resolving frequent visa denials at the consulates for students when they seek to extend their F1 visas. The dual intent would attach to all students who are in at least bachelor's degree programs.

The Bill would expend extraordinary abilities immigrant category to include scientists, professors, researchers, multinational executives and athletes, and exempt them from the existing immigrant visa quotas.

The Bill would exempt from the existing immigrant visa quotas all graduates of U.S. universities with job offers and degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.

The Bill would create a new-entrepreneur visa to facilitate creation of startup companies by foreign entrepreneurs.

The Bill would establish a completely new merit based immigration avenue for up to 250,000 people a year, basing it entirely on points awarded for education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other equitable considerations.

The Bill would completely eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, and channel released 55,000 visas of the program's annual quota to the new point-based system.

The Bill would create a completely new “W” visa with a quota of up to 200,000 visas per year to be awarded to the low-skilled workers for jobs in construction, long-term care, hospitality and other industries.

The Bill would create completely new agriculture worker visa program, which would radically change and replace the exiting parameters of the H1A visa, extending it to the agriculture workers who are already in the United States including those who are here in violation of their immigration status, provided they have worked in the agricultural field for at least two years, giving them another five years with the option to seek LPR status after that, if they stay in the industry.

Click here for the highlights of the Senate Bill 744.

Click here to read the complete text of the S 744.

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

"New Immigration Law" - Not So Fast!

I thought I needed to write about the subject of the “new immigration law” as, in my opinion, it is rather important to make this point. As the Senate voted yesterday in favor of the Immigration Reform bill proposed in April by the bipartisan group of eight senators, I see substantial increase in questions about the “new immigration law” and rules. These questions inundate blogs like AVVO and LawQA. They also appear often here on My Attorney USA. Finally, I get numerous emails with the same questions expressing optimism and talking about the Bill as if it was already the law of the land. It is not.

The fact that the immigration reform proposal passed in the Senate is an important step in the direction of actually getting to the new immigration law that makes sense. The Senate passage of the Bill is, however, a baby step in right direction at best. I do support most of the Senate Bill, and I do hope that positive changes to this Nation's immigration system, like point-based immigration, would come and soon. Such system would make much more sense than, for instance, the DV program, which does not work for many, while creating huge wave of aggravation each year.

At the same time, the inflated optimism expressed by some on the blogs including some of my esteemed colleagues is out of context. Today's article in the conservative web publication the Newsmax “GOP Senators Predict Quick Death for Senate Immigration Bill in the House” is a good illustration of this point. I recommend overly optimistic individuals to read the article. It is rather informative. In essence, for the Bill to become law of the land, it must pass the House of Representative and then be reconciled on a congressional conference. If and once that process is over, we will see the final version of the bill, which the President would have to sign into law. I am sure, the final version of the Bill will be nothing like its Senate version. Many of the good provisions will be eliminated or replaced with much more restrictive versions, which would water down the Bill substantially.

Here are but some of the quotes from that article that make the point:

“Sponsors of this legislation, despite the array of financial, establishment, and special-interest support, failed to hit their target of 70 votes,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who has long railed against the bill. “The more people learned about the bill, the more uneasy they became.”

“Failure to reach 70 votes is significant, and ensures the House has plenty of space to chart an opposite course and reject this fatally flawed proposal,” Sessions said. “It is a broken promise, 1,200 pages long.”

“This is a bill led by Democrats,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul declared on Fox News. “There will be a bill proposed for immigration reform led by Republicans in the House, and I'm hoping that's something that I can get behind.”

“I think I made it clear that if we're going to do this the right way, there ought to be a majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans in favor of it,” the Ohio Republican said, ABC News reports. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana agreed. “This has no momentum at all in the House,” he said of the Senate legislation.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said any reform legislation needs provisions to “reduce the wait-time and simplify the process for those entering the country legally.
“Unfortunately, instead of proving to the American public that Congress is serious about border security and enforcing the laws already on the books, the final Senate bill gives weak promises on border security, leaving many aspects of implementation to the discretion of the Homeland Security Secretary,” Thune said. “Simply put, the Senate immigration bill is legalization first and empty promises of border security second,” he added.

The article underlies the major problem with the Bill. It does not have enough bipartisan support in the House to pass unchanged and its changed version, if that one even passes, might me much less favorable to immigrants and immigration causes.

The article can be found here: “GOP Senators predict quick death for Senate Immigration Bill in House”

Source: newsmax.com, foxnews.com

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com