Immigration Law Blog

The Department of Homeland Security has suspended New Yorkers from Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler programs in a letter to the New York Department of Motor Vehicles dated February 5, 2020.

DHS contends that New York’s new Driver’s License Privacy Act (“the Act”) will cause homeland risk and has therefore taken immediate action in response - affecting New Yorker’s eligibility for Trusted Traveler Programs and Vehicle Exports, including the following:

• New York residents will no longer be eligible to enroll or re-enroll in CBP’s Trusted Traveler Programs, specifically Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST (TTP accelerates processing into the United States from international destinations under Global Entry; for Canada only – under NEXUS; for Canada and Mexico only – under SENTRI; and quicker processing under FAST for commercial truck drivers entering/exiting the U.S.).

• Exporting used New York-titled and registered vehicles will be drastically delayed and might also become costlier.

On Friday, December 6, 2019, USCIS announced its implementation of its new H-1B lottery registration process after a successful pilot testing phase.  Employers will now need to first register electronically and remit a $10 registration fee when filing H-1B Cap-subject (including Cap-subject advanced degree exemption) petitions for FY (Fiscal Year) 2021.

USCIS will open an initial registration period starting March 1st and ending March 20, 2020.  This process will require employers to provide basic information about their company and each H-1B Cap candidate.  Thereafter the H-1B random selection process, if necessary, will be run on the H-1B Cap candidates that have been electronically registered.  Instead of preparing and submitting a full petition for all H-1B Cap candidates, only selected registrants who are eligible to file will be required to submit the full H-1B Cap-subject petitions to USCIS.

An advance copy of a notice of proposed rulemaking requiring petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions to pay a $10 fee for each electronic registration submitted to USCIS for H-1B cap selection was released by USCIS on September 3, 2019 and published in the Federal Register on September 4, 2019. 

DHS published a final rule on January 31, 2019 requiring petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions, including eligible petitioners for the advanced degree exemption, to electronically register first with USCIS during a designated registration period unless the requirement was temporarily suspended.  If registration is required, only those H-1B candidates selected will be eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition.  The final rule became effective on April 1, 2019 but USCIS suspended the registration requirement for the fiscal year (FY) 2020 cap filing season.

On June 7, 2019, USCIS updated the fee payment system used in New York Field Offices, including offices in New York City, Brooklyn, Long Island, and Queens, and fully replaced the older fee payment system that was previously used.  Applicants will no longer be able to pay fees by money order or cashier’s check, and the only acceptable forms of payment using the new system are:

• Debit card;
• Credit card;
• Reloadable prepaid credit or debit card;
• Personal check;
• Business check; or
• Attorney check.

In order to decrease location-based disparities in the processing times for Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, and Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, USCIS will start transferring cases to field offices outside their normal jurisdiction for more efficient adjudication.
Read more . . .

The Department of State revised its immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms to now request social media identifiers.  Specifically, in addition to information already requested on visa applications, such as travel history, family member information, and previous addresses, most U.S. visa applicants worldwide will now be required to also provide details regarding names or “handles” used on social media platforms (i.e.
Read more . . .