US Immigration News

Since heightened security was established more than ten years ago following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, US P-1 visas for foreign artists and performers have become increasingly difficult to obtain. Critics have claimed that the visa obstacles are hurting the US' ability to host cultural events.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported a large increase in skilled foreign worker H-1B visa applications during the first week of this year's application season. USCIS has received 25,600 petitions for H-1B visas since 2 April 2012, nearly twice as many as it received for the entire first month of last year's application period.

The Indian government has lodged a complaint about the US at the World Trade Organisation over the increase in US visa fees. India claims that the H-1B and L-1 visa fees are too high and discriminate against Indian IT firms."We are pursuing this at the consultation level. It is our hope we reach an amicable conclusion," a senior commerce department official in New Delhi said on 10 April.

This week, as employers began filing petitions for the popular US H-1B work visas, Microsoft stressed the importance of the visa in keeping America's IT companies competitive."While the vast majority of our US workforce is comprised of US workers, the individuals we employ in H-1B status -educated at some of the best universities in the US and around the world - are crucial to our business," said Brad Smith, general counsel & executive vice president, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft.

This week the US began accepting applications for the popular H-1B visa program. While the H-1B visa has been a popular visa among IT workers for a long time, critics are saying that the L-1 visa is now being used improperly in place of the H-1B visa.The L-1 visa is used for intra-company transfers of employees from foreign offices to US offices.

The US Department of State (DOS) has released the April Visa Bulletin and announced that the EB2 employment based immigration priority cutoff dates for Indian and Chinese nationals have stayed the same as in the March bulletin. However, the cutoff date for EB2 immigrant petitions for Indian and Chinese nationals could go back to August 2007 in May or June 2012. This will mean that visa applications received on or before August 2007 will be processed.