Recent Updates

We have learned through our AILA liaison that the USCIS has provided information regarding pending H1B petitions. USCIS historically accepts more petitions than it has numbers to account for denials, withdrawals, etc. Under the regular cap, USCIS accepted 71,000 petitions and under the master’s cap, USCIS accepted 22,000 petitions.

To date, 59,100 petitions under the regular cap have been approved and 9500 remain pending. 19,500 petitions under the master’s cap have been approved and 2100 remain pending. This accounts for 92% of the regular cap allotment being reached already and 97% of the master’s cap.

95% of the regular cap petitions have been touched and 94% of the master’s cap petitions have been touched. That leaves 3500 petitions untouched for the regular cap and 1400 untouched for the master’s cap. USCIS expects to get to all of them shortly, but it may not be by October 1.

Unfortunately this means that about 3,600 petitions may have passed through the first stage of getting receipted, but actually obtaining an approval may be impossible. Please contact our office if you require assistance with obtaining your h1b work visa.

When you have an immigration problem, how do you find the best immigration attorney to represent you?

It can be difficult to find the right attorney or immigration lawyer to guide you through the assortment of laws and regulations associated with immigration in the United States. There are just so many different services for legal representation available. Global Law Centers realizes you have options when selecting an immigration law firm and go the extra mile to ensure your path to obtaining a US work visa, or green card is a smooth one.

To make your transition easier, our office staff speaks English, Spanish, Farsi, Hindi, Tagalog, Urdu and Punjabi. Many of our international clients have expressed their satisfaction with these additional services that make immigration to the United States a simpler process. Read from our immigration testimonials page to read about the experiences of our past clients.

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Our immigration lawyer at Global Law Centers also brings years of experience to every legal matter we are involved with. From preparing h1b visa, TN visas, L visas to Fiancee & green card petitions you’ll soon see why we are the best immigration law firm in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Another reason we are one of the best immigration law firms is our versatility and speed. Most matters are efficiently filed by Global Law Centers within weeks, not months. As previously mentioned our services include, but are not limited to help with H1B, K1 and K3 fiancée visas, labor certification, and employment-based and family green cards.

Global Law Centers can also assist corporations and employees with business immigration. Whether you’re a hospital administrator that is interested in obtaining nurse immigrant visas to increase staff or an executive looking to recruit talent from abroad, we can help.

Visit GlobalLawCenters.com or call us at 1-800-605-5801 to find out what makes us the best immigration attorney services operating in Orange County and Los Angeles.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently completed a multi-year redesign of the naturalization test. The major goal of the redesign process is to ensure that naturalization applicants have uniform, consistent testing experiences nationwide, and to provide a fair and meaningful naturalization process. The USCIS believes that the newly designed test will help encourage citizenship applicants to learn and identify with the basic values we all share as Americans.

To accomplish their goals, USCIS piloted a new test with an overhauled English reading and writing section, as well as new history and government questions in several sites across the country. The feedback from the pilot program was used to finalize testing procedures, reading and writing prompts and new history and government questions. While it sounds as if the changes are drastic they are pretty slight with only the format of the questions asking now about US History as opposed to daily living.

Naturalization applicants will begin taking the redesigned test on October 1, 2008.

Many persons have been reporting difficulties in obtaining information regarding their pending I-765 applications (EAD). Unfortunately, due to last years mayhem with the announcement of the July 2007 Visa Bulletin, many applicants are seeing long delays before they get their employment authorization cards.

Pursuant to 8 CFR § 274a.13, USCIS must adjudicate EAD applications within 90 days from the date of USCIS receipt of the application. This however has not been the case as the Nebraska Service Center is only reporting processing times current as of March 2008. That’s almost 6 months (180 days) delay outside of standard processing for these typed of petitions.

The CIS Ombudsman has been receiving numerous inquiries from customers about EAD applications pending more than 90 days. In order to address these concerns the Ombudsman has released the below information to help those in need of the EAD

Step 1- Call USCIS National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at 1-(800) 375-5283 and record the time/date of the call and the name/number of the customer service representative, Explain to the customer service representative that your EAD has been pending more than 90 days and ask for a “service request.” You should receive a response to your service request within a week. Ask the customer service representative to request an interim card for you. You should receive an EAD or response within a week.

Step 2- if you choose to visit a local USCIS office, schedule an INFOPASS appointment to visit that office

Step 3- If you have tried both Step 1 and Step 2 and have still not received your EAD or an interim card, please include the date and time of your call to the NCSC and the name of the customer service representative.

More delays have been reported today on bills intended to increase nurse visas (green cards) and recapture wasted immigrant visa numbers t. HR 6020, a bill to improve visa processing for soldiers and their families did pass and that’s certainly great news. Unfortunately, HR 6020 took the limelight as there were so many amendment proposals on that bill that there was no time for anything else. There is still no word yet on when the committee will reconvene.

Why do we have such a major employment based immigrant visa backlog? According to the Immigration policy center each year, the Department of Homeland Security fails to issue all of the “green cards” allocated for that year. Under current law, the visa numbers do not “roll over” to the next year and the unused visas are lost. Unused or lost visa numbers result in longer delays for US citizens or legal residents to reunite with a close family member or in a delay for a US business to get a needed worker.

H.R. 5882 is a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by House Immigration Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). This modest piece of legislation would simply permit the “recapture” or use of visas that have gone unused in past years due to bureaucratic delays. The visas would be issued to qualified family-based or employment-based legal immigrants.

Irvine is the heart of business and technology in Southern California. With one of the highest costs of living in the United States, it is a home for high-level business executives and entrepreneurs. But Irvine doesn’t run on just money alone, it requires a whole lot of talent from outside sources.

Often talent can be found to work in tech and medical fields for less by finding someone with experience working overseas. Often companies in Irvine will pay for all of an employee’s labor certification and immigration visa fees to ensure they get a hardworking, knowledgeable employee. But they can’t do it all alone. They need the help of an experienced immigration lawyer serving the Irvine area.

An immigration lawyer in Irvine can help with processing, filing, or answering any legal questions a business owner or executive may have about immigration law & work visas. For example, an immigration lawyer or attorney could answer questions about the appropriate length of stay for an alien and whether or not they can apply for permanent or temporary residence in the United States.

One of the business immigration law firms experienced in assisting employees with green card & naturalization in the United States is Global Law Centers. They have thorough understanding of H1B visas, fiancee visas, green cards, and almost any other employment immigration problem that could arise.

If you’re looking for an Irvine immigration lawyer, visit GlobalLawCenters.com. They are ready to serve you in English, Spanish, Farsi, Hindi, Tagalog, Urdu, and Punjabi. Visit their website for more information about an immigration lawyer serving Orange, Los Angeles County and Irvine.

The fifth employment based preference (EB5) category is designed specifically for Employment Creation.. To qualify, a foreign national must invest between $500,000 and $1,000,000.00 depending upon the employment rate in a specific geographical location. The national must invest in a commercial enterprise in the U.S. that will create at least 10 new jobs for U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or other lawful immigrants, not including the investor and his/her family. Accordingly, the regulation at 8 C.F.R. §204.6(j) states that to show that the petitioner has invested or is actively in the process of investing the required amount of capital, the petition must be accompanied by evidence that the petitioner has placed the required amount of capital at risk for the purpose of prospective investment arrangement entailing no present commitment, will not suffice to show that the petitioner is actively in the process of investing. The alien must show actual commitment of the required amount of capital. Regulations define Capital as cash, equipment, inventory, other tangible property, cash equivalents, and indebtedness secured by assets owned by the alien entrepreneur, provided that the alien entrepreneur is personally and primarily liable and that the assets of the new commercial enterprise upon which the petition is based are not used to secure any of the indebtedness. Additionally, the regulations define Invest as to contribute capital. A contribution of capital in exchange for a note, bond, convertible debt, obligation, or any other debt arrangement between the alien entrepreneur and the new commercial enterprise does not constitute a contribution of capital for the purposes of this part.

The Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) recently dismissed an appeal  in which the petitioner sought classification as an alien entrepreneur pursuant to section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The director of the Texas Service Center initially denied the petition because the petitioner failed to demonstrate a qualifying investment of lawfully obtained funds, and this appeal followed.

We recently reported that DHS Secretary Chertoff announced that USCIS will begin issuing Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) with a two-year validity period for a limited number of individuals who have applications for legal permanent residence status pending with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). On June 12, 2008, USCIS issued a addressing frequently asked questions regarding the eligibility requirements for the two year EAD. In summary the fact sheet states:

1. The two-year  EAD cards will be available to individuals with pending adjustment of status applications who have filed for an EAD and are currently unable to adjust their status to that of a permanent resident because an immigrant visa number is currently not available. Individuals with visa numbers that are available will continue to be granted EADs that are valid a one-year period.
2. USCIS expects to implement these new rules for issuing EADs on June 30, 2008.
3. Applicants who file for an initial EAD application with their adjustment of status application (Form I-485) will only receive a one-year EAD because such individuals can only file for adjustment of status if visa numbers are current. EAD Applicants are only eligible for a two-year EAD if their immigrant visa availability date retrogresses after their adjustment of status application is filed.
4. The USCIS will decide whether to issue a two-year EAD based upon the most recent Department of State Visa Bulletin.

Recently, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) issued a section-by-section analysis of the Visa Efficiency and E-Verify Extension Act of 2008. In summary this bill recaptures unused family based and employment based visas from fiscal years 1992 through 2007 and allows unused family and employment based visas in future years to automatically “roll over” to the next fiscal year. Although the maximum number of visas issued is mandated by law, the actual number of visas issued in a given year can be significantly lower based on processing or other bureaucratic delays. In order to ensure that all authorized visas are actually used, the Act permits calculation of the final number of visas available that takes into account unused visas from past years.  Additionally, the bill reauthorizes the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) electronic employment eligibility verification program known as “E-Verify.” The Act provides a 5 year extension of the voluntary program and it also includes provisions that ensure that DHS provide timely reimbursements to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for the resources utilized to maintain the E-Verify program.