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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE SENDING WAVES OF STAFF TO CHINA AND BRAZIL
The U.S. DOS is sending waves of temporary staff to China and Brazil to address growing visa demands and shorten visa wait times. The employees are helping process the high number of visa applications until permanent staff arrive.
The 2011 mission to Brazil resulted in processing 820,000 visa applications, which is a 42% increase from the previous year. The DOS plans to double the consular staffing in Brazil over 2012 by adding 50 new officer positions. Current visa wait times in Brazil are down to under 50 days.
China has seen even more growth than Brazil, specifically in 2011, during which DOS employees processed more than 1 million visa applications. This is a 34% increase over the previous year. Current visa wait times in China are down to under 10 days.
Tags: Brazil, China, Department of State, U.S. consulate, U.S. visas, visa wait times
Posted in H-1B, Immigrant Visas, Nonimmigrant Visas | Read More »
Update on Labor Certification: More Scrutiny by DOL?
The Department of Labor has announced in its annual performance report that it will apply stricter scrutiny to all labor certification applications. The electronic PERM application will be revised once it expires in June 2011, and presumably the form will become longer, more exacting and more complicated. Whether or not audits will increase is unclear, but it stands to reason that they may. Perhaps the recent quick PERM adjudications will soon be a thing of the past. As if that isn’t enough bad news for one day, DOL also intends to propose a new PERM filing fee payable by the employer.
Tags: Department of Labor, DOL, ETA 9089, green card, immigration, labor certification, PERM
Posted in FAQ Employment-Based Green Card | Read More »
USCIS Proposes Form for EB-5 Regional Center Applications
There is a new proposed form for submitting EB-5 regional center (RC) proposals. A regional center is defined as an economic unit, public or private, involved in the promotion of economic growth, improved regional productivity, job creation, and increased domestic capital investment. Regional centers aggregate investments from foreign nationals seeking a green card in exchange for investing in the U.S. economy.
Currently, there is no specific form used for RC applications. The USCIS has proposed the new form, Form I-924, Application for Regional Center Under the Immigrant Investor Pilot Program, in hopes to clarify the filing requirements for RC designation and alleviate inconsistencies in RC applications. The new proposals will be sent to the California Service Center in Laguna Niguel, California.
The proposed filing fee for the Form I-924 is $6245 and a supplement (Supplement A) will be required to be submitted each year. This supplement provides the USCIS updates about the RC and addresses reporting requirements. RC re-designation will be required every five (5) years. Please note that any amendments that need to be made (for example, if there are changes to the investments being made) will also be submitted via Form I-924.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this new form. We will be posting again when there are updates to provide.
Tags: EB-5, Form I-924, investor, Regional Center, Supplement A
Posted in Immigrant Visas, USCIS | Read More »
How do I set up an EB-5 Regional Center?
EB-5 regional centers are designated by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”). A regional center is defined as an economic unit, public or private, involved in the promotion of economic growth, improved regional productivity, job creation, and increased domestic capital investment. The number of EB-5 regional centers has more than doubled in the last two years, likely due to the struggling U.S. economy and the resulting investment opportunities for foreign nationals.
Each enterprise wishing to receive regional center designation must submit a proposal to the USCIS which:
1. Clearly describes how the regional center focuses on a specific geographic region of the U.S., and how it will promote economic growth through increased export sales, improved regional productivity, job creation, and increased domestic capital investment;
2. Provides in verifiable detail how ten jobs per investor will be created directly or indirectly;
3. Provides a detailed statement regarding the amount and source of capital which has been committed to the regional center, as well as a description of the promotional efforts taken and planned by the sponsors of the regional center;
4. Contains a detailed prediction regarding the manner in which the regional center will have a positive impact on the regional or national economy in general; and
5. Is supported by economically or statistically valid forecasting tools, including, but not limited to, feasibility studies, analyses of foreign and domestic markets for the goods or services to be exported, and/or multiplier tables.
A regional center proposal will typically include copies of the enterprise’s organizational documents, capital investment offering memoranda, and transfer of capital mechanisms for the transfer of the foreign national investor’s capital into the job creating enterprise.
There is currently no form or filing fee for submitting a regional center proposal, although a filing fee and specific form has recently been proposed. The USCIS shall notify the regional center of its decision typically within six months. Once approved, the regional center must continue to promote economic growth as described in #1 above or it will receive from USCIS a notice of intent to terminate the regional center designation.
Please contact our immigration law firm if you are interested in establishing an EB-5 Regional Center.
Tags: EB-5 regional center, investor green card, investor visa, Targeted Employment Area, TEA
Posted in Uncategorized | Read More »
Guest Post: A K-1 Interview Story from One of Our Clients
Felipe da Silva (not his real name) is a Brazilian client of our firm who recently was approved for a K-1 fiance visa. With Felipe’s consent, we are publishing his email to us describing the interview process. We are very happy for Felipe and his American bride, and wish them all the best!
I left home at 5:30, it was still dark! I got to the US consulate at 6:45 and there were 5 girls waiting in line with their Americans fiancés. At 7:15 other 4 girls got in line and I felt awkward… 9 girls that apparently knew each other from a website, talking, and talking, and talking… I was the only guy.
We went to the second floor and a woman made the first check on my documents… Everything was nice and easy, because my lawyer ROCKS!!! She gave me a password, and I got to be the second one, thanks for our organization. They made me wait at a room with the others, and I started to imagine if they keep an eye on that room… I tried to make a conversation with some them, but it was too early, and it is impossible for a man to follow the conversation of 6 or 7 worried girls at that time of the day.
Almost an hour later, they call me in a private room, and I gave him all my documents. He asked me if it was me who fill in all the forms… I said no, “it was my lawyer!”… “Have you double checked all the information?”… Yes sir, 5 times only in the last hour!”… He laughed, gave me a few documents back, that he said was unnecessary and I was dismissed…
Back to the waiting room… I had to wait for all the girls to do the same thing… Another hour has passed when the first password was called to the Consul’s room. The funny part is that Americans are not allowed in that room, only the Brazilians. I got called to the Consul’s office, and he nicely asked me to sit down. He was about 32 years old. An older skinny woman was sitting behind, but she never looked at me, and stayed the whole time taking notes… He spoke something to her, but the microphone was turned off… Finally he said good morning and made me swear that I would only speak the truth.
The whole interview was in Portuguese and felt like he was trying to see if I was really me… Almost all the questions were about me. Where I studied, where I lived, where I worked… questions about my family and older visas. He knew that my father used to be a lieutenant, and asked me if I had any army training. He knew that my brother went to U.S. before me, and asked me if he was still living there. I tried to answer everything objectively and with conviction. The only question that he asked was “how you met you fiancé”. I told him the story… he laughed and said “Jack in the Box??? Your kids will love fast food”… “Ok, your visa is approved”… The whole thing took less than 10 minutes.
THANK YOU ALL for you hard work… I am really happy! And I’ll personally Brazilian handshake you when I move to SF…
Tags: Brazil, fiance, immigration, K-1 interview, K-1 visa, U.S. consulate, visa interview
Posted in Guest Posts | Read More »
Do I qualify for the EB-5 category?
The EB-5 category is used by foreign investors who desire to live in the U.S. permanently (in “green card” status). In general, the applicant must invest a minimum $1 million into a new commercial enterprise that will or does employ 10 full-time U.S. citizens or green card holders. The applicant must engage in the new enterprise through day-to-day management or policy formation.
There are two alternatives to the $1 million requirement. The first is if the applicant is investing in a targeted rural area plagued by unemployment. In that case, the investment must be a minimum of $500,000. The second alternative is to invest in an already-established Regional Center for a minimum of $500,000.
The EB-5 category has grown increasingly popular over the recent years perhaps due to the struggling U.S. economy and the ensuing opportunities for investment. The USCIS recently held a stakeholders meeting to discuss the EB-5 category and reported that 955 applications out of 1100 have been approved in FY2010 (i.e. since October 1, 2009 to the present). Some applications remaining pending and only a small percentage have been denied. This means that the USCIS is seeing value in these investments and this category.
If you or someone you know would like to discuss the possibility of obtaining EB-5 status, please don’t hesitate to contact our immigration law firm.
Tags: $1 million, EB-5, green card, investment, investor, Regional Center
Posted in FAQ - EB-5, Immigrant Visas | Read More »
Harvard Student At Risk of Deportation
Eric Balderas is an immigrant success story. Originally from Mexico, Eric grew up in the U.S., graduated as valedictorian from his high school in San Antonio, and now attends Harvard as an undergraduate on a full scholarship studying molecular biology. He aspires to be a cancer researcher one day.
And yet, under our immigration laws, Eric Balderas is deportable.
Eric is undocumented. He came here as a young child with his parents from Mexico, a country which he does not even remember. Recently caught by ICE, he is now in danger of being removed from the U.S.
See: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnk7spK92rmzC439rdIValXaBvxQD9G9CJJ00 for the full story.
Eric is the poster child for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act, as it is known. The bi-partisan DREAM Act, if enacted, would grant permanent resident status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as minors if they enroll either in school or in the military.
Why the DREAM Act has not yet passed continues to defy logic. What possible good can come from deporting someone brought here as a child, who, by virtue of having been raised here, is essentially American? I have yet to hear opponents of the DREAM Act articulate anything other than mean-spirited and nonsensical rhetoric in response to this question.
Tags: deporation, DREAM Act, eric balderas, immigrant, immigration reform, undocumented
Posted in immigration reform | Read More »
USCIS Proposes Fee Increases
USCIS announced a proposed fee increase today, designed to address a $200 million budget shortfall for the agency in the coming fiscal year. The proposed increase of approximately 10 percent would affect most petitions, and would leave applications for naturalization unaffected. A 45-day public comment period will follow.
As an attorney in the trenches, I regularly see the incredibly poor level of service that USCIS delivers to its “customers”. For instance, a company petitioning for an H-1B employee must already pay anywhere from $1570 to $2320 in filing fees, and it receives very little value for it.
Increasingly, what we see in the adjudication are burdensome and unnecessary requests for evidence; evidence that is irrelevant and/or already provided in the initial petition. For instance, recently, I received a request asking that I “prove” why a position for a staff scientist at a DNA sequencing start-up company qualifies as a professional occupation worthy of an H-1B. In that case, the scientist in question has a degree in molecular cell biology from a U.S. university and is spending 100% of their time on scientific research.
It’s bad enough that in this era of declining applications, USCIS feels that it must make busy work for its under-employed contractors by encouraging those contractors to waste the petitioners’ time and money with unnecessary requests for more evidence. Now they expect petitioners to have to pay ten percent more for this “service”? Where I come from, they call that serious chutzpah.
Tags: fee increase, filing fee, H-1B, immigration, USCIS
Posted in Alerts | Read More »
