News and Info

USCIS has announced that as of December 21, 2009, the annual H-1B quota for the current fiscal year (FY2010) had been reached. The Service will reject cap-subject H-1B petitions received after December 21, 2009. Petitions received on December 21, 2009, will be subject to a computerized lottery to determine which will be accepted for the current fiscal year.

In recent weeks, USCIS has reportedly begun to issue an increased number of requests for further evidence (RFEs) for small companies petitioning for prospective H-1B employees. The RFEs question whether the duties for such H-1Bs are professional (vs. merely clerical), the need for a full-time professional, and they request detailed evidence regarding the existence of the petitioning company.

Each year, the US Department of State conducts a lottery to make “diversity visas” available to nationals of countries with relatively low US immigration rates. The Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program (also known as the Green Card Lottery) makes legal permanent residence in the US (green cards) available to eligible applicants. DV-2011 registration opens Friday, October 2, 2009, and closes Monday, November 30, 2009.

DV-2010 Diversity Visa Lottery (Green Card Lottery) applicants can now check the status of their applications on the Department of State DV Lottery Web Site using the confirmation number received when submitting their DV-2010 applications.

Citizens of countries that have been removed from the new J-1 Skills List are no longer subject to the Section 212(e) Home Residency Requirement, if they had been subject previously based on the Skills List. However, if an individual skill has been removed from the list (as opposed to the country itself), a person subject to the 212(e) requirement is not relieved of that obligation.

On June 30, 2009, CDC will publish a proposed Rule to Remove HIV infection from the List of Communicable Diseases of Public Health Significance. The proposed rule eliminates HIV from the List of Communicable Diseases of Public Health Significance and removes HIV testing from discretionary and mandatory medical examinations.