Immigration - Page 5 of 14

USCIS Announces Expansion of Premium Processing

While U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) made clear that it would not be increasing the $2,500 premium processing fee in its latest round of proposed fee increases, the agency announced on January 12 its final phase of premium processing expansion for EB-1 and EB-2 Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers.

Beginning January 30, 2023, USCIS will accept Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service for all EB-1 multinational executive and manager petitions and all EB-2 national interest waiver (NIW) petitions. Notably, unlike previous phases of premium processing expansion, this phase applies to all petitions, both new (initial) and previously filed (pending) under the EB-1 multinational executive and manager petitions and all EB-2 NIW categories.

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USCIS Proposes Rule to Increase Certain Immigration Fees

Earlier this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposing to increase the filing fees for certain immigration and naturalization benefit requests, with employment-based petitions undoubtedly seeing the greatest increase across the board.

USCIS hosted a public engagement session on the proposed fee rule on January 11, in which Director Ur M. Jaddou emphasized that fees have remained unchanged since 2016 and cited several reasons for the fee increases: covering higher costs due to inflation, avoiding any future backlogs, improving the use of technology, improving customer service, and reducing processing time. She further noted that USCIS is making a conscious decision to limit the naturalization application fee increase to less than 5% in an ongoing effort to encourage legal permanent residents to pursue naturalization and that USCIS intends to expand fee waiver categories. The proposed rule would generate an additional $1.9 billion in fee-based revenue per year for USCIS, with the intended net result of minimally increasing fees for approximately one million filers each year. However, for employers who routinely sponsor nonimmigrant and immigrant workers, the increased fees pose a significant cost.

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How to Become a Scale-Up Worker Sponsor

The U.K. government has launched a new immigration route, the Scale-Up Worker visa. The route will allow the employer access to a cost- and time-effective means of hiring highly skilled foreign nationals, without necessarily committing to a long-term contract, and it will allow the employee the freedom to change employers without risking their immigration status in the U.K. This article will provide a brief explanation of how an organisation can become eligible to sponsor individuals/employees through this route.

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Statement of Changes, October 18, 2022 – Points of Interest

The Home Office released its most recent “Statement of Changes” on 18 October 2022. Whilst there are no major, over-arching changes being introduced, as we have seen in previous versions of the statement, there are still a number of announcements that will be of interest and significance to those individuals it applies to.

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Food and Ag Industry: Know Your Visa Options and Immigration Strategies

This article was originally published January 21, 2020, and has been updated as of August 2022.

The food and agribusiness industry includes farms, restaurants and food manufacturing, processing and storage facilities. Companies within the food and agribusiness industry seek to employ talented professionals, such as research scientists, supply chain professionals, veterinarians and engineers, to bring food to the table in a changing world. With a focus on talent, food and agribusiness companies must understand the employment-based immigration factors that affect their U.S. workforces, as talented job candidates come from all over the world. Especially in periods of low unemployment, food and agribusiness companies need to be as competitive as possible in recruiting, hiring and retaining top-level talent.

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Immigration Update: April 2022 — Uniting for Ukraine

Since our previous article on March 28, 2022, approximately 5.1 million Ukrainians have left the country and another 6.5 million have been displaced from their homes, but are still in Ukraine. The United States has taken some additional steps to assist in this crisis.

For the full alert, visit the Faegre Drinker website.