According to ABC News affiliate WTVD Channel 11, an Immigration Services Officer with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), was arrested on July 15th on charges of blackmail and extortion. The Officer, Bedri Kulla, was based in USCIS’ service center off of Roycroft Drive in Durham County. Allegedly, Mr. Kulla was blackmailing foreign [...]

Yesterday, June 22, 2009, USCIS announced that it will resume the “Premium Processing Service” for certain categories of Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker. Generally, the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker is the second step in the employment-based Permanent Residency Process. Under the Premium Processing Service, USCIS guarantees petitioners that, for a $1,000 processing [...]

Currently, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act prevents immigration officials (USCIS) from recognizing gay marriages, even from states or countries where they are now legal. This is true of nonimmigrant visas, permanent residency, naturalization, many waivers, and defenses to removal. For example, current law allows opposite-sex spouses of nonimmigrant visa holders (such as an H-1B [...]

The Department of Homeland Security announced on June 3, 2009 that the effective date of the new rule mandating E-Verify use by certain federal contractors and subcontractors has been delayed again.

On April 22, 2009, House Bill 2028 was introduced by U.S. Representatives Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). H.R. 2028, the New Employee Verification Act (NEVA), would replace the government’s current E-Verify program with the Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS). The E-Verify program, a partnership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the [...]

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced this morning that the H-1B nonimmigrant cap for fiscal year 2010 has not been reached. Should USCIS receive the necessary number of petitions to meet the respective caps, it will issue an update to advise the public that, as of a certain date (the “final receipt date”), the [...]