Washington Update

Presented at

INSZoom Conference

Bangalore, India

October 28, 2015

• Prakash Khatri, Moderator

• Khatri Law Firm, LLC, Bethesda, MD, USA.

• prakash@khatrilaw.com

Washington Update

• Immigration Act Of 1965 – 50 year anniversary this month.

• November 20th 2014 President Obama Announced Executive Orders to

assist immigrants in the face of Congressional inaction:

• Granting Work permits to certain spouses of H-1B

nonimmigrants – implemented in May 2015.

• New Guidance on L-1B specialized knowledge– this guidance

was finalized.

• Employment Based Immigrants awaiting adjustment can file

applications earlier than the priority date. --Implemented through the

Visa Bulletins in September 2015.

Washington Update (cont)

• New STEM OPT Rules announced on October 19th , 2015.

• No new legislation expected to be passed in the coming months to

resolve the many issues that exist with the US Immigration System.

• Fraud Detection Units have now been expanded at USCIS, at ports of

entry, at Consular posts, at the Department of Labor and at ICE.

• RFE’s for both H-1B’s and L-1 petitions continue to be high while

approval rates are increasing at USCIS offices.

• US/India negotiations on a totalization pact has hit a roadblock. The

agreement could help Indian IT companies operating in the US save up

to $4 billion in annual deposits made into the US’s social security fund

that Indian workers could neither utilize or get refunded.– Pankaj will

provide details.

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Historical Perspective

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

Historical Perspective

H

Historical Perspective

Historical Perspective

Future Perspective

Future Perspective

2015 Ombudsman Report – June 2015

• Concerns persist with USCIS adjudication of nonimmigrant petitions

for high-skilled beneficiaries including H-1B Specialty Occupations,

L-1A Intracompany Transferee Managers or Executives, L-1B

Specialized Knowledge Workers, and O-1 Individuals with

Extraordinary Ability or Achievement.

• RFE’s continue to be redundant and seek documents which were

previously provided, unnecessary, irrelevant, exceeds what is

necessary to complete the adjudication, or is unduly burdensome in

scope or intrusiveness.

• L-1 A areas of focus include “new” office L-1A extension cases and

on the petitioning entity’s organizational structure.

• L-1B USCIS policy memorandum on “Specialized Knowledge.”

2015 Ombudsman Report

• In FY 2014 USCIS approved:

• 96.5% of H-1B visa petitions

• 80.3% of all L-1A petitions

• 70.9% of all L-1B petitions

• At the same time RFE rates keep going up while denial rates keep

going down

• On the Immigrant Visa side, I-140’s for EB-1 and EB-2 are at the

highest approval rates in recent years. Maybe the RFE’s are having

a positive effect…

Introduction to L-1 Visa CategoryRFE Trends

L-1 Denial Trends

FDNS Site Visits

• USCIS announced their Fraud Detection and National Security

(FDNS) unit will soon begin conducting randomly-selected

compliance visits for Extension of Status petitions filed with USCIS

for L-1A managers and executives.

• FDNS plans to expand the site visit program to other L-1 petitions in

the future, but the date of implementation is uncertain.

• L-1 Petitions will be selected at random for the unannounced site

visit at the worksite address listed on the petition.

• Federal Immigration Officers will conduct the visits.

I-140 & I-360 Filing Receipts and Decision

Rates by Preference Category