Watson Law Offices Newsletter
September 2011
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| Immigration Initiatives to Stimulate Job Creation | | |
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| BREAKING NEWS: All Employment-based Immigrant Visas Have Now Been Issued for FY 2011 | |  Every fiscal year (October 1st - September 30th), 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas are made available to qualified applicants who seek to immigrate based on an offer of employment to the principal applicant. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has assured its stakeholders that beneficiaries of an employment-based application whose Priority Dates became current in the September 2011 Visa Bulletin may continue to submit Applications for Adjustment of Status this month, but that they will not be processed until sometime after October 1st.
Although we do not anticipate this to cause more than a small delay for any clients who already have Adjustment Applications pending with USCIS, we think it is now unlikely that the government will continue to move the Visa Bulletin forward as rapidly as it has for the last few months. The announcement this early into September clearly shows that the Department of State underestimated the number of individuals waiting in line for available visas, and we think it is likely that they will try to report more conservative estimates in the future. |
| Roy Watson to Speak at Massachusetts Medical Society Program on Immigration | | |
IMGs: From Graduate Training to Green Cards
J-1 WAIVERS, WORK VISAS, AND IMMIGRATION OPTIONS
Wednesday, October 12th at 6:30PM
Click here to view full-sized flyer. Visit Massachusetts Medical Society's website for more information and to register for the event. |
Department of Labor Plans to Resume Regular Processing of Prevailing Wage Determinations by November
| | | NAFSA: Association of International Educators announced on its website that in a conference with the Department of Labor (DOL) and other organizations, the DOL indicated that it hoped to resume regular processing of Prevailing Wage Determinations.
In August, DOL suspended all H-1B and PERM Prevailing Wage Determinations in an effort to comply with a court order related to H-2B visas.
DOL has said that they intend to become current (i.e., process cases within a 60-day period) on all Prevailing Wage Determinations on the following timeline:
- Newly filed H-2Bs: by mid October
- PERM prevailing wage determinations: by the first week of November
- H-1B prevailing wage determinations: by the second week of November
DOL is current resuming processing of requests already pending with their office on a first-come first-serve basis. Some of our colleagues have reported receiving Determinations for requests filed in early June.
Watson Law Offices is happy to address any concerns our clients may have about this delay, and we will be sure to keep affected clients up-to-date on any new developments.
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October 2011 Visa Bulletin
| |  India and China EB-2 Continue to Move Forward in the New Fiscal Year
The U.S. Department of State has now published the latest Visa Availability dates for October 2011. After movement for the last few visa bulletins, both India and China EB-2 had come to a halt in September. However, October 1st marks the beginning of the 2012 government Fiscal Year. This means that the annual allocation of immigrant visas has been reset, and almost all of the chargeability categories have now begun to forward again. Here is a summary of the October 2011 Visa Bulletin. |
H-1B Cap Count as of September 9th
| |  USCIS has received 32,200 Cap-Subject petitions
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is now reporting the current H-1B Cap Count as of September 9, 2011.
Each Fiscal Year, the government may only issue 65,000 new H-1B visas. An additional 20,000 are set aside for graduates of U.S. Master degree programs.
32,200 Cap-Subject petitions have been received by USCIS for the 2012 Fiscal Year H-1B quota. 16,700 petitions that qualify for the U.S. Master's Exemption have also been received.
USCIS began accepting petitions for the 2012 Quota on April 1st. Although many of these petitions have and will be approved before then, these visas cannot be issued until October 1st, the beginning of the government's Fiscal Year.
In the past, the quota for H-1B visas was exhausted on April 1st, but that has not been the case for the last couple of years. In FY 2011, the cap was not reached until mid-January 2011. Based on the current trends, we expect that this year's cap will also not be reached until after the start of 2012.
If you are an employer interested in hiring a foreign worker under the FY 2012 H-1B Cap, now is the time to contact us!
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| New Additions to Watson-Law.Com | | |
Watson Law Offices adds a Blog, Twitter, and more
In an attempt to keep our clients well-informed and updated on any changes happening in immigration, we have added some new features to our website. Now, in addition to our Faceb ook page where we already regularly post news articles, press releases from the government, the Visa Bulletin, and other articles we think our clients may be interested in, we have created a Watson Law Offices Twitter account and Blog. Now you can Follow our Tweets and read articles from our office about all things immigration.
We have also added a Client Resources section of our website, where we have posted many documents you may have seen from our office before - informational sheets on how to obtain a visa stamp, how to check the status of your case online, etc. - and some that are newly created just for the website (Check out our new Travel Tips). We plan to add more documents shortly, so check back often for updates! |
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This is an effort on our part to reach out to our larger community of friends, colleagues, current and former clients and anyone interested in Immigration Law. We expect there will be a strong push to make changes to existing Immigration Laws in the coming months and years, and we will try to keep our subscribers informed not only as to what changes are taking place, but how they are likely to impact everyone.
We welcome your input on what we should include, and how we should present this information. Please let us know what you think and what you would like to see. Also, please share this email with anyone whom you think would be interested in and benefit from this information.
THANK YOU!
Sincerely,
ROY WATSON
Watson Law Offices
142 Great Road
Bedford, MA 01730
(781)533-7700
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