Last week, from June 12-15, 2024, Kolko and Casey, P.C. Senior Associate Attorneys Petula McShiras and Andrea Sweeney, attended the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois where they attended various panels on business immigration, family immigration, and humanitarian immigration. They also participated in open forums with the U.S. government agencies, such as U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Department of...

  On January 31, 2024, USCIS published a fee rule, increasing the fees on most applications, adding an Asylum Program fee for certain applications, and creating a fee structure for certain employment-based applications, based on the type of organization or the size of the organization. These new fees took effect on April 1, 2024, and can be confusing to understand. This blog will break down some of the FAQs on the...

On December 21, 2023, the Department of State finally announced the launch of its Stateside Renewal Visa Program. With this program, a limited number of H-1B status and visa holders can renew their visas within the United States without having to travel outside of the United States. At this time, the pilot program is available only to H-1B visa renewals for individuals who previously applied for their H-1B visa in India...

On October 20, 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the H-1B Specialty Occupation Program. With these proposed rules, DHS hopes to modernize the program “by streamlining eligibility requirements, improving program efficiency, providing greater benefits and flexibilities for employers and workers, and strengthening integrity measures.” The 94-page NPRM revises much of the H-1B program from start to finish, including the registration process...

On July 7, 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the implementation of a new Family Reunification Parole (FRP) process for nationals from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who have approved I-130s filed by U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) family members in the United States. These countries join Cuba and Haiti, who already have FRP processes in place since 2007, and 2014 respectively. For the past...