If your company is considering an EB-2 or EB-1 permanent residence application for key employees, we urge you to contact our office as soon as possible.  Our attorneys can guide you to the most advantageous filing status and strategy for the employee.

Vanderbilt’s article

The Magic of Mandamus

If your company has expansion plans, or just needs to hire from abroad this fall, now is the time to give us a call.  We will assess the company’s needs and determine the best visa category for the foreign hire based on the job requirements and the potential employee’s qualifications.  Often that will be the H-1B visa status.  Therefore, we urge employers to be ready to file H-1B petitions on April 1, 2012, the first day that new H-1B petitions can be filed for an October 1, 2012 start date.  This is also true for companies with employees in F-1 Optional Practical Training status.  This will be the best (perhaps only) opportunity to bring those bright young minds into a longer-term work authorized status for your company.

Please give us a call if you are considering any hires this fall – we stand ready to help with the H-1B “rush” as the U.S. economy improves.

In his State of the Union Address on January 25, 2012, President Obama made some bold pronouncements about changes to the U.S. immigration laws. One particular idea is generating a lot of interest: his proposal to issue employment authorization to the spouses of H-1B workers who are affected by the visa backlog.  President Obama proposed this measure in an effort to stop the flight from the U.S. of highly educated and skilled workers during the long wait for visas in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories. Currently, some workers are subject to a visa wait ranging from six to ten years (and longer).

For now, the proposal includes only spouses of H-1B workers in their 7th or subsequent year(s) of H-1B status who are waiting to apply for adjustment based on an approved Labor Certification and/or I-140 Immigrant Petition. NOTE: This is just a proposed measure. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is expected to issue in March 2012 to define further the parameters of H-4 employment authorization. Rest assured, the attorneys at Rose Immigration Law Firm, PLC will keep employers and employees fully informed of progress in this area, so be sure to check back in March!

A mandamus action is filed to compel a government agency to act according to its mandate under the law. It is a last resort action by citizens and corporations against government inaction.

We are happy to report that the mandamus complaints prepared and filed by Rose Immigration Law Firm to date have been highly successful in prompting DOL to issue the needed prevailing wage determinations.  This has allowed our clients’ cases to move forward.

For more information on the reasons behind this unreasonable government delay, please see our accompanying article here.

The proposed rule change would mostly benefit the spouses and parents of adult U.S. citizens who entered the United States without permission and who have remained in the United States without permission for more than six months.  In many cases, the law requires the applicant to apply for an immigrant visa abroad, and then to wait for the immigration service to make a decision on their application to waive the ground of inadmissibility that results from previous unlawful presence.  If finalized, the proposed rule will allow waivers to be provisionally adjudicated in the United States before the applicant is required to report to an interview at the U.S. consulate in his or her home country.  This proposed rule has the potential to provide greater assurance that the family will be reunited and drastically reduce the amount of time families are separated.