Posts Tagged ‘Alejandro Mayorkas’
Rise in Visa Denials for Artists Angers Hollywood
The Los Angeles Times ran an article on August 10th discussing increased visa denials and processing delays for artists that have caused an outcry from Hollywood. Every year, across the entertainment industry, leading foreign national artists hold U.S. performances or participate in them. The last year has seen a spike in visa denials and delays from the USCIS’ California Service Center, which processes visa petitions for artists. As a result of this spike, performance centers, festivals and individual and group artists have had to cancel performances.
Hollywood’s anger has reached Congress and the White House. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Director of the USCIS, has agreed to investigate this issue. To read the full LA Times article, see: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/10/local/la-me-workvisa-20100810.
Tags: Alejandro Mayorkas, artists, Hollywood, O visa, P visa
Posted in Nonimmigrant Visas, Politics/Current Events | Read More »
USCIS Fee Hike?
The Associated Press just reported today that USCIS is considering raising its fees for immigration-related benefits due to a shortfall in revenue. Head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Alejandro Mayorkas was quoted in Los Angeles today saying that a fee hike could happen in the next two years. Is Mr. Mayorkas kidding? Instituting another fee hike would be incredible chutzpah on the agency’s part. It was only in 2007 when the last fee hike went into effect, raising the filing fees on some petitions nearly three-fold. We were told then that the increased revenue would improve “customer service” and speed up processing times. Not only did USCIS not deliver on those promises, but in the last two years, service has become even more abysmal, and the adjudicators appear to be as poorly trained as ever. I have an idea for Mr. Mayorkas: if you’re looking to cut operating costs, consider banning your adjudicators from issuing burdensome and nonsensical Requests for Evidence (RFE’s). More often than not, these RFE’s ask for evidence already submitted in the initial petition; or worse, they invent criteria for adjudication that have absolutely nothing to do with the regulations. These RFE’s are issued with alarming regularity. I’m willing to bet that putting an end to this practice would save the agency millions of dollars.
Tags: Alejandro Mayorkas, fee hike, immigration, request for evidence, RFE, USCIS
Posted in USCIS | Read More »
