Mr. Charles Oppenheim, the Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State, just announced in a meeting that due to extraordinarily high volume of EB-2 India cases, the Department of State will make the EB-2 India category unavailable until the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2014) effective immediately as of today, September 10, 2014.  It is important to note that this announcement does not affect the October 2014 Visa Bulletin, which has EB-2 India with a cutoff date of May 1, 2009 and which will be effective as of October 1, 2014.

Beneficiaries of approved H-1B petitions with a 10/1/14 start date may now begin filing their visa applications at U.S. consular posts.

President Obama says he is done waiting for house Republicans to act on Immigration. He says he now plans to act on his own. Obama announced his intention Monday to take executive action.
ABC News.

USCIS announced today that data entry of all FY15 H-1B cap petitions has been completed. USCIS will now begin returning all H-1B cap petitions that were not selected in the lottery.

SEVP guideline for OPT extension during Cap-Gap Period!

SEVP guidance also provides that a student may apply for the 17-month STEM extension during the cap gap extension of OPT. In such a situation, the H-1B petitioner must request the withdrawal of the approved or pending H-1B petition in time for USCIS to effectively accept the withdrawal prior to the October 1st start date so that the student’s status does not change to H-1B.

H-1B FY 2015 Premium processing update!

USCIS will begin premium processing for H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2015 cap, including H-1B petitions seeking an exemption from the fiscal year cap for individuals who have earned a U.S. master’s degree or higher.

H-1B FY 2015 Quota update News FLASH!

USCIS received about 172,500 H-1B petitions during the filing period which began April 1, including petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption. On April 10, 2014, USCIS completed a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 general-category cap and 20,000 cap under the advanced degree exemption. For cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, USCIS will reject and return the petition with filing fees, unless it is found to be a duplicate filing.