Articles Posted in Work visas

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Are you applying for an immigrant visa and want to know when your priority date will become current? Then you won’t want to miss this blog post covering the release of the November 2024 Visa Bulletin.

In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick explains what you can expect to see in terms of the movement of the family-sponsored and employment-based visa categories in the month of November.

USCIS Adjustment of Status

For employment-based and family-sponsored preference categories, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed it will continue to use the Dates for Filing chart to determine filing eligibility for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the month of November.

Highlights of the November 2024 Visa Bulletin

At a Glance

Employment-Based Categories

  • All employment-based Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing will remain the same in November as in the October Visa Bulletin.

Family-Sponsored Categories

Final Action

  • F1 Mexico will advance by 1 year and 10 months to November 22, 2004
  • F2A Mexico will advance by 1.2 months to April 15, 2021
  • F2A All other countries will advance by 1.3 months to January 1, 2022
  • F2B Mexico will advance by 5.5 months to July 1, 2005
  • F3 Mexico will advance by 2 months to October 22, 2000
  • F3 Except for the Philippines All other countries will advance by 2 weeks to April 15, 2010
  • F4 Mexico will advance by 1 week to March 1, 2001
  • F4 India will advance by 1 week to March 8, 2006

Dates for Filing

  • F2B Mexico will advance by 11 months to July 1, 2006
  • F3 Except for Mexico and the Philippines All other countries will advance by almost 10 months to April 22, 2012
  • F4 Philippines will advance by almost 12 months to July 22, 2007
  • F4 India will advance by 1.5 months to August 1, 2006

Now let’s analyze each chart.

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Did you know that once you have obtained your E-2 visa as a treaty investor, you can bring essential employees to work for your company in the United States?

The E-2 visa presents an exciting opportunity for entrepreneurs to invest in and start their businesses in the United States. But what many investors may not know, is that they can petition to bring essential employees with certain specialized skills to work for their companies in the United States.

In this video, we discuss:

  • Who qualifies for an E-2 visa as an essential employee?
  • What is an essential employee?
  • How long can essential employees stay in the U.S.?
  • What are the Key Advantages for E-2 Essential Employees?

And more!

To learn more about this important topic, please keep on watching.

Overview

Who Can Qualify as an E-2 Essential Employee?

 An essential employee is one whose duties are vital to the successful operation of the E-2 company. Generally, essential employees may be those who are seeking to work for the E-2 company in an executive, supervisory, or other essential capacity.  Since the E-2 visa is designed to stimulate foreign investment in the U.S. economy, as well as encouraging job creation, this is an excellent visa type for employees who qualify.

To be eligible, the employee of an E-2 treaty investor must:

  1. Have the same nationality as the E-2 employer (example: the E-2 investor is an individual who is a national of Mexico– a country that maintains a treaty of commerce with the U.S. In such a case, the employee must also be a national of Mexico to qualify)
  2. Be coming to the United States to work for the E-2 company in an executive, or supervisory capacity, or if they will be employed in a lesser capacity, they must have special qualifications.

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If you are applying for an employment-based immigrant visa, you won’t want to miss this important update regarding visa availability. In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses some new information released in the Department of State’s September Visa Bulletin which impacts most employment-based preference categories.

Want to know more? Just keep on watching

Overview

Recently, the U.S. Department of State published a new update in its September Visa Bulletin, which warns applicants that due to a steady increase in demand for employment-based visas in fiscal year 2024, the annual numerical limits have been reached for all employment-based preference categories.

As a result, no further immigrant visas or green cards will be issued for the remainder of the fiscal year which ends on September 30, 2024. This means that if your case is currently waiting for interview scheduling with USCIS or the National Visa Center, no further action will be taken on your case until the new fiscal year begins and new final action cutoff dates are issued.

However, the good news is that the new fiscal year will begin on October 1st and a new allocation of visas has been made for the month of October. The October Visa Bulletin was released several weeks ago and has shown great progress.

For the month of October, the Final Action Date for EB-1 Worldwide remains current; EB-3 Worldwide will advance by nearly 2 years to November 15, 2022; and EB-5 Worldwide will remain current. The Final Action Date for EB-5 India will also make significant advancement of 13 months to January 1, 2022, and China will advance by 7 months to July 15, 2016.

Unfortunately, EB-3 China’s Final Action date will retrogress by 5 months to April 1, 2020, and in the Dates for Filing Chart, EB-3 China will retrogress by 7.5 months to November 15, 2020, and EB-5 China will retrogress by 3 months to October 1, 2016.

For more information about the October Visa Bulletin’s advancements, please click here.

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the top work visa alternatives to the H-1B visa for those who were not selected in the H-1B lottery for the FY 2025 cap season.

To learn more, please keep on watching this video.

Overview

As our readers may know, the electronic registration process for the H-1B work visa occurs every year during the month of March. During this period, U.S. employers petitioning for foreign workers must submit an electronic registration on behalf of each employee for a chance to be selected in the H-1B visa lottery.

Once the electronic registration period has closed, the H-1B lottery is conducted to select enough beneficiaries to participle in the program. Unfortunately, competition for the H-1B visa is fierce because only 65,000 H-1B visas are available each fiscal year, and another 20,000 are available for foreign workers possessing a U.S. master’s degree or higher.

Due to these numerical limits, the demand for H-1B visas far outweighs available visas, causing many to miss out on the visa.

As a result, U.S. employers and their workers should be familiar with alternative work visa options to provide relief in cases where they were not selected.

The H-1B Work Visa Alternatives

The O-1A Visa

The O-1A Visa is a nonimmigrant visa for individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary ability in fields such as the sciences, education, business, and athletics. It allows individuals with exceptional talents to work in the United States, if they can prove sustained national or international acclaim in their domain. It also enables their family members to accompany them to the United States on O-3 visas.

O-1 applicants must be petitioned for the visa directly by their employers or agents (employers are U.S. companies that direct the work the beneficiary will undertake in the U.S., while agents are individuals or entities acting on behalf of multiple employers). The employer or agent must provide an employment contract or agreement detailing the job offer, the applicant’s roles and responsibilities while in the United States, etc.

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Can you apply for a green card while you are inside of the United States on a tourist visa? In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick addresses this important topic.

Overview

B1/B2 Tourist Visa and Nonimmigrant Intent

The B1/B2 tourist visa is a nonimmigrant visa type that allows foreign nationals to visit the United States temporarily for one specified purpose, to engage in tourism or engage in permitted business activities like attending a business conference. The maximum period that a B1/B2 visitor can remain in the United States is 6 months.

Those traveling on such a visa must maintain what is called “non-immigrant” intent when arriving to the United States, meaning that travelers must intend to depart to their home country at the conclusion of their trip.

Misrepresenting your true intentions for traveling to the United States may spell disaster for you in the future and lead to serious immigration consequences including a bar on your future entry to the U.S., due to misrepresentation or fraud.

Those who intend to live or work in the United States must apply for the appropriate visa type and should not enter the United States on a B1/B2 visa.

Change in Circumstances After Arrival in the U.S.

Now let’s imagine that after your arrival to the United States on a B1/B2 visa, your life circumstances have changed. You’ve become engaged to a U.S. Citizen, you’ve secured a job offer for your dream job and your employer wants to sponsor you for a green card, what happens in these situations? Is it possible for you to change your status from a tourist to a permanent resident? The answer is it depends.

The key consideration here is whether you maintained “non-immigrant” intent at the time of your entry to the United States. Under immigration law, a temporary visa holder who enters the United States and gets married or files their green card application within 90 days of their entry, is presumed to have misrepresented his or her true intentions for traveling to the United States on a temporary visa. Such individuals are generally not eligible to apply for adjustment of status to permanent residence (a green card) from inside the United States.

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If you are currently going through the immigrant visa process and are waiting for your interview to be scheduled at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy overseas, then you won’t want to miss this important video. In this video attorney Jacob Sapochnick shares the latest updates regarding the operational capacity of U.S. Consular posts and Embassies worldwide as of June 2024.

Annual Numerical Limits – Visa Bulletin

Please note that certain categories of immigrants are subject to annual numerical limits which means that applicants must wait until an immigrant visa becomes available to them, before they can be scheduled for an immigrant visa interview at a Consulate overseas.

These include unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. Citizens, spouses and children of permanent residents, unmarried sons and daughters (21 years or older) of permanent residents, married sons and daughters of U.S. Citizens, and brothers and sisters of adult U.S. Citizens.

Additionally, all employment-based immigrant visa categories are subject to annual numerical limits.

If any of the above-mentioned categories apply to you, you must check the Visa Bulletin every month to determine whether your priority date is current according to your preference category and country of nationality. Only once your priority date is current on the final action date chart of the Visa Bulletin, can your case be scheduled for a visa interview.

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Did you know that you can apply for a green card without a job offer or even sponsorship from a U.S. employer?

In this video attorney Jacob Sapochnick tells you all you need to know about the EB-2 National Interest Waiver, an employment-based green card option for professionals who are working in an area of national importance to the United States government.

This video focuses specifically on how engineering professionals can qualify for the National Interest Waiver, which is one of the most popular ways to obtain permanent residence in the U.S.

For more information, please keep on watching.

Overview

If you are an engineer that has earned an advanced degree (baccalaureate or higher) or have exceptional ability in your field of engineering, then you may be eligible to self-petition for a green card by applying for the EB-2 National Interest Waiver.

Unlike the EB-3 employment-based green card which requires employment sponsorship, the EB-2 National interest Waiver allows an individual to self-petition for their green card.

This provides applicants with the freedom and flexibility to apply for permanent residence on their own without having to undergo the lengthy labor certification process with a U.S. employer.

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New H-1B rules are changing the immigration landscape for U.S. employers and foreign workers in the United States.

In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick shares all you need to know about these important changes.

Did you Know? In February of this year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule in the Federal Register that changed the H-1B registration process and enhanced the H-1B program’s integrity to safeguard against fraud. These changes resulted in a significant drop in the number of eligible H-1B registrations for fiscal year 2025 by 40%.

Overview

The H-1B visa is one of the most popular work visas used by professionals with U.S. job offers to work in specialty occupations. To be eligible for this visa category, applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree or higher, or the equivalent work experience in the specialty occupation.

Current laws limit the annual number of qualifying foreign workers who may be issued the H-1B visa to 65,000 with an additional 20,000 reserved for the H-1B advanced degree exemption for those with U.S. master’s degrees (or higher). Unfortunately, the high demand for the H-1B visa, makes the lottery process extremely competitive considering that thousands upon thousands of employers compete for the very limited number of visas available every year.

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Have you ever wondered why new immigration cases are being approved faster than older pending cases? If so, then you may be interested to learn why this is happening, as well as how the review process is conducted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and what you can do if you are facing this situation.

If you would like to know more about this topic, we invite you to watch our video.

Overview

Q: My case has been pending with USCIS for several months. I have recently learned that USCIS has been giving recently filed cases priority over older cases, why is that?

USCIS Review Process

To understand this issue, let’s first discuss how USCIS accepts and reviews cases once they are received by the agency.

After you submit your application including your forms and filing fees, the first thing USCIS will do is input the receipt of your application into their system and send a notice to you by mail confirming the date your materials were received and accepted as a complete filing. This receipt is known as the Notice of Action.

USCIS will create a new file and assign a case number to your application which will appear on your Notice of Action, which you can use to check the status of your application on the USCIS website and by telephone.

Your case will then be sorted and routed to the appropriate service center or field office that will oversee the evaluation of your application. The office that will be given jurisdiction over your case is determined by a number of factors including but not limited to, your case type, agency workloads, and the date of receipt.

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If you are holding any crypto assets, such as bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other blockchain cryptocurrency, can you use those assets to move to the United States?

In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the use of crypto assets as the source of funds for E-2 visa investment purposes and everything you need to know about this topic.

Overview

Is there a way to move to the United States using crypto assets?

Yes. The visa type that can be used for this purpose is the E-2 Treaty Investor nonimmigrant visa, which allows qualifying applicants to start and manage their businesses in the United States, by making an irrevocable investment in their business and hiring U.S. workers.

The E-2 visa allows foreign nationals to live and work for their U.S. business for an initial duration of two years. Thereafter, investors may apply for E-2 extensions in increments of up to two years each. One of the great advantages of the E-2 visa is that there is no limit to the number of extensions you can apply for, so long as you maintain a sincere intention to depart the United States when your visa status expires.

Additionally, this visa allows your spouse and unmarried children under age 21 to accompany you to the United States by seeking the E-2 classification as your dependents.

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