US Immigration News

USCIS announced that if petitioners bundle US L-1 work visa applications for multiple L-1 workers related to the same project, where the location and the specialized knowledge duties of the applicants are the same, USCIS will consider them together.

Chicago officials launched a new municipal department last week called the Office of New Americans which will focus on helping immigrant business owners. Chicago will join other cities such as New York City and Los Angeles who also have dedicated departments to help immigrant business owners.

More than three decades after the US embassy in Tehran was closed, the US has officially opened a virtual embassy for Iran to encourage dialogue with the Iranian people and to help Iranians with their US visa applications.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ordered a complete review of the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa program that has been used by US businesses to hire international students for short-term, seasonal positions. Foreign students this year have issued numerous complaints about work conditions to the department.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced they are in the post-development testing phase of a new online application system that will eventually change the paper-based agency into an electronic, online organization.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced they have received enough petitions for graduate level skilled workers under the H-1B visa program to meet the cap of 65,000 for fiscal year 2012. This is the earliest the visa cap has been reached in the past three years, signifying renewed demand for this visa program.Each year on April 1 the USCIS begins accepting H-1B petitions for the new fiscal year; USCIS announced the cap for H-1B visa applications was officially reached on 22 November, two months ahead of last year.