The State Department will launch a pilot program later this year offering visa renewal options in the US for H-1B specialty occupation workers and other temporary visa holders who are currently required to travel abroad.

Restoring stateside visa renewals, which were discontinued in 2004, will save those applicants from having to leave the country, and will reduce the workload of consular offices abroad.

For more on this: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/state-department-plans-pilot-for-domestic-visa-renewal-this-year

The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) is offering a number of free, informative webinars for the public in January, 2023.  These include webinars for workers, employers, and advocates.  Please review IER’s webinar schedule to choose the right presentation for you.

IER enforces the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This law prohibits citizenship, immigration status, and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee; unfair documentary practices; retaliation and intimidation. For more information visit www.justice.gov/ier.

This will be effective 12/12/2022 and will have a notation on the N-400 Application for Naturalization receipt notice that can be presented with the expired Green Card as evidence of continued status as well as identity and employment authorization under List A for form I-9, the Employment Eligibility Verification form, if presented before the expiration of the 24-month extension period provided in the notice.

This is expected to help naturalization applicants who experience longer than usual processing times.

For more on this please refer here: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20221209-ExtendingPRC.pdf

Completing Form I-9 for Employees with Extended Work Authorization

Notice: The govDelivery message dated January 4, 2021 had an incorrect form number and subject line. Please see the corrected message below.

When completing Form I-9, employees may choose to present their unexpired Form I-766, Employment Authorization Document (EAD) with Category code of C33 that was issued on or after July 28, 2020, along with an I-797 Extension Notice issued by USCIS that shows a one-year extension of their deferred action and work authorization under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In Section 1, employees may enter the end validity date from the notice in the “Authorized to Work Until” field.

If your employee presents this document combination, you must enter the end validity date from their notice in the Expiration Date field in Section 2. Enter DACA Ext. in the Additional Information field.

You may reverify a current employee before reverification is required if they present this document combination to you. Enter the end validity date from their notice as the Expiration Date in Section 3. Enter DACA Ext. in the Additional Information field in Section 2.

The initial registration period for FY 2022 will open at noon Eastern Time (ET) on March 9 and run through noon ET on March 25. Both representatives and registrants must wait until March 9 to create and complete H-1B registrations.

The electronic registration process has streamlined processing by reducing paperwork and data exchange, and has provided overall cost savings to employers seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.

Under this process, prospective petitioners (also known as registrants), and their authorized representatives, who are seeking authorization to employ H-1B workers subject to the cap, complete a registration process that requires only basic information about the prospective petitioner and each requested worker. We will open an initial registration period for a minimum of 14 calendar days each fiscal year.The H-1B selection process will then be run on properly submitted electronic registrations. Only those with selected registrations will be eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.

Please refer here for more information.

Our office is available to assist you with your case filing strategy and case submissions. We are already in planning mode. We can be contacted at info@immigrationcompliancegroup.com

USCIS will now replace the sticker that is currently issued to lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to extend the validity of their Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card (PRC or “Green Card”) with a revised Form I-797, Notice of Action for Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card. LPRs file Form I-90, when their Green Card expires or are about to expire.

The revised I-797 receipt notice, together with an applicant’s PRC (Permanent Resident Certificate), will serve as temporary evidence of lawful permanent resident status for 12 months from the expiration date on the face of the Green Card. The revised I-797 receipt notice, together with an applicant’s PRC, will serve as temporary evidence of lawful permanent resident status for 12 months from the expiration date on the face of the Green Card.

Applicants with expiring Green Cards will no longer receive a sticker from the Applicant Support Center (ASC) at their biometrics appointments to obtain temporary evidence of LPR status. Instead, USCIS will send applicants a revised Form I-797, Notice of Action, the receipt notice for Form I-90, as proof of the extension of their Green Card.

For more information: Please see the Replace Your Green Card page for more information. For questions specific to employment, please see I-9 Central

The Biden administration’s immigration reform bill will have a provision that seeks to replace the term “alien” with “noncitizen” in immigration law.

This new proposal to improve the way we refer to people who move to the U.S. from other countries is a welcome start and an important signal from the new administration. It is not the first time that a bill has proposed to make this change in terminology.

For more, refer here

For Employees: Your employer may inform you that your E-Verify case received a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and/or Social Security Administration (SSA) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) case result. A DHS and/or SSA TNC means that the information your employer entered in E-Verify from your Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, did not match records available to DHS and/or SSA. A DHS and/or SSA TNC case result does not necessarily mean that you are not authorized to work in the United States.

The process description here explains the types of TNC’s and guides you through the resolution process.

For Employers: Employers whose employees receive a TNC must provide them with the further Action Notice from E-Verify and discuss it privately with them. Please review here for the steps in the process.

USCIS is proposing a new rule, which would allow certain international entrepreneurs to be considered for parole (temporary permission to be in the United States) so that they may start or scale their businesses here in the United States. 

Read the advance version of the notice of proposed rulemaking: International Entrepreneur Rule. Once the notice of proposed rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 45 days from the date of publication to comment. To submit comments, follow the instructions in the notice.

The proposed rule would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use its existing discretionary statutory parole authority for entrepreneurs of startup entities whose stay in the United States would provide a significant public benefit through the substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation.  Under this proposed rule, DHS may parole, on a case-by-case basis, eligible entrepreneurs of startup enterprises:

• Who have a significant ownership interest in the startup (at least 15 percent) and have  an active and central role to its operations;
• Whose startup was formed in the United States within the past three years; and
• Whose startup has substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation, as evidenced by:
  • Receiving significant investment of capital (at least $345,000) from certain qualified U.S. investors with established records of successful investments;
  • Receiving significant awards or grants (at least $100,000) from certain federal, state or local government entities; or
  • An applicant who partially meets one or both of the above criteria can be considered if he or she provides “additional reliable and compelling evidence” that his or her entry would provide a “significant public benefit to the United States” and which would validate the entity’s “substantial validation of the entity’s substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation.”

Under the proposed rule, entrepreneurs may be granted an initial stay of up to two years to oversee and grow their startup entity in the United States.  A subsequent request for re-parole (for up to three additional years) would be considered only if the entrepreneur and the startup entity continue to provide a significant public benefit as evidenced by substantial increases in capital investment, revenue or job creation.  If an applicant meets these criteria, the applicant, as well as his or her spouse and minor, unmarried children may be considered under this rule for a discretionary grant of parole for up to two years.  Spouses will receive open-market (unrestricted) work authorization.  Applicants will be allowed to be considered for re-parole for an additional period of up to three years if they can show that the start-up has shown signs of “significant growth” since the initial grant of parole and the start-up continues to have substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation.  The grant of additional parole will be to work with the same start-up for 3 additional years, for a total maximum period of parole of five years. No more than three entrepreneurs may receive parole per start-up, including their spouses and children. As with initial parole, the grant is discretionary and may be revoked for the same reasons as an initial grant.

Applicants for this type of parole benefit will file a new type of application form specifically tailored for entrepreneurs along with a proposed application fee of $1200. Applicants would also provide biometrics.  Entrepreneur parolees will be authorized to work incident to status and will be able to work with an I-94 and a passport. The Form I-9 regulations are being changed to recognize this.

More details here

Great News! USCIS announced a final rule expanding the existing provisional waiver process to allow certain individuals who are family members of U.S. citizens and now  lawful permanent residents (LPRs), who are statutorily eligible for immigrant visas, to more easily navigate the immigration process.

The rule announced today, which goes into effect on Aug. 29, 2016, expands eligibility for the provisional waiver process to all individuals who are statutorily eligible for the waiver of the unlawful presence ground of inadmissibility. USCIS expects to update its Policy Manual to provide guidance on how USCIS makes “extreme hardship” determinations in the coming weeks.

The final rule also makes changes to Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver.  These changes will go into effect along with the final rule.  The updated form will be posted on USCIS’ website at uscis.gov/i-601a on August 29, 2016.

Applicants should not submit a request for a provisional waiver under the expanded guidelines until the final rule takes effect on Aug. 29, 2016.  If you do so before that date, USCIS may deny the application.

For more information on USCIS and its programs, please visit uscis.gov or follow us on Twitter (@uscis), YouTube (/uscis), Facebook(/uscis), and the USCIS blog The Beacon.
Federal Register: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-07-29/pdf/2016-17934.pdf