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USCIS Updates Age Calculation Under Child Status Protection Act

Effective immediately, USCIS issued guidance in its Policy Manual to update when an immigrant visa “becomes available” for the purpose of calculating a noncitizen child’s age under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA). Under this new guidance, USCIS will now use the “Dates for Filing” chart to calculate a child’s age for CSPA purposes. Under the previous CSPA guidance, USCIS considered a visa available based only on the “Final Action Date” chart, even if an individual could apply for adjustment of status using the earlier date in the “Dates for Filing” chart.   This update in USCIS’ policy guidance applies to pending...

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June Visa Bulletin Update

Visa Bulletin Update Rapid Forward Movements in FINAL ACTION DATE CHART Benjamin Brueggemann, Senior Supervising Attorney We have seen rapid forward movements in the major employment-based categories, EB-2 and EB-3, over the past few months.  This is a direct result of the record number of visas available this fiscal year.  We remind the reader that the U.S. Department of State announced that 261,500 visas are available this fiscal year, as opposed to the regular allotment of 140,000 visa.  This is an increase of 120,000 visa.    The first half of the fiscal year, we have not seen as many adjudications of adjustment of status applications or consular processing of immigrant visas. ...

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Adjustment of Status Processing (January 2021)

Michelle A. Choe, Attorney  In September of 2020, the October visa bulletin was released which aggressively advanced the filing dates for the EB-3 category in India and China. This significant movement caused USCIS to receive an influx of I-140 downgrade petitions and Adjustment of Status applications. The USCIS received more applications than it could handle in a reasonable time. As a result, our office is still waiting on receipt notices for cases that were filed in October 2020. On December 15, 2020, The USCIS issued a statement that confirmed it is still experiencing delays in issuing receipt notices for filed petitions and applications. Although the statement asserts that the receipt notices should be issued within 30 days of the filing, our office is expecting a 60–90-day delay. In addition to delays in issuing receipt notices, we...

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