Immigration Updates - August 2024

good evening this is SC already live from Houston Texas every Tuesday from 5:00 P p.m. to 6 p.m we bring in Immigration updates storm hurricane whatever it is uh but just before we go into it we are having a lot of technical problems if by any chance we get cut off please excuse us because uh Houston is facing a lot of electric issues uh internet issues so em what do we have today to discuss yeah today we want to talk about priority dates uh what is it why is it important what uh is the significance of it especially for employment-based immigration and the August 2024 Visa bullettin is out not a whole lot of good news in it a little bit of forward movement but not much what does that tell us about uh the future for those that already have a 485 pending um going back still to October 2020 we still have a lot of people there how much longer is it likely to take and what are your options right now if your date is current um and then we want to talk about eb1 um especially for India it is backlogged two years two and a half years now and it doesn't look to be getting any better um what do we see for that we've got some updated data from USCIS their inventory uh numbers came out again last week so we'll go through that and then what are your options when your AOS is pending for a very long time um what are some of the challenges people face with that um difficulties what you should be aware of how you can uh overcome those challenges and um continue your process to finally receive the green card on the employment base as everybody knows that when the labor certification has been filed the priority date will be established but until the i140 is approved it's not confirmed for the person that's one way the priority is established that means that let's say the labor perm labor certification has been filed in January of 2023 the i140 must be approved for the priority date to be confirmed this is from the perm labor most of the eb2 and eb3 fall into this particular criteria now when it comes to the eb1 eb1 category it is when the i140 has been filed of course it will be only confirmed when the i140 is approved and a lot of people get refused priority date is on the day the PM is being filed if we are using PM as the basis for filing the i140 application if you're filing a direct i140 which people may surprise what is direct i140 especially for eb1a EB eb1b and eb1c all eb1 categories we do not file p labor we directly file an i140 so it's on the day the i140 has been filed but will be only confirmed to to you if the i140 is approved if by any chance i140 is not approved not approved either in the perm or in the uh e eb1 category the priority date will not be confirmed to you there are very little exceptions for it but that's General long also when it comes to the eb2 National interest River where we don't need to file a home labor certification the priority date is established on the day the i140 has been filed and will be confirmed when the i1 140 has been approved these are the general Norms there are some very rare exceptions that are available why is this priority date important is when you are going to get the green card though uh what what they look into is Whoever has applied before will be allowed to apply for the green card for example if you're International and if you're wanting to file the adjustment of status in eb1 criteria then they look into they will every month the Visa and V published the date the date anybody before that date can file the 485 application anybody after that date cannot on the date or after that date cannot file the 485 application the same thing is true for eb2 and eb3 it's called final action date in some cases it is filing dates it's the Visa bulletin which the state department publishes so the earlier the priority date is established for you and conformed to you it is is better for you because in that way you have a chance of getting the green card faster sometimes now sometimes for example if the priority date was December 25th of 2014 and if the priority date was on January 1st of 2015 that makes a lot of difference sometimes it may even take one one decade difference just because the priority date is just one day or one week before that's how how crucial it is now I've seen time and time again people sometimes people miss out by a week or 10 days that's very sad to them but that is unfortunate truth Emily can you explain more about you know how the priority date is established is it then the labor is filed or labor is approved or is it i140 approved I believe yeah so your your actual priority date is going to be if you're filing a labor certification the day your labor certification is filed and if there's no labor certification then the day your i140 is filed so that establishes the actual date it's the filing date of either your labor or your i140 but that date does not actually become yours until your i140 gets approved so if your labor gets denied you don't have a priority date even though you know the date it was filed if your i140 ultimately gets denied you do not have that priority date you can't keep it for any future filing um so that's one thing to be aware of and then the whole point of this is to basically determine where you're at in line because we do have a limited number of green cards available every year in employment based they're divided by the five categories and then they're divided by country of birth and so to ensure supposedly that people receive the green card in the order of their priority date um that's why we set that so that whoever was in line first gets their Green Card earlier than someone who got in line later but because of country of birth and the 7% cap it ends up being that people from other countries who got in line later receive the Green Card much faster than people from other countries mainly India and China um so it doesn't necessarily mean your place in line in the whole line it's just your place in line for your particular country in your particular category um and we see the the Visa bulletin moving forward and backward and forward and backward and so sometimes your date is current and you can file sometimes it goes backwards after you filed sometimes if you didn't file fast enough you miss out or sometimes that date you feel like it's moving every month it's making forward progress and then all of a sudden it doesn't move and it takes forever as R mentioned like a decade for it to move just five days for people to actually be able to file again that's kind of what we're seeing in that 2014 2015 Range for eb2 eb3 India um so a lot of times though we have people who have priority dates that span different years and some people with later priority dates that happen to be current end up receiving the green card before people who filed before them on the 485 so the 485 is also supposed to be first in first out and based on priority date um we've seen very clearly that that's not how they process the applications um so it's really just when your date becomes current you want to get that 485 filed and make sure it gets adjudicated as uh soon as you can by including your medical exam making sure you have all of the necessary documents and sometimes litigating if needed to uh be able to get that approval before green cards run out for that fiscal year really let's move on to the topic of the Visa bulletin we haven't seen much improvements we're going to cover second and third topic together we haven't seen much improvements in eb2 and eb3 they just there was a one month advance in both filing dates and final action dates and abb2 um that was expected from uh before but uh what about E1 uh why isn't what what's the problem with ev1 what do you expect going forward the problem will be in ev1 EM yeah ev1 um because of mainly because of the big delays in ev2 and EV3 more and more people are filing in ev1 which is now causing ev1 for India to have that cut off date when uh you know for the past several years at least during covid times and postco um eb1 was readily available the problem is as more and more people are filing in eb1 now we have this backlog and looking at the statistics so we just got the 485 inventory report last week it goes back to the actual data is from May 2024 um so it's a little bit outdated but not much but the scary thing is USCIS already has pending 485s for people um 10,000 people after February 2022 which is where the current cut off date is so they've already received all the 4 FES for people before February 2022 cuto off date on top of that the date had been beyond that before and so some people were able to file and then the date moved backward so we still have 10,000 people to get through who've already filed a 485 in eb1 for India how long does it take to get through 10,000 green cards well with the 7% cap and whatever we get left over from the rest of the world which they don't use preco that was 9,000 green cards total for the year there's 10,000 people already pending so that tells me based on this data for people who've already filed the 485 and eb1 it's going to take at least a year just to get through that current Pipeline on top of that we know how many eb1 i140 approvals are out there that do not have a Visa available date is not current it's a little more outdated this is going back to March 2024 but that was another 15,000 so if they're only able to issue 9,000 a year which could be even less going forward as more rest of the world people are filing an eb1 um it could take three years to get through just what's already in the pipeline the 485s that are already pending in the i1 40s that are already approved that does not count people who are able to jump into E1 and retain an older priority date who basically jump in line ahead of all the people that are already in line in eb1 um so I think we're at a point if we're talking three years to move Beyond um you know the current to to get to current that's going to be 2027 before the date moves to 2024 um and more and more people are continuing to file in eb1 because eb2 and eb3 are backlogged we could get to a situ situation where uh people max out of l1a time for those that are filing in the eb1c category so you really need to think about how far off your date is uh from becoming current how much l1a time you have left even if you have seven years if you didn't start your green card process until your fifth year you may very well run out of time if we're talking about at least three years just to get to 2024 um if you're filing now so that's something where people with l1a might need to consider switching over to H1B because l1a even if you have an approved i140 you cannot extend beyond that seven-year limit with an H1B you can extend beyond the six-year limit but if you're going to convert from L1 a to L to H1B number one you've got to make it through the lottery U so you got to get your name put in that year after year most likely and number two you have to do it before you actually hit six of l1a time because the time you spent in L counts towards your H1B six-year limit um so there's a lot of moving Parts with that other options are to take some strategic trips outside the US to be able to recapture that time until your green card uh final action date becomes current or your filing date becomes current so you can file that 485 uh what do you think about these eb-1 dates I mean are we um have we seen this before where eb1 India was backlogged no not even though we have seen some delays in 2020 where we have SE backlogged about 222 two to two and a half years though I believe that the eb1 backlog is going to increase significantly the main reason is that the rest of the world as everybody knows that 40,000 green cards are been allocated for the eb1 category and out of this 40,000 India Indians can get 2,800 because 7% will be 2,800 in those 2,800 Emily in typically there are family members spouse children children who are born outside the country so it's only approximately around 12200 to about, 1400 families get the green card every year indan Nationals that's for assured that Indian Nationals are going to get up to 1200 to, 1400 families that get the green card every year now the rest of them as you said the previously Indians were getting almost 10,000 or 9,000 green cards every year was previously the rest of the world was not using up the green cards under eb1 category since the rest of the world is using more right now there are multiple reasons which I will explain the Indians are only constricted very less number of green card in the eb1 category so if Satya nadala kind of people are talented very top CEO kind of people people are Sund P kind of people apply they you know they're in a very good role they should get an E1 i140 approval definitely they will get an eb1 i140 approval they still have to wait multiple years to file the adjustment of status so that is going to be there for Indian Nationals because the 40,000 limit plus 7% per country limit and rest of the world this is the most dangerous thing the rest of the world are using more also family I have noticed as you know I've been practicing immigration law for such a long period of time I don't want to discuss it my age will be disclosed but at such a long period of time it has never been easier to get an eb1 approval as compared to what it is today never been easier now I don't know what's going to happen later on if the administration changes but it has never been easier now it's a blessing and a disguise for some people so it's blessing for those people who are getting approved for disguise for those people who are waiting in the line um so that is also a major problem for E1 category I've also noticed that a significant amount of people are trying to move from eb2 to eb3 these are the people where I call as cutting the lines if people are standing in the line these people are right going in between now I know that's not allowed in USA that's not people don't do in USA now but that's allowed when people do it from eb2 category to E3 from eb2 or e B3 category going to eb1 is very likely right now people either are trying to qualify for eb1a category or they're trying to go outside the country work for one year and come back and get the green card through eb1 C category now a lot of people need to understand that you can Port the date from eb2 or eb3 to eb1 category you can put the date and that's an advantage for a lot of people who are waiting in line in eb2 and EB three at the same time it's a disadvantage to the people who already got an eb1 approval because these people are cutting the lines so definitely eb1 is going to be a major problem the same problem what we have noticed for eb2 and eb3 that project dates don't move that far and they're almost blocked at 2012 could happen or I would say will happen not to the same extent as ab2 and ab3 but to some extent uh I would say that I may expect a backlog about 5 to S years emly going forward in eb1 category uh that's my expectation for E1 category anything else last topic um you know with these uh Visa bulletin dates not moving or moving forward very slowly a lot of people end up having a 485 pending for years even a decade before the final action becomes current and they're able to get the approval so what are some of the challenges people face when their 485 has been pending for a very long time um if the 485 has been pending for a long time Emily people need to I mean it's very frustrating and people like go crazy why is that I'm waiting for this prolonged period of time I just want one simple suggestion for them hey buddy it's much better than being an H1B it's much better than being an L1 definitely because it's easier to extend the EAD it's easier to extend the advanc for law there are some catch points of Advan I'll discuss later on but it's so easy when you apply for EAD extension at least for the people who filed a adjustment of status applications before April 1st of 2024 which most of the Indian aspects are and since your priority date might have been backlogged you're not going to get the green card uh they may call you for the 485 interview but they can't give you the green card so it's going to be there be prepared to sit there for a long period of time and Emily now recently the USCIS has released the data with regards to how many number of applications are pending in eb2 category now I see that in some of the months embly like for example in October of 2014 there are 2,252 people are pending for the adjustment of status where priority date is current it was October 2014 people right now 2,252 people are pending in in these categories so the entire eb2 and eb3 eb3 combined is only about uh 2800 2800 not good in mathematics but it's 5600 people are allowed every year for Indian Nationals to get it in eb2 and eb3 category so if I look into the data though it may take a long time for January 1st 2015 to clear I mean especially for those people who filed in um in 2014 it's going to take a long time and priority is 2014 I'm sorry it might take a long time maybe up to five to seven years even long period of time so I want you to guys to relax uh you know stay on the EAD if it's up to you if you want to maintain the H1B it's up to you if you want to get rid of your H1B now what are the catch points if they get rid of the H1B what are the advantages or disadvantages one thing is that if they get rid of the H1B it's easier to extend the E believe me guys it's so easier to extend the H1B I don't want to even tell our fees for how much we charge for the E it's so low I don't want to even tell it in there it becomes I become a cheap guy in filing the EAD extension it's so cheap that when we file you for the EAD extension and there's no filing fees uh for the E extensions um so it's and and N you're getting five years of EAD extensions when you file the EAD five years they don't ask in client letter they don't ask the vendor letter they don't have ask the employer letter they don't ask you to file a very long i129 form uh and no nothing at all I mean just file the i765 it's a very simple form say that your 485 is pending and give the pictures to them that's it it gets approved uh nothing much and it gets up to three to four months and sometimes it may take up to four to five months and the good part is that even if you file an EAD extension em um let's say my EAD is expiring in in in August 1st of 20124 if I file the EAD extension right now and I don't get the approval by August 1st of 2024 I can work up to 540 days even though my EAD is still pending which is taking only four to five months for them to adjudicate that's Advantage now the catch point is which we see most of the difficult part is that travel part of it now I said Eads they can work for 540 days the same rule is not there for advanced World which is required for them to travel outside the country that becomes a problem now of course Steven Brown in our office has a solution they can go to the court and get it resolved in 70 days approximately that's a better option option if you want to choose the H1 uh leave the H1B and go and you want you you want to travel probably going the court litigation is a better option and you are getting the fiveyear extension once you get it you set for five years so which is a good part so normally I see a lot of people moving on to the adjustment of status Eads rather than maintaining the H1B nowadays so if they're giving these Eads and APS for five years does that mean I can go outside the country and wait for five years until uh until it's time to come back and file another one no Emily um the reason is that the reason why you are getting the green card in United States is because you said on your 482 application you have a job here in United States and you're going to stay in United States you want to stay permanently in United States when you sign the i485 application that's what you said so when you're Liv there for more for a long period of time outside the country you're showing your intention that you don't have a job you don't want to stay in the country you don't want to immigrate into United States so that is definitely no if anybody has any travel plans to go more than three or four months outside the country and stay outside the country and advanced role please check with your lawyer what are the negative implications before you Embark onto the journey all right I think we can move to questions stream says when can we expect a second H1B Lottery um based on what we're seeing USCIS is still in the receipt process for the first Lottery a lot of people filed in the last week of June and we have not received receipt notices for all of those yet they're still cashing filing fee checks um so they don't even know how many have actually been filed yet when we had a second Lottery before I believe in mid August is when we started seeing those selection notices there was no announcement beforehand we just started seeing selection notices and then a few days later they came out and said oh by the way we did a second Lottery it's over now um I don't think there's going to be one this year but if there is it would maybe be mid August akshai Agarwal has this question how does this CrossCountry chargeability work I'm applying for niw National interest which is under eb2 category actually um CrossCountry charge ability for a lot of people I will explain it what that is is let's say you are from India you're born in India you are bought up in India your passport is in India however let's say you married somebody who is born in in United Arab Emirates okay let's say Dubai the city that normally people say now even though that person Let's uh that lady may not be a amori city citizen she still holds the Indian citizenship even if she's born in unit United rmm rights you can use the country of birth of your wife to file the 485 application so in your case actually let's assume that you are from India and your wife is born in UAE and she's born in Dubai but she's still has an Indian passport you if then you will be considered not none not an Indian under the cross country judgeability and you can file the priority you can file the 485 based on other countries though not Indian because your wife is born in Dubai now people may ask question well it's not Akai who's born in Dubai it's his wife who's born in Dubai I know that that's the reason why we call it as cross country chargeability using the country of birth of your wife wife that's the reason we're using it and people ask the question uhhuh she is not a UAE Citizen though she's born in Dubai in Emirates she's not a UAE citizen how can you do the cross country charge ability country of birth will determine the Immigrant status for the immigration purposes country of birth is the important thing since if this is just an assumption please actually don't call me and say your wife is not from Dubai but let's assume that so if the wife is from the buai she's born in the buai even though she doesn't hold the citizens ship we can claim the cross country chargeability and it's not a big deal at all believe me it's not we don't even charge anything extra for it and you get the I for you can either get the i140 appr come to us we can file the 484 application we we charge the normal fees nothing extra for that it's it's then we don't do any extra work we just put a sheet saying hey his wife is born in Dubai here is the Dubai birth certificate or you United Arab Emirates and we mention the section number the cross country chargeability and that's it they just accept it and they give the green cards but the only the point is that both you and your wife have to file the 485 together not that she is in India and you're here you're filing 485 alone saying that your wife is born born in Dubai that's not enough both have to file the 485 together now when you find i140 of course you're just filing a loan i140 that F you can find i140 alone but when it comes to the i485 both have to file together um Paka prad says I will be current in August 2024 and eb3 I filed back in October 2020 Medicals have expired what can or should I do now to proactively move the case no rfu for Medicals yet so this kind of takes us back to the summer of 2022 when we were determined to make sure that USCIS did not waste a bunch of green cards again like they did in the prior year um so we wanted to make sure everybody was ready to go had everything submitted so that USCIS could approve them all by September 30th so for the medical exams even though USCIS will tell you please don't send us unsolicited evidence um based on our experience we recommend getting the Medicals done get two Originals one to send in now keep a second one with you send it in doing what we call an interfile request very simple just cover sheet explaining the why what you're submitting we have uh explanation on our website go to RN lawgroup.com and search for interfile and you'll find instructions for that but you basically mail in your medical exams and ask them to put it in the file so when they open up your file they're already there and you don't they don't have to send you an RF asking for it now why did I say get a second batch of the medical exam because sometimes that interfiling does not actually make it into your file you have to make sure you're sending it to the service center where your case is actually currently pending um and then sometimes just it gets lost in the mail room or it never makes it into the file so in some cases you may still get an R Fe asking for the Medicals even though you've sent them in that's fine you already have them with you you can turn around next day and mail them back to USCIS to get the approval so we do recommend that um and then for the service center where your 485 is pending check the current processing time if it's showing that it's outside normal processing time you may actually be able to submit a service request I was able to do that for a case just today where um the normal processing time is listed is 30 months and the case has been pending for over 36 months even though the date just became current I was able to do a service request because the online case status still says that case remains pending because an immigrant Visa number is not available well based on the Visa bulletin it is available so I'm going to try to get their attention to get them to move forward on that case so those are two of the things that you can do um and then consider litigation uh now is the time to do it if you're going to do it because you want to make sure that the approval can be issued by September 30th before this year's green cards run out uh we had a lot of um people in 2022 September where they ran out of green cards early September 6th if I recall and a lot of people were left um with with nothing without the green card in that situation so if you're going to consider litigation now is the time to file it contact Stephen Brown in our office uh to understand what that entails but do it now um so that you can get your green card before September 30th question from Chris valala has this question am I eligible for National interest faor means this is for eb2 where people can file the i140 application directly and the they don't need an employer to file that they can file it by by he works in artificial intelligence he claims that it's not that all fancy but just to start stuff not sure if I'm eligible for well you're telling definitely you're just working for artificial intelligence on the topic you may or may not be eligible but what is not fancy for you what is the start of stuff for you is maybe for us it's a miracle I mean believe me artificial intelligence for us is Miracle the things that artificial intelligence is doing is Miracle for us I mean that's what the that's what the administration also is thinking to promote the artificial int intelligence and we are also seeing that when we file the eb1a cases on National interest laor in the artificial intelligence approval percentag is way higher than the normal other let's say for example in civil engineering stuff or mechanical engineering comp artificial intelligence we do see that so it may be worth for you to get it evaluated the perfect person in our office will be Karim zani from our office um make sure you know you just go through one of the YouTube we did National interest favor and try to highlight the points that you may have in the artificial intelligence and then have a consultation to have him evaluate to see now sometimes you may not sometimes you know we lawyers May advise you you're not eligible for it you may not be eligible for it but they may give a guidance what are the steps that you can take to get the eligibility maybe you can do some steps maybe you can uh uh you can be a speaker on some conference or you can publish some article maybe you uh you you had P some of those things what you do there are many different things that what you can do maybe you will be eligible at a later date after six months for the naw you can try it um I also recommend a lot of people who work in artificial intelligence to also consider eb1 a application too um lot of we do have consultations not lot of not all the people who have consultations um go through as an eb1a application and get the things approved but there are good number of them that get approved uh get get hired and go through the process there are good number of people Karim advises them what is in the next one year next two years next three years what is a plan to get it approved under the eb1a or national interest faor you can get the advice on that too uh Chen says I was laid off on H1B and applied for an H4 and H4 e80 together they're still pending can I move back to H1B when I I get a new job and then later come back to H4 and H4 eadu and those get approved yes and yes you are able to still file a change of status back to H1B while your H4 and H4 EAD are still pending not a problem at all we recommend filing the H1B in premium processing because you cannot start working until it gets approved and then later um assuming your H4 change of status and H4 EAD do get approved you can uh convert yourself to H4 and continue working on E8 and then switch back to H1B you can go back and forth doing the what we call the margarita switch taking a quick trip to Canada or Mexico um and coming back and showing the i797 approval notice with the I94 with whichever status you want to be entering the US in and that will be your new status going forward RC has this question his prior is April 2015 which we know might take a long time under eb2 category or eb3 category for him to file the adjustment of status his question is can he move to e H4 EAD and when it becomes current can he move back to H1B and file the 485 application now I'm assuming that you're working with the same company and h4ead uh The crucial Point here is that the company that CAU the i140 approval should be willing to file the 485 that is important now can you come back to H1B after moving to H4 and then file the 485 the answer is clear yes you can do you need to come back to the H1B to file the 485 absolutely not needed on H4 ad your company can still file the 485 application even though you're not on h1p even though you are on h4ead you can still file the 44 application even though your wife is on H1B and you are in H4 you can be the primary applicant in the adjustment of State and your wife can be the dependent on the 485 application Banu says my H4 and I94 are valid until 2026 but my current H4 EAD expired in June 2024 my H4 e80 renewal is in process can I continue my current job and continue my payroll um assuming that your i765 for the H4 e ad renewal was filed before June 2024 when your H4 EAD expired yes you're eligible for the automatic 540 day extension of your EAD because your H4 has already been extended till 2026 so you can keep working based on that and continue to be paid as normal if your H4 EAD renewal was filed after your current EAD expired then you do not qualify and you have to stop working you're not eligible uh people are asking questions with regards to when do we see the priority date uh when do we see the labor certification approval uh we are looking in uh I'm just opening the things right now uh we're looking in somewhere in June of 2020 uh May and June of 2000 May and June of 202 uh 3 May 2023 sorry uh I haven't seen any June yet though um so it's in May of 2023 let me take it back may of 2023 is what I've seen I've seen until May 31st of 2023 I haven't seen anything in June of 2023 David says AOS was filed wife is on a TD and will expire soon Visa bulletin retrogress so AOS cannot be filed TD status is expiring soon what can we do um so if I understand it right AOS has only been filed for the main applicant but not for the spouse TD can only be extended if the TN is extended so having the pending 485 may make it difficult for the TN to be extended which means the TD may not be able to be extended um it yeah there's not a lot of good options there um other than trying to extend the TN and hope it works out and extend the how about how about student visa though for her she didn't um I was just going to say convert her to another type of Visa uh F1 could be an option um a TN if if she's Canadian as well she may be eligible for her own Tenn um yeah anything that's not a dependent on the main applicant would be necessary for that otherwise it would be um Consular processing for her and she waits outside the US until she receives her green card um Kelby 26 has this question can I apply hit for in my home country not India and uh this person's spouse is from India let's say for example uh this person is from Cambodia and the spouse the main spouses in H1B is India can you apply in your country absolutely not a problem never a problem you can apply H for in your home country even though your spouse is not from that particular country you can vannie has this money says my dependent AP has not been approved for the last 22 months with the Texas service center um I got mine fairly quickly my lawyer is asking us to wait patiently do we have any other options well you've been far too patient at already at this point do not keep waiting contact Stephen Brown buy a lawsuit get the AP approved that is ridiculous and if you keep filing more lawsuits though there's a possibility they they may bring the time down um and they did make some changes when you started suing on these things especially they made five years year approval fire Advance Paro so there are some indirect benefits may not be for the same person who filed it but for the for the people who are uh in the line definitely there are some benefits in there um Usha says my priority date became current with my previous employer but that company closed in 2020 my current employer filed for the perm in April of this year do I have any options look at the niw you can skip the perm look at schedule a um what is it exceptional ability I can't even remember extraordinary ability exceptional ability the the new schedule a um but niw you can directly file an i140 if you qualify and if your date's current you can file the 485 along with it you don't have to necessarily wait out the perm but if niw or eb1a is not an option then yeah you've got to wait for the perm to be approved unfortunately wait a minute Emily the priority date was current in 2020 September we got the dates this lady hasn't been acting on it for like four years oh a lot of companies drag their feet to file the perm okay can I can I file a labor certification with the company I'm not working em is that an option to yeah I think so yeah especially four years wait time is a long period for me okay um vanie has this question uh what happens if the kid who is 17 years uses a gcad uh for working as an intern and the parents remain on H1B and H4 the kid becomes married what we call uh to the adjustment of status and the parents are still maintaining H1B they can they can maintain the H1B the kid can get married to the adjustment of status absolutely not a problem SS says I'm currently in the recruitment phase of the Green Card process and the company set a salary range that is greater than the current base pay the attorney said this is a forward-looking process but I don't understand any suggestions well number one the company has to meet the prevailing wage so it's possible that the uh your current salary is below the prevailing wage for the perm process because it's different process the do tells us what the prevailing wage has to be uh for the perm process so they have to offer a higher salary regardless of what your current salary is and they're correct it's a forward-looking process that means the salary the company is offering on the perm is not the salary that they have to pay you today it's the salary that they have to pay you when you get your green card however far in the future that is so it has nothing to do with your current pay the only way that your current pay becomes relevant is to show so at the i140 stage that your company has the ability to pay that wage offered um so having the current salary that's lower than the offered wage for the perm can create a problem for your i140 if the company's financials are not strong enough um but otherwise there's no issue with that at all iish has this question this question comes to me very frequently people say that I do have a master's degree I do have a 20 years experience am I qualify for niw experience automatically doesn't qualify for niw and experience does not automatically qualify for eb1a absolutely that is not even one of the considerations for example in eb1a there are 10 categories experience is not one of the category it is not listed if somebody has 50 years experience can they get one out of the 10 requirements no sometimes I believe experience only tells your age it doesn't tell your achievements so for niw or eb1a I want you to tell what are the achievements why are you in the National interest why are you in the National interest for the United States the work that you're doing how is it benefiting is it directly benefiting the work that you're doing let's say you're part of the team and that particular team is developing a security product which is going to protect from outside let say North Korean people trying to strike or Iranian people trying to strike Us in financials in the other things you may be eligible for National interest but if you're just saying I do have 20 20 years experience the first thing they'll they throw it out they'll deny it because that's not one of the considerations you may want to thoroughly go into the video we made on the national interest waer and look into what are the qualifications required and and then have a consultation with Karim jiani but experience by itself is not enough AJ says the H1B got an RFB asking how the LCA corresponds to the position the attorney's not sharing the details but he wants to know has the company or the attorney made a mistake that caused this RF or these things easy to get approved it's not necessarily a mistake there are a couple of ways that this question comes up um the first one is is maybe USCIS thinks a different s so code applies to the position compared to the one selected by the attorney or the company when the LCA was submitted that can just be a difference of opinion if the attorney can explain how the code that they selected is more appropriate than the one USCIS thinks it should be should not be a problem as long at all as long as that s so code um is for a position that requires at least a bachelor's degree in a specific field of study that one's not difficult to get approved um but if they selected a completely inappropriate sooc code then you've got a problem if it has nothing to do with the job maybe that was a mistake um the other main issue that comes up is did they select the correct wage level for that um position if they selected a level one wage which is for an entry-level position but in their employer letter they're saying that this job requires 10 years of experience and the person has to be an expert in Java and sap and I don't know what else anything else related to it um that is not something that can be easily overcome because they've gone on record saying it's a higher level position but the LCA is for an entrylevel position so those are the types of issues um could you know be just a difference of opinion and they need to be able to explain why it is they selected what they did on the LCA and how it still qualifies SS has this question he's in cyber security professional got an MS degree and has an i140 approval any chance for niw yeah you can definitely because you work in the cyber security if you are in the National interest and your task that you're doing are in the National interest you can be eligible for National interest weer but s is that doesn't give you a lot of Advantage it definitely gives independence from your company but EB 2 uh naw is still eb2 it's not eb1 uh you may want to look into consideration of eb1 though because e2's priority date is all the way to 2012 right now so you're not going to get the green card right now assuming your priority date is somewhere in 2015 or 2016 so you may want to consider eb1a application more than niw though vssn says I applied for my perm in December 2023 when when can I expect to get it approved I would say January 2025 uh would be the earliest unless we see a drastic improvement in processing times and it may be longer than that because we're just about to get into the flag approvals um which we don't know how do is interpreting some of the questions on how they've changed that form so there might be some delays in getting approvals uh as we switch over to that new system R has this question question and this question comes very frequently to us um and this is when people are in adjustment of status when they lose the job what is what do they need to do everybody knows that if people are in H1B if they lose the job they can get a job within 60 days or they can move on to B2 and move back to H1B at a later date as em has described previously that is an easy option that is there but when it comes to the adjustment of status here is the question which one you want to save if there is no 60 days rule of unemployment on the adjustment of status at the same time in the adjustment of status EAD there are a lot of flexibilities you can get a self-employment you your wife can employ you you can join some company without H1B so normally people come to consultation first thing that I would like to save is the adjustment of status now I can always get this guy H1B back at a later date they can go to India and get the spping and come back that is there but the first thing that I want to say is the adjustment of status that's what I want to say uh the second priority mine is will be H1B sometimes because companies when you want to join they don't want to file the H1 they don't want to go all the process come join us on the EAD I tell them go join on the E uh if that's not possible can you self- employ yourself because self-employment H1B is very unlikely for you to get the H1B approval on the current conditions so we I tell people to self- employ themselves on on the adjustment of status EAD so you have to have the priority which one is the priority adjustment of status or H1B definitely if the H1 is the only priority and you want to keep kick your adjustment of status in the trash don't come to me because I'm not the proper adviser for it if you want to keep the adjustment of status and you want to continue on the adjustment of status I may be very good person for you to come and join um and for that self-employment is one thing your wife employment getting a job offer from some other company is important for you uh Rakesh says my wife is a BSN RN and currently working in a University Hospital in New Jersey can she get an H1B um because she has an EAD through me as my dependent uh my daughter's actually a BSN RN and gonna start her first job at a hospital uh in about three weeks here so um but anyhow that didn't answer your question um so there are two issues number one is the hospital cap exempt it sounds like they might be because you mentioned it's a university hospital so teaching hospitals typically are considered cap exempt and can file H1B any time of year no need to go through the lottery the other issue is not all RN are eligible for an H1B because the H1B requires that the job has to normally require at least a bachelor's degree in a specific field of study to enter that occupation but not all RNs need a BSN bachelor's degree some states allow uh associates degree to still get an RN license so if that's the situation then you have to look at does her particular employer um require only a BSN for that particular job and they don't accept people that have an Associates Degree for that role if that's the case and they can document that they only hire those with a bachelor's degree because it's a more complex role or whatever the case might be then it is possible what about these uh the nursing practitioners are they yeah they should definitely qualify for H1B um because that is a basically a doctorate in this day and age uh question that comes is that my Advan parole extension is pending uh I'm assuming the current advanc parole is still valid and can he travel outside the country uh in the advanc can you travel assuming that your current advanc let's say for example your Advan parole is expiring in September of 2024 and you filed the Advan parle extension right now and the extension is pending and you are leaving the country and wring back before the advanced for expires which is September of 2024 I don't see any problem whatso at all in your traveling the extensions don't get denied it's only the initial Advanced Ro applications the first advanc Ro application if you leave the country they denied but the extensions don't get denied um amgc 1978 um wants to know how litigation works when there's already an attorney um handling the paperwork U maybe the employer has their immigration attorney and you've worked through that attorney all through your whole process um and it's totally fine that attorney does not to be need to be involved at all that you can continue to have that attorney as your attorney for your paperwork U for your process the only thing that the litigation attorney does is file the lawsuit um so everything else can still remain with your employer's attorney you don't need to tell them that you're filing it it doesn't matter at all um so you can still do that even though you're already working with an immigration attorney um Bon says my husband recently moved to a new employer got his H1B approval that's good till 2026 but his passport expires in 2025 can he just renew his passport next year in 2025 in stay in the US or does he fall out of status because his passport expires before his I94 um as long as he's not traveling no issues at all he can stay in the US he's still in H1B status just make sure to renew the passport before it expires not after expires where the passport expiration is a problem is if you are traveling and you come back before you've renewed your passport then you're going to get a shortened I94 that's only valid till the passport expiration not the i797 expiration and if you don't realize it in time it can put you out of status and make you unlawfully present which is a big problem but if you're staying in the US and you apply for the renewal on time no issues at all question from bumika if I sign aot Gage as a co-signer and uh by any chance it goes to forclosure that means that she defaulted on the loan and the bank goes to the Foreclosure will this affect the GC in future no I don't see any problem at all uh that this is going to affect especially if you are filing the employment based Green Card assuming that your and your your family income is more than $60,000 per year I do not expect any problem for you at all okay uh uh CH Chandra Kant has this question his prior date is July 2013 eb3 to uh uh India um when do you think so it can we expect the priority to be current by October of 2024 very unlikely we just got the result of 202 we just got the priority date for August of 20 uh 20 four so you have only one month and uh 2013 is very unlikely to become current uh under the EV3 Cate under the EV3 category very unlikely um vany says H1B bundle premium processed um so I'm assuming he means that H1 H4 and H4 EAD were all filed together in premium processing but the h4ead is still pending and the attorney says not to worry about it aren't they supposed to be approved at the same time as per the settlement yes absolutely if they're filed together in premium processing they should be approved together um the attorney or the company should reach out to the premium processing unit and remind them of the requirement uh from that settle settlement agreement and they should be able to get the EA EAD approved relatively quickly but they do have to reach out um I think we're out of time for today thank you everyone for joining us um as usual we'll be back next Tuesday at 5 o'clock Central Time with more updates on everything related to employment-based immigration and answering your questions in the meantime you can always Join one of our daily conference calls on Zoom um you can get the details of that by going to RN lawgroup.com and ask your questions live there and don't forget you can always um book a consultation with us or any of our attorneys by going to RN log group.com uh thank you very much

good evening this is SC already live from Houston Texas every Tuesday from 5:00 P p.m. to 6 p.m we bring in Immigration updates storm hurricane whatever it is uh but just before we go into it we are having a lot of technical problems if by any chance we get cut off please excuse us because uh Houston is facing a lot of electric issues uh internet issues so em what do we have today to discuss yeah today we want to talk about priority dates uh what is it why is it important what uh is the significance of it especially for employment-based immigration and the August 2024 Visa bullettin is out not a whole lot of good news in it a little bit of forward movement but not much what does that tell us about uh the future for those that already have a 485 pending um going back still to October 2020 we still have a lot of people there how much longer is it likely to take and what are your options right now if your date is current um and then we want to talk about eb1 um especially for India it is backlogged two years two and a half years now and it doesn&#39;t look to be getting any better um what do we see for that we&#39;ve got some updated data from USCIS their inventory uh numbers came out again last week so we&#39;ll go through that and then what are your options when your AOS is pending for a very long time um what are some of the challenges people face with that um difficulties what you should be aware of how you can uh overcome those challenges and um continue your process to finally receive the green card on the employment base as everybody knows that when the labor certification has been filed the priority date will be established but until the i140 is approved it&#39;s not confirmed for the person that&#39;s one way the priority is established that means that let&#39;s say the labor perm labor certification has been filed in January of 2023 the i140 must be approved for the priority date to be confirmed this is from the perm labor most of the eb2 and eb3 fall into this particular criteria now when it comes to the eb1 eb1 category it is when the i140 has been filed of course it will be only confirmed when the i140 is approved and a lot of people get refused priority date is on the day the PM is being filed if we are using PM as the basis for filing the i140 application if you&#39;re filing a direct i140 which people may surprise what is direct i140 especially for eb1a EB eb1b and eb1c all eb1 categories we do not file p labor we directly file an i140 so it&#39;s on the day the i140 has been filed but will be only confirmed to to you if the i140 is approved if by any chance i140 is not approved not approved either in the perm or in the uh e eb1 category the priority date will not be confirmed to you there are very little exceptions for it but that&#39;s General long also when it comes to the eb2 National interest River where we don&#39;t need to file a home labor certification the priority date is established on the day the i140 has been filed and will be confirmed when the i1 140 has been approved these are the general Norms there are some very rare exceptions that are available why is this priority date important is when you are going to get the green card though uh what what they look into is Whoever has applied before will be allowed to apply for the green card for example if you&#39;re International and if you&#39;re wanting to file the adjustment of status in eb1 criteria then they look into they will every month the Visa and V published the date the date anybody before that date can file the 485 application anybody after that date cannot on the date or after that date cannot file the 485 application the same thing is true for eb2 and eb3 it&#39;s called final action date in some cases it is filing dates it&#39;s the Visa bulletin which the state department publishes so the earlier the priority date is established for you and conformed to you it is is better for you because in that way you have a chance of getting the green card faster sometimes now sometimes for example if the priority date was December 25th of 2014 and if the priority date was on January 1st of 2015 that makes a lot of difference sometimes it may even take one one decade difference just because the priority date is just one day or one week before that&#39;s how how crucial it is now I&#39;ve seen time and time again people sometimes people miss out by a week or 10 days that&#39;s very sad to them but that is unfortunate truth Emily can you explain more about you know how the priority date is established is it then the labor is filed or labor is approved or is it i140 approved I believe yeah so your your actual priority date is going to be if you&#39;re filing a labor certification the day your labor certification is filed and if there&#39;s no labor certification then the day your i140 is filed so that establishes the actual date it&#39;s the filing date of either your labor or your i140 but that date does not actually become yours until your i140 gets approved so if your labor gets denied you don&#39;t have a priority date even though you know the date it was filed if your i140 ultimately gets denied you do not have that priority date you can&#39;t keep it for any future filing um so that&#39;s one thing to be aware of and then the whole point of this is to basically determine where you&#39;re at in line because we do have a limited number of green cards available every year in employment based they&#39;re divided by the five categories and then they&#39;re divided by country of birth and so to ensure supposedly that people receive the green card in the order of their priority date um that&#39;s why we set that so that whoever was in line first gets their Green Card earlier than someone who got in line later but because of country of birth and the 7% cap it ends up being that people from other countries who got in line later receive the Green Card much faster than people from other countries mainly India and China um so it doesn&#39;t necessarily mean your place in line in the whole line it&#39;s just your place in line for your particular country in your particular category um and we see the the Visa bulletin moving forward and backward and forward and backward and so sometimes your date is current and you can file sometimes it goes backwards after you filed sometimes if you didn&#39;t file fast enough you miss out or sometimes that date you feel like it&#39;s moving every month it&#39;s making forward progress and then all of a sudden it doesn&#39;t move and it takes forever as R mentioned like a decade for it to move just five days for people to actually be able to file again that&#39;s kind of what we&#39;re seeing in that 2014 2015 Range for eb2 eb3 India um so a lot of times though we have people who have priority dates that span different years and some people with later priority dates that happen to be current end up receiving the green card before people who filed before them on the 485 so the 485 is also supposed to be first in first out and based on priority date um we&#39;ve seen very clearly that that&#39;s not how they process the applications um so it&#39;s really just when your date becomes current you want to get that 485 filed and make sure it gets adjudicated as uh soon as you can by including your medical exam making sure you have all of the necessary documents and sometimes litigating if needed to uh be able to get that approval before green cards run out for that fiscal year really let&#39;s move on to the topic of the Visa bulletin we haven&#39;t seen much improvements we&#39;re going to cover second and third topic together we haven&#39;t seen much improvements in eb2 and eb3 they just there was a one month advance in both filing dates and final action dates and abb2 um that was expected from uh before but uh what about E1 uh why isn&#39;t what what&#39;s the problem with ev1 what do you expect going forward the problem will be in ev1 EM yeah ev1 um because of mainly because of the big delays in ev2 and EV3 more and more people are filing in ev1 which is now causing ev1 for India to have that cut off date when uh you know for the past several years at least during covid times and postco um eb1 was readily available the problem is as more and more people are filing in eb1 now we have this backlog and looking at the statistics so we just got the 485 inventory report last week it goes back to the actual data is from May 2024 um so it&#39;s a little bit outdated but not much but the scary thing is USCIS already has pending 485s for people um 10,000 people after February 2022 which is where the current cut off date is so they&#39;ve already received all the 4 FES for people before February 2022 cuto off date on top of that the date had been beyond that before and so some people were able to file and then the date moved backward so we still have 10,000 people to get through who&#39;ve already filed a 485 in eb1 for India how long does it take to get through 10,000 green cards well with the 7% cap and whatever we get left over from the rest of the world which they don&#39;t use preco that was 9,000 green cards total for the year there&#39;s 10,000 people already pending so that tells me based on this data for people who&#39;ve already filed the 485 and eb1 it&#39;s going to take at least a year just to get through that current Pipeline on top of that we know how many eb1 i140 approvals are out there that do not have a Visa available date is not current it&#39;s a little more outdated this is going back to March 2024 but that was another 15,000 so if they&#39;re only able to issue 9,000 a year which could be even less going forward as more rest of the world people are filing an eb1 um it could take three years to get through just what&#39;s already in the pipeline the 485s that are already pending in the i1 40s that are already approved that does not count people who are able to jump into E1 and retain an older priority date who basically jump in line ahead of all the people that are already in line in eb1 um so I think we&#39;re at a point if we&#39;re talking three years to move Beyond um you know the current to to get to current that&#39;s going to be 2027 before the date moves to 2024 um and more and more people are continuing to file in eb1 because eb2 and eb3 are backlogged we could get to a situ situation where uh people max out of l1a time for those that are filing in the eb1c category so you really need to think about how far off your date is uh from becoming current how much l1a time you have left even if you have seven years if you didn&#39;t start your green card process until your fifth year you may very well run out of time if we&#39;re talking about at least three years just to get to 2024 um if you&#39;re filing now so that&#39;s something where people with l1a might need to consider switching over to H1B because l1a even if you have an approved i140 you cannot extend beyond that seven-year limit with an H1B you can extend beyond the six-year limit but if you&#39;re going to convert from L1 a to L to H1B number one you&#39;ve got to make it through the lottery U so you got to get your name put in that year after year most likely and number two you have to do it before you actually hit six of l1a time because the time you spent in L counts towards your H1B six-year limit um so there&#39;s a lot of moving Parts with that other options are to take some strategic trips outside the US to be able to recapture that time until your green card uh final action date becomes current or your filing date becomes current so you can file that 485 uh what do you think about these eb-1 dates I mean are we um have we seen this before where eb1 India was backlogged no not even though we have seen some delays in 2020 where we have SE backlogged about 222 two to two and a half years though I believe that the eb1 backlog is going to increase significantly the main reason is that the rest of the world as everybody knows that 40,000 green cards are been allocated for the eb1 category and out of this 40,000 India Indians can get 2,800 because 7% will be 2,800 in those 2,800 Emily in typically there are family members spouse children children who are born outside the country so it&#39;s only approximately around 12200 to about, 1400 families get the green card every year indan Nationals that&#39;s for assured that Indian Nationals are going to get up to 1200 to, 1400 families that get the green card every year now the rest of them as you said the previously Indians were getting almost 10,000 or 9,000 green cards every year was previously the rest of the world was not using up the green cards under eb1 category since the rest of the world is using more right now there are multiple reasons which I will explain the Indians are only constricted very less number of green card in the eb1 category so if Satya nadala kind of people are talented very top CEO kind of people people are Sund P kind of people apply they you know they&#39;re in a very good role they should get an E1 i140 approval definitely they will get an eb1 i140 approval they still have to wait multiple years to file the adjustment of status so that is going to be there for Indian Nationals because the 40,000 limit plus 7% per country limit and rest of the world this is the most dangerous thing the rest of the world are using more also family I have noticed as you know I&#39;ve been practicing immigration law for such a long period of time I don&#39;t want to discuss it my age will be disclosed but at such a long period of time it has never been easier to get an eb1 approval as compared to what it is today never been easier now I don&#39;t know what&#39;s going to happen later on if the administration changes but it has never been easier now it&#39;s a blessing and a disguise for some people so it&#39;s blessing for those people who are getting approved for disguise for those people who are waiting in the line um so that is also a major problem for E1 category I&#39;ve also noticed that a significant amount of people are trying to move from eb2 to eb3 these are the people where I call as cutting the lines if people are standing in the line these people are right going in between now I know that&#39;s not allowed in USA that&#39;s not people don&#39;t do in USA now but that&#39;s allowed when people do it from eb2 category to E3 from eb2 or e B3 category going to eb1 is very likely right now people either are trying to qualify for eb1a category or they&#39;re trying to go outside the country work for one year and come back and get the green card through eb1 C category now a lot of people need to understand that you can Port the date from eb2 or eb3 to eb1 category you can put the date and that&#39;s an advantage for a lot of people who are waiting in line in eb2 and EB three at the same time it&#39;s a disadvantage to the people who already got an eb1 approval because these people are cutting the lines so definitely eb1 is going to be a major problem the same problem what we have noticed for eb2 and eb3 that project dates don&#39;t move that far and they&#39;re almost blocked at 2012 could happen or I would say will happen not to the same extent as ab2 and ab3 but to some extent uh I would say that I may expect a backlog about 5 to S years emly going forward in eb1 category uh that&#39;s my expectation for E1 category anything else last topic um you know with these uh Visa bulletin dates not moving or moving forward very slowly a lot of people end up having a 485 pending for years even a decade before the final action becomes current and they&#39;re able to get the approval so what are some of the challenges people face when their 485 has been pending for a very long time um if the 485 has been pending for a long time Emily people need to I mean it&#39;s very frustrating and people like go crazy why is that I&#39;m waiting for this prolonged period of time I just want one simple suggestion for them hey buddy it&#39;s much better than being an H1B it&#39;s much better than being an L1 definitely because it&#39;s easier to extend the EAD it&#39;s easier to extend the advanc for law there are some catch points of Advan I&#39;ll discuss later on but it&#39;s so easy when you apply for EAD extension at least for the people who filed a adjustment of status applications before April 1st of 2024 which most of the Indian aspects are and since your priority date might have been backlogged you&#39;re not going to get the green card uh they may call you for the 485 interview but they can&#39;t give you the green card so it&#39;s going to be there be prepared to sit there for a long period of time and Emily now recently the USCIS has released the data with regards to how many number of applications are pending in eb2 category now I see that in some of the months embly like for example in October of 2014 there are 2,252 people are pending for the adjustment of status where priority date is current it was October 2014 people right now 2,252 people are pending in in these categories so the entire eb2 and eb3 eb3 combined is only about uh 2800 2800 not good in mathematics but it&#39;s 5600 people are allowed every year for Indian Nationals to get it in eb2 and eb3 category so if I look into the data though it may take a long time for January 1st 2015 to clear I mean especially for those people who filed in um in 2014 it&#39;s going to take a long time and priority is 2014 I&#39;m sorry it might take a long time maybe up to five to seven years even long period of time so I want you to guys to relax uh you know stay on the EAD if it&#39;s up to you if you want to maintain the H1B it&#39;s up to you if you want to get rid of your H1B now what are the catch points if they get rid of the H1B what are the advantages or disadvantages one thing is that if they get rid of the H1B it&#39;s easier to extend the E believe me guys it&#39;s so easier to extend the H1B I don&#39;t want to even tell our fees for how much we charge for the E it&#39;s so low I don&#39;t want to even tell it in there it becomes I become a cheap guy in filing the EAD extension it&#39;s so cheap that when we file you for the EAD extension and there&#39;s no filing fees uh for the E extensions um so it&#39;s and and N you&#39;re getting five years of EAD extensions when you file the EAD five years they don&#39;t ask in client letter they don&#39;t ask the vendor letter they don&#39;t have ask the employer letter they don&#39;t ask you to file a very long i129 form uh and no nothing at all I mean just file the i765 it&#39;s a very simple form say that your 485 is pending and give the pictures to them that&#39;s it it gets approved uh nothing much and it gets up to three to four months and sometimes it may take up to four to five months and the good part is that even if you file an EAD extension em um let&#39;s say my EAD is expiring in in in August 1st of 20124 if I file the EAD extension right now and I don&#39;t get the approval by August 1st of 2024 I can work up to 540 days even though my EAD is still pending which is taking only four to five months for them to adjudicate that&#39;s Advantage now the catch point is which we see most of the difficult part is that travel part of it now I said Eads they can work for 540 days the same rule is not there for advanced World which is required for them to travel outside the country that becomes a problem now of course Steven Brown in our office has a solution they can go to the court and get it resolved in 70 days approximately that&#39;s a better option option if you want to choose the H1 uh leave the H1B and go and you want you you want to travel probably going the court litigation is a better option and you are getting the fiveyear extension once you get it you set for five years so which is a good part so normally I see a lot of people moving on to the adjustment of status Eads rather than maintaining the H1B nowadays so if they&#39;re giving these Eads and APS for five years does that mean I can go outside the country and wait for five years until uh until it&#39;s time to come back and file another one no Emily um the reason is that the reason why you are getting the green card in United States is because you said on your 482 application you have a job here in United States and you&#39;re going to stay in United States you want to stay permanently in United States when you sign the i485 application that&#39;s what you said so when you&#39;re Liv there for more for a long period of time outside the country you&#39;re showing your intention that you don&#39;t have a job you don&#39;t want to stay in the country you don&#39;t want to immigrate into United States so that is definitely no if anybody has any travel plans to go more than three or four months outside the country and stay outside the country and advanced role please check with your lawyer what are the negative implications before you Embark onto the journey all right I think we can move to questions stream says when can we expect a second H1B Lottery um based on what we&#39;re seeing USCIS is still in the receipt process for the first Lottery a lot of people filed in the last week of June and we have not received receipt notices for all of those yet they&#39;re still cashing filing fee checks um so they don&#39;t even know how many have actually been filed yet when we had a second Lottery before I believe in mid August is when we started seeing those selection notices there was no announcement beforehand we just started seeing selection notices and then a few days later they came out and said oh by the way we did a second Lottery it&#39;s over now um I don&#39;t think there&#39;s going to be one this year but if there is it would maybe be mid August akshai Agarwal has this question how does this CrossCountry chargeability work I&#39;m applying for niw National interest which is under eb2 category actually um CrossCountry charge ability for a lot of people I will explain it what that is is let&#39;s say you are from India you&#39;re born in India you are bought up in India your passport is in India however let&#39;s say you married somebody who is born in in United Arab Emirates okay let&#39;s say Dubai the city that normally people say now even though that person Let&#39;s uh that lady may not be a amori city citizen she still holds the Indian citizenship even if she&#39;s born in unit United rmm rights you can use the country of birth of your wife to file the 485 application so in your case actually let&#39;s assume that you are from India and your wife is born in UAE and she&#39;s born in Dubai but she&#39;s still has an Indian passport you if then you will be considered not none not an Indian under the cross country judgeability and you can file the priority you can file the 485 based on other countries though not Indian because your wife is born in Dubai now people may ask question well it&#39;s not Akai who&#39;s born in Dubai it&#39;s his wife who&#39;s born in Dubai I know that that&#39;s the reason why we call it as cross country chargeability using the country of birth of your wife wife that&#39;s the reason we&#39;re using it and people ask the question uhhuh she is not a UAE Citizen though she&#39;s born in Dubai in Emirates she&#39;s not a UAE citizen how can you do the cross country charge ability country of birth will determine the Immigrant status for the immigration purposes country of birth is the important thing since if this is just an assumption please actually don&#39;t call me and say your wife is not from Dubai but let&#39;s assume that so if the wife is from the buai she&#39;s born in the buai even though she doesn&#39;t hold the citizens ship we can claim the cross country chargeability and it&#39;s not a big deal at all believe me it&#39;s not we don&#39;t even charge anything extra for it and you get the I for you can either get the i140 appr come to us we can file the 484 application we we charge the normal fees nothing extra for that it&#39;s it&#39;s then we don&#39;t do any extra work we just put a sheet saying hey his wife is born in Dubai here is the Dubai birth certificate or you United Arab Emirates and we mention the section number the cross country chargeability and that&#39;s it they just accept it and they give the green cards but the only the point is that both you and your wife have to file the 485 together not that she is in India and you&#39;re here you&#39;re filing 485 alone saying that your wife is born born in Dubai that&#39;s not enough both have to file the 485 together now when you find i140 of course you&#39;re just filing a loan i140 that F you can find i140 alone but when it comes to the i485 both have to file together um Paka prad says I will be current in August 2024 and eb3 I filed back in October 2020 Medicals have expired what can or should I do now to proactively move the case no rfu for Medicals yet so this kind of takes us back to the summer of 2022 when we were determined to make sure that USCIS did not waste a bunch of green cards again like they did in the prior year um so we wanted to make sure everybody was ready to go had everything submitted so that USCIS could approve them all by September 30th so for the medical exams even though USCIS will tell you please don&#39;t send us unsolicited evidence um based on our experience we recommend getting the Medicals done get two Originals one to send in now keep a second one with you send it in doing what we call an interfile request very simple just cover sheet explaining the why what you&#39;re submitting we have uh explanation on our website go to RN lawgroup.com and search for interfile and you&#39;ll find instructions for that but you basically mail in your medical exams and ask them to put it in the file so when they open up your file they&#39;re already there and you don&#39;t they don&#39;t have to send you an RF asking for it now why did I say get a second batch of the medical exam because sometimes that interfiling does not actually make it into your file you have to make sure you&#39;re sending it to the service center where your case is actually currently pending um and then sometimes just it gets lost in the mail room or it never makes it into the file so in some cases you may still get an R Fe asking for the Medicals even though you&#39;ve sent them in that&#39;s fine you already have them with you you can turn around next day and mail them back to USCIS to get the approval so we do recommend that um and then for the service center where your 485 is pending check the current processing time if it&#39;s showing that it&#39;s outside normal processing time you may actually be able to submit a service request I was able to do that for a case just today where um the normal processing time is listed is 30 months and the case has been pending for over 36 months even though the date just became current I was able to do a service request because the online case status still says that case remains pending because an immigrant Visa number is not available well based on the Visa bulletin it is available so I&#39;m going to try to get their attention to get them to move forward on that case so those are two of the things that you can do um and then consider litigation uh now is the time to do it if you&#39;re going to do it because you want to make sure that the approval can be issued by September 30th before this year&#39;s green cards run out uh we had a lot of um people in 2022 September where they ran out of green cards early September 6th if I recall and a lot of people were left um with with nothing without the green card in that situation so if you&#39;re going to consider litigation now is the time to file it contact Stephen Brown in our office uh to understand what that entails but do it now um so that you can get your green card before September 30th question from Chris valala has this question am I eligible for National interest faor means this is for eb2 where people can file the i140 application directly and the they don&#39;t need an employer to file that they can file it by by he works in artificial intelligence he claims that it&#39;s not that all fancy but just to start stuff not sure if I&#39;m eligible for well you&#39;re telling definitely you&#39;re just working for artificial intelligence on the topic you may or may not be eligible but what is not fancy for you what is the start of stuff for you is maybe for us it&#39;s a miracle I mean believe me artificial intelligence for us is Miracle the things that artificial intelligence is doing is Miracle for us I mean that&#39;s what the that&#39;s what the administration also is thinking to promote the artificial int intelligence and we are also seeing that when we file the eb1a cases on National interest laor in the artificial intelligence approval percentag is way higher than the normal other let&#39;s say for example in civil engineering stuff or mechanical engineering comp artificial intelligence we do see that so it may be worth for you to get it evaluated the perfect person in our office will be Karim zani from our office um make sure you know you just go through one of the YouTube we did National interest favor and try to highlight the points that you may have in the artificial intelligence and then have a consultation to have him evaluate to see now sometimes you may not sometimes you know we lawyers May advise you you&#39;re not eligible for it you may not be eligible for it but they may give a guidance what are the steps that you can take to get the eligibility maybe you can do some steps maybe you can uh uh you can be a speaker on some conference or you can publish some article maybe you uh you you had P some of those things what you do there are many different things that what you can do maybe you will be eligible at a later date after six months for the naw you can try it um I also recommend a lot of people who work in artificial intelligence to also consider eb1 a application too um lot of we do have consultations not lot of not all the people who have consultations um go through as an eb1a application and get the things approved but there are good number of them that get approved uh get get hired and go through the process there are good number of people Karim advises them what is in the next one year next two years next three years what is a plan to get it approved under the eb1a or national interest faor you can get the advice on that too uh Chen says I was laid off on H1B and applied for an H4 and H4 e80 together they&#39;re still pending can I move back to H1B when I I get a new job and then later come back to H4 and H4 eadu and those get approved yes and yes you are able to still file a change of status back to H1B while your H4 and H4 EAD are still pending not a problem at all we recommend filing the H1B in premium processing because you cannot start working until it gets approved and then later um assuming your H4 change of status and H4 EAD do get approved you can uh convert yourself to H4 and continue working on E8 and then switch back to H1B you can go back and forth doing the what we call the margarita switch taking a quick trip to Canada or Mexico um and coming back and showing the i797 approval notice with the I94 with whichever status you want to be entering the US in and that will be your new status going forward RC has this question his prior is April 2015 which we know might take a long time under eb2 category or eb3 category for him to file the adjustment of status his question is can he move to e H4 EAD and when it becomes current can he move back to H1B and file the 485 application now I&#39;m assuming that you&#39;re working with the same company and h4ead uh The crucial Point here is that the company that CAU the i140 approval should be willing to file the 485 that is important now can you come back to H1B after moving to H4 and then file the 485 the answer is clear yes you can do you need to come back to the H1B to file the 485 absolutely not needed on H4 ad your company can still file the 485 application even though you&#39;re not on h1p even though you are on h4ead you can still file the 44 application even though your wife is on H1B and you are in H4 you can be the primary applicant in the adjustment of State and your wife can be the dependent on the 485 application Banu says my H4 and I94 are valid until 2026 but my current H4 EAD expired in June 2024 my H4 e80 renewal is in process can I continue my current job and continue my payroll um assuming that your i765 for the H4 e ad renewal was filed before June 2024 when your H4 EAD expired yes you&#39;re eligible for the automatic 540 day extension of your EAD because your H4 has already been extended till 2026 so you can keep working based on that and continue to be paid as normal if your H4 EAD renewal was filed after your current EAD expired then you do not qualify and you have to stop working you&#39;re not eligible uh people are asking questions with regards to when do we see the priority date uh when do we see the labor certification approval uh we are looking in uh I&#39;m just opening the things right now uh we&#39;re looking in somewhere in June of 2020 uh May and June of 2000 May and June of 202 uh 3 May 2023 sorry uh I haven&#39;t seen any June yet though um so it&#39;s in May of 2023 let me take it back may of 2023 is what I&#39;ve seen I&#39;ve seen until May 31st of 2023 I haven&#39;t seen anything in June of 2023 David says AOS was filed wife is on a TD and will expire soon Visa bulletin retrogress so AOS cannot be filed TD status is expiring soon what can we do um so if I understand it right AOS has only been filed for the main applicant but not for the spouse TD can only be extended if the TN is extended so having the pending 485 may make it difficult for the TN to be extended which means the TD may not be able to be extended um it yeah there&#39;s not a lot of good options there um other than trying to extend the TN and hope it works out and extend the how about how about student visa though for her she didn&#39;t um I was just going to say convert her to another type of Visa uh F1 could be an option um a TN if if she&#39;s Canadian as well she may be eligible for her own Tenn um yeah anything that&#39;s not a dependent on the main applicant would be necessary for that otherwise it would be um Consular processing for her and she waits outside the US until she receives her green card um Kelby 26 has this question can I apply hit for in my home country not India and uh this person&#39;s spouse is from India let&#39;s say for example uh this person is from Cambodia and the spouse the main spouses in H1B is India can you apply in your country absolutely not a problem never a problem you can apply H for in your home country even though your spouse is not from that particular country you can vannie has this money says my dependent AP has not been approved for the last 22 months with the Texas service center um I got mine fairly quickly my lawyer is asking us to wait patiently do we have any other options well you&#39;ve been far too patient at already at this point do not keep waiting contact Stephen Brown buy a lawsuit get the AP approved that is ridiculous and if you keep filing more lawsuits though there&#39;s a possibility they they may bring the time down um and they did make some changes when you started suing on these things especially they made five years year approval fire Advance Paro so there are some indirect benefits may not be for the same person who filed it but for the for the people who are uh in the line definitely there are some benefits in there um Usha says my priority date became current with my previous employer but that company closed in 2020 my current employer filed for the perm in April of this year do I have any options look at the niw you can skip the perm look at schedule a um what is it exceptional ability I can&#39;t even remember extraordinary ability exceptional ability the the new schedule a um but niw you can directly file an i140 if you qualify and if your date&#39;s current you can file the 485 along with it you don&#39;t have to necessarily wait out the perm but if niw or eb1a is not an option then yeah you&#39;ve got to wait for the perm to be approved unfortunately wait a minute Emily the priority date was current in 2020 September we got the dates this lady hasn&#39;t been acting on it for like four years oh a lot of companies drag their feet to file the perm okay can I can I file a labor certification with the company I&#39;m not working em is that an option to yeah I think so yeah especially four years wait time is a long period for me okay um vanie has this question uh what happens if the kid who is 17 years uses a gcad uh for working as an intern and the parents remain on H1B and H4 the kid becomes married what we call uh to the adjustment of status and the parents are still maintaining H1B they can they can maintain the H1B the kid can get married to the adjustment of status absolutely not a problem SS says I&#39;m currently in the recruitment phase of the Green Card process and the company set a salary range that is greater than the current base pay the attorney said this is a forward-looking process but I don&#39;t understand any suggestions well number one the company has to meet the prevailing wage so it&#39;s possible that the uh your current salary is below the prevailing wage for the perm process because it&#39;s different process the do tells us what the prevailing wage has to be uh for the perm process so they have to offer a higher salary regardless of what your current salary is and they&#39;re correct it&#39;s a forward-looking process that means the salary the company is offering on the perm is not the salary that they have to pay you today it&#39;s the salary that they have to pay you when you get your green card however far in the future that is so it has nothing to do with your current pay the only way that your current pay becomes relevant is to show so at the i140 stage that your company has the ability to pay that wage offered um so having the current salary that&#39;s lower than the offered wage for the perm can create a problem for your i140 if the company&#39;s financials are not strong enough um but otherwise there&#39;s no issue with that at all iish has this question this question comes to me very frequently people say that I do have a master&#39;s degree I do have a 20 years experience am I qualify for niw experience automatically doesn&#39;t qualify for niw and experience does not automatically qualify for eb1a absolutely that is not even one of the considerations for example in eb1a there are 10 categories experience is not one of the category it is not listed if somebody has 50 years experience can they get one out of the 10 requirements no sometimes I believe experience only tells your age it doesn&#39;t tell your achievements so for niw or eb1a I want you to tell what are the achievements why are you in the National interest why are you in the National interest for the United States the work that you&#39;re doing how is it benefiting is it directly benefiting the work that you&#39;re doing let&#39;s say you&#39;re part of the team and that particular team is developing a security product which is going to protect from outside let say North Korean people trying to strike or Iranian people trying to strike Us in financials in the other things you may be eligible for National interest but if you&#39;re just saying I do have 20 20 years experience the first thing they&#39;ll they throw it out they&#39;ll deny it because that&#39;s not one of the considerations you may want to thoroughly go into the video we made on the national interest waer and look into what are the qualifications required and and then have a consultation with Karim jiani but experience by itself is not enough AJ says the H1B got an RFB asking how the LCA corresponds to the position the attorney&#39;s not sharing the details but he wants to know has the company or the attorney made a mistake that caused this RF or these things easy to get approved it&#39;s not necessarily a mistake there are a couple of ways that this question comes up um the first one is is maybe USCIS thinks a different s so code applies to the position compared to the one selected by the attorney or the company when the LCA was submitted that can just be a difference of opinion if the attorney can explain how the code that they selected is more appropriate than the one USCIS thinks it should be should not be a problem as long at all as long as that s so code um is for a position that requires at least a bachelor&#39;s degree in a specific field of study that one&#39;s not difficult to get approved um but if they selected a completely inappropriate sooc code then you&#39;ve got a problem if it has nothing to do with the job maybe that was a mistake um the other main issue that comes up is did they select the correct wage level for that um position if they selected a level one wage which is for an entry-level position but in their employer letter they&#39;re saying that this job requires 10 years of experience and the person has to be an expert in Java and sap and I don&#39;t know what else anything else related to it um that is not something that can be easily overcome because they&#39;ve gone on record saying it&#39;s a higher level position but the LCA is for an entrylevel position so those are the types of issues um could you know be just a difference of opinion and they need to be able to explain why it is they selected what they did on the LCA and how it still qualifies SS has this question he&#39;s in cyber security professional got an MS degree and has an i140 approval any chance for niw yeah you can definitely because you work in the cyber security if you are in the National interest and your task that you&#39;re doing are in the National interest you can be eligible for National interest weer but s is that doesn&#39;t give you a lot of Advantage it definitely gives independence from your company but EB 2 uh naw is still eb2 it&#39;s not eb1 uh you may want to look into consideration of eb1 though because e2&#39;s priority date is all the way to 2012 right now so you&#39;re not going to get the green card right now assuming your priority date is somewhere in 2015 or 2016 so you may want to consider eb1a application more than niw though vssn says I applied for my perm in December 2023 when when can I expect to get it approved I would say January 2025 uh would be the earliest unless we see a drastic improvement in processing times and it may be longer than that because we&#39;re just about to get into the flag approvals um which we don&#39;t know how do is interpreting some of the questions on how they&#39;ve changed that form so there might be some delays in getting approvals uh as we switch over to that new system R has this question question and this question comes very frequently to us um and this is when people are in adjustment of status when they lose the job what is what do they need to do everybody knows that if people are in H1B if they lose the job they can get a job within 60 days or they can move on to B2 and move back to H1B at a later date as em has described previously that is an easy option that is there but when it comes to the adjustment of status here is the question which one you want to save if there is no 60 days rule of unemployment on the adjustment of status at the same time in the adjustment of status EAD there are a lot of flexibilities you can get a self-employment you your wife can employ you you can join some company without H1B so normally people come to consultation first thing that I would like to save is the adjustment of status now I can always get this guy H1B back at a later date they can go to India and get the spping and come back that is there but the first thing that I want to say is the adjustment of status that&#39;s what I want to say uh the second priority mine is will be H1B sometimes because companies when you want to join they don&#39;t want to file the H1 they don&#39;t want to go all the process come join us on the EAD I tell them go join on the E uh if that&#39;s not possible can you self- employ yourself because self-employment H1B is very unlikely for you to get the H1B approval on the current conditions so we I tell people to self- employ themselves on on the adjustment of status EAD so you have to have the priority which one is the priority adjustment of status or H1B definitely if the H1 is the only priority and you want to keep kick your adjustment of status in the trash don&#39;t come to me because I&#39;m not the proper adviser for it if you want to keep the adjustment of status and you want to continue on the adjustment of status I may be very good person for you to come and join um and for that self-employment is one thing your wife employment getting a job offer from some other company is important for you uh Rakesh says my wife is a BSN RN and currently working in a University Hospital in New Jersey can she get an H1B um because she has an EAD through me as my dependent uh my daughter&#39;s actually a BSN RN and gonna start her first job at a hospital uh in about three weeks here so um but anyhow that didn&#39;t answer your question um so there are two issues number one is the hospital cap exempt it sounds like they might be because you mentioned it&#39;s a university hospital so teaching hospitals typically are considered cap exempt and can file H1B any time of year no need to go through the lottery the other issue is not all RN are eligible for an H1B because the H1B requires that the job has to normally require at least a bachelor&#39;s degree in a specific field of study to enter that occupation but not all RNs need a BSN bachelor&#39;s degree some states allow uh associates degree to still get an RN license so if that&#39;s the situation then you have to look at does her particular employer um require only a BSN for that particular job and they don&#39;t accept people that have an Associates Degree for that role if that&#39;s the case and they can document that they only hire those with a bachelor&#39;s degree because it&#39;s a more complex role or whatever the case might be then it is possible what about these uh the nursing practitioners are they yeah they should definitely qualify for H1B um because that is a basically a doctorate in this day and age uh question that comes is that my Advan parole extension is pending uh I&#39;m assuming the current advanc parole is still valid and can he travel outside the country uh in the advanc can you travel assuming that your current advanc let&#39;s say for example your Advan parole is expiring in September of 2024 and you filed the Advan parle extension right now and the extension is pending and you are leaving the country and wring back before the advanced for expires which is September of 2024 I don&#39;t see any problem whatso at all in your traveling the extensions don&#39;t get denied it&#39;s only the initial Advanced Ro applications the first advanc Ro application if you leave the country they denied but the extensions don&#39;t get denied um amgc 1978 um wants to know how litigation works when there&#39;s already an attorney um handling the paperwork U maybe the employer has their immigration attorney and you&#39;ve worked through that attorney all through your whole process um and it&#39;s totally fine that attorney does not to be need to be involved at all that you can continue to have that attorney as your attorney for your paperwork U for your process the only thing that the litigation attorney does is file the lawsuit um so everything else can still remain with your employer&#39;s attorney you don&#39;t need to tell them that you&#39;re filing it it doesn&#39;t matter at all um so you can still do that even though you&#39;re already working with an immigration attorney um Bon says my husband recently moved to a new employer got his H1B approval that&#39;s good till 2026 but his passport expires in 2025 can he just renew his passport next year in 2025 in stay in the US or does he fall out of status because his passport expires before his I94 um as long as he&#39;s not traveling no issues at all he can stay in the US he&#39;s still in H1B status just make sure to renew the passport before it expires not after expires where the passport expiration is a problem is if you are traveling and you come back before you&#39;ve renewed your passport then you&#39;re going to get a shortened I94 that&#39;s only valid till the passport expiration not the i797 expiration and if you don&#39;t realize it in time it can put you out of status and make you unlawfully present which is a big problem but if you&#39;re staying in the US and you apply for the renewal on time no issues at all question from bumika if I sign aot Gage as a co-signer and uh by any chance it goes to forclosure that means that she defaulted on the loan and the bank goes to the Foreclosure will this affect the GC in future no I don&#39;t see any problem at all uh that this is going to affect especially if you are filing the employment based Green Card assuming that your and your your family income is more than $60,000 per year I do not expect any problem for you at all okay uh uh CH Chandra Kant has this question his prior date is July 2013 eb3 to uh uh India um when do you think so it can we expect the priority to be current by October of 2024 very unlikely we just got the result of 202 we just got the priority date for August of 20 uh 20 four so you have only one month and uh 2013 is very unlikely to become current uh under the EV3 Cate under the EV3 category very unlikely um vany says H1B bundle premium processed um so I&#39;m assuming he means that H1 H4 and H4 EAD were all filed together in premium processing but the h4ead is still pending and the attorney says not to worry about it aren&#39;t they supposed to be approved at the same time as per the settlement yes absolutely if they&#39;re filed together in premium processing they should be approved together um the attorney or the company should reach out to the premium processing unit and remind them of the requirement uh from that settle settlement agreement and they should be able to get the EA EAD approved relatively quickly but they do have to reach out um I think we&#39;re out of time for today thank you everyone for joining us um as usual we&#39;ll be back next Tuesday at 5 o&#39;clock Central Time with more updates on everything related to employment-based immigration and answering your questions in the meantime you can always Join one of our daily conference calls on Zoom um you can get the details of that by going to RN lawgroup.com and ask your questions live there and don&#39;t forget you can always um book a consultation with us or any of our attorneys by going to RN log group.com uh thank you very much

Transcript for:Immigration Updates - August 2024

Transcript for:
Immigration Updates - August 2024