U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued clarifying regulations today, explaining how exactly the H1B application process will be handled this year. Some important changes have been announced to the process, including the benefit of having five business days to file the petition even if the cap runs out on the first day, prohibition on filing of multiple petitions by the same employer for the same employee, explanation of the Master’s cap and a clarification on the Premium Processing rules.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), anticipates that April 1, 2008 will see a repeat of the mass filings from last year. With this expectation USCIS has published this list of measures the petitioner can take to ensure that their petition is correctly filed.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a statement showing the common errors leading to petition rejections or denials. This is a list of the most frequently seen and easily cured mistakes.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will soon issue an interim final regulation that will prohibit employers from filing more than one H1B petition on behalf of a single foreign national. The regulation is now being reviewed by federal authorities and is expected to be made public in time for the start of the Fiscal Year 2009 filing season on April 1.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has temporarily suspended Premium Processing Service for I129 petitions seeking R1 nonimmigrant visa classification filed with the USCIS.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that President Bush has signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY 2005, which contains provisions affecting the H1B and L nonimmigrant visa categories. Both the H1B and L programs allow U.S. employers to sponsor temporary foreign workers.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has notified the procedure for processing H1B petitions for new employment, which are subject to the H1B cap, and filed by employers seeking to employ H1B aliens on or before September 30, 2005.

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued an interim rule with request for comments regarding the new H1B1 visa category applicable to nationals of Chile and Singapore. The employers seeking to temporarily employ foreign professionals in specialty occupations through H1B1 visas must file a labor attestation with the Department of Labor.

The Fiscal Year 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill was approved by both the House and Senate on November 20, 2004. The Bill introduces many changes in the existing provisions relating to work visas, such as: restoration of OneYear experience requirement for L1 Blanket entrants; reinstitution of H1B Fee and H1B Dependent attestations, Introduction of a new AntiFraud Fee on L1s and H1Bs; and opening up more H1Bs for certain applicants.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received H2B petitions for 33,153 beneficiaries counting against the statutory visa cap for fiscal year 2005 (October 1, 2004 through September 30, 2005). The fiscal year 2005 statutory visa cap is 66,000.

The Department of Homeland Security has published a final rule amending the Department's regulations by adding Actuaries and Plant Pathologists to Appendix 1603.D.1 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and by modifying the licensure requirements for Canadian citizens seeking admission to the United States as "trade NAFTA" (TN) nonimmigrant aliens. This final rule is effective November 12, 2004

The USCIS has received enough H1B petitions to meet this year's congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 workers. After today, USCIS will not accept any new H1B petitions for firsttime employment subject to the FY 2004 annual cap.

The Department of Labor has issued supplemental guidance for Labor Certification Process for temporary employment of nonimmigrant workers in the US (H2B Workers), FY 2005.

USCIS has announced that it has received 45,900 H1B petitions that will count against the Congressionallymandated cap for fiscal year 2005 (October 1, 2004 through September 30, 2005). The limit in fiscal year 2005 is 65,000.