Green Card & Visa News » U S Department

Issuance of Prevailing Wage Requests Resumed

Tushar Mathur — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:20:00 +0000

The U.S. Department of Labor has resumed issuance of Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) after a few weeks of suspension of the service. PWD is required in all PERM foreign labor application cases and is also used in other non-immigrant visa petitions such as H-1Bs and H-2Bs. Recently, the service was suspended by the Labor Department temporarily in order for the agency to meet the requirements of a federal court order to process thousands of H-2B PWDs.

EB-2 Advancement in May 2011 Visa Bulletin Expected

Tushar Mathur — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:50:00 +0000

AILA has obtained information from Charlie Oppenheim, Chief, Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division, U.S. Department of State, that the EB-2 category will likely advance in May’s Visa Bulletin due to the recent decrease in demand for EB-1 visa numbers. According to Mr. Oppenheim, there will be at least 12,000 additional numbers available to the EB-2 category in May. Finally there is some good news for EB-2 India and China.

Poverty Guidelines for 2011 for I-864

Tushar Mathur — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:08:00 +0000

An intending immigrant must prove to the U.S. government that he or she will not become a “public charge” after immigration. In other words, proof that there is sufficient financial support is one of the many requirements for a person to obtain a U.S. green card. In all family petitions, the petitioner must promise under oath that the beneficiary immigrant will not become a financial burden of the U.S. by completing a Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. The only exception is if the beneficiary has already completed 40 quarters of work in the U.S. The petitioner (also the financial sponsor) must demonstrate in I-864 an income of at least 125 percent of the current poverty level for the his or her household size, plus the beneficiary immigrant(s).

What if the petitioner cannot meet the I-864 requirements? Another person may act as a joint sponsor if the petitioner does not have the required financial resources. Both petitioner and the beneficiary may also use their assets such as real estate, stocks, bonds, cash, etc., to meet the I-864 requirements.

How do we know what the poverty guidelines are? It is the job of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to publish poverty guidelines for the public every year. The 2011 guidelines have just been published, and they are listed below.

Size of Household	48 Contiguous States, D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam & CNMI	Alaska	Hawaii
125% of Poverty Line
2	18,387	22,975	21,162
3	23,162	28,950	26,650
4	27,937	34,925	32,137
5	32,712	40,900	37,625
6	37,487	46,875	43,112
7	42,262	52,850	48,600
8	47,037	58,825	54,087
	Add $4,775 for each additional person	Add $5,975 for each additional person	Add $5,487 for each additional person

Seattle Immigration Lawyer | Intro to Getting a Green Card Through Employment

Tushar Mathur — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 06:44:00 +0000

This will be the first of several blog posts covering employment-based immigrant visas—the route to a green card through employment. Only 140,000 immigrant visas are made available per year for immigrants, along with their spouses and children, who wish to immigrate based on their job skills. On top of that, there is a quota that limits every country to seven percent of the available green cards every year. (There is no quota for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.) And, several categories (known as “preferences”) of employment-based immigrant visa petitions require that the sponsoring employer file a labor certification application with the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) before filing a visa petition. As I will discuss later, some preferences require an employer sponsor while others permit the immigrant to self-petition.

Make no mistake, acquiring permanent residency through a job is a long process—in fact, it often takes years. If your goal is to obtain a green card through your job or offer of employment, there is rarely anything to be gained from waiting to begin the process. An experienced immigration attorney can advise you or your employer, based on your specific circumstances, as to which visa petition to file, where to file (in the U.S. or abroad), on the labor certification process (if applicable), and in designing an immigration strategy to keep you in lawful status throughout the long process, so you remain eligible for a green card.

If the visa preference you are applying under requires labor certification, then this is the first step. Assuming the certification is granted by DOL, the next step is to file the immigrant visa petition with USCIS. Once USCIS approves the immigrant visa petition, the Department of State still must issue an immigrant visa number to you in order for you to qualify to apply to adjust your status to permanent resident. Sometimes it takes years from when USCIS approves your visa petition to when you are issued an immigrant visa number. Recall that, by law, the number of immigrant visas for each country is restricted—thus if your country of origin is one in which there are a lot of other people applying for U.S. immigrant visas then you will be waiting longer. An immigration attorney can advise you on the delays to expect and in formulating a visa strategy.

Also, for some preferences, the availability of an immigrant visa number depends on the priority date. In this context, the priority date is determined by your country of birth and the preference you are applying under. Once your priority date is current, there is no waiting period. For cases where labor certification is required, your priority date is set by that process. For the EB-1/National Interest Waiver preference, the priority date is when the I-140 immigrant worker visa petition was received by USCIS. To check whether your priority date is current, look at the monthly Visa Bulletin issued by the State Department.

Stay tuned for my next few Seattle Immigration Lawyer Blog posts, which will look at labor certification and the different employment visa preferences.

Diversity Visa Lottery- things you must know

Tushar Mathur — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:31:14 +0000

There are nearly fifty five thousand individual who applies for permanent residency in United States. There is no guarantee that winning the Diversity Visa Lottery will give you the permanent residence visa. You are required to full fill certain requirements and pass screening test taken by authorities overseeing lottery for green card or Diversity visa lottery.

Diversity visa lottery is also popularly known as Green card Lottery that puts certain requirement before an individual applicant before his/her permanent residency is approved. One such requirement is that person winning the Diversity visa lottery should be able to present his/her confirmation page information. The information required by winner for Green card lottery can be easily obtained from websites. The only constrained is that information available is up to June 30, 2010.

All winning candidate of the diversity visa lottery received notifications and results through individual mails at their mailing address. Normally the winner receives mails between the period of May and June. All notification is done through official government letters and emails are no way used for such notifications. Official government letters holds seal of U.S Department of state Kentucky consular centre. This letter contains the necessary details and direction that helps in supplementing other requirements. Applicants are informed about the other important forms or documents and fees of immigrant application that has to be handed over.

Between the months of October to September, winners of Lottery for green card are issued Visas. It is very important for applicants to obtain their diversity visa or modify status before the end of current fiscal year.

All those who were not lucky enough to qualify for the green cards would not be given any sort of regret notification. For all those unlucky applicants, the E-DV website is now available which helps them in assessing their status online.

So, who all are interested for lottery for Green card, the application process will open on October, 2010. Get ready with your document because you never know you may be the lucky one out of fifty five thousand.

Pandemic Policy in the United States

Tushar Mathur — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:19:15 +0000

The under mentioned is in relation to the recent H1N1 virus influenza. The United States government has been ever focused on the health and the well being of the citizens of the United States. The government accepts the fact that there is a huge possibility of the H1N1 virus taking a more ugly shape in the days to come there fore they have already started taking adequate precautions post the declaration of the declaration of the Phase Six Pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).

People who are planning to travel to the United States or people already staying in the United States are advised to look in to the websites such as HHS/CDC website, WHO website, and the U.S. Department of State website, to educate themselves before they plan to visit a country that has recorded an out break of the H1N1 virus influenza. This is also referred to as “Swine flu”. The United States government has also requested people to consider cancellation of all trips abroad to ensure that they are not caught up in the pandemic or they are not aiding to spread the same. The US government is currently working of the preparation of vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 Virus.

The United States government has decided to ask the entire US non emergency government officials staying in the regions of the world to come back to the United States while there is local transportation still available.

As far as the issuance of the visas are concerned for the aliens in to the United States territory. They would only be considered post medical verification in to the United States at the point of entry or exit.

As per the US Government the assistance to the private American citizens who remained abroad would certainly be limited. However they would be kept in touch with and they are appealed to understand that in case such Americans are detected and have been detained for such reasons, outside the borders of America, it might not be possible for the American government to claim their immediate return to the United States which could be against the local medical policies. The same would apply to the foreign travelers who would be a suspected H1N1 virus carrier.

However there have been such appeals to citizens from all countries. And the responses have been good as well. The bottom line is to ensure that the pandemic does not take a shape which is uglier than it already is.