January 23, 2012
Legal/Office Assistant- excellent oral and written communication skills; detail oriented; good organizational skill; professional attitude and demeanor. Phone reception; Computer proficient, Friendly/flexible workplace environment. Hindi language speaking candidates preferred. Please submit your resume and cover letter to office.emandi@gmail.com, fax to 212 686-7792.
Paralegal PERM Immigration, NYC – Our firm has great opportunity for experienced paralegals Must have 5 yr experience with PERM applications. Bachelor's degree required, excellent oral and written, organizational, and communication skills; Must be detail oriented, have initiative, diligence, resourcefulness, enthusiasm; professional attitude and demeanor. Send resumes to: rani@emandilaw.com or fax 212-686-7792
The Immigrant Visa allows an individual to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis, as well as provides the immigrant the opportunity to work towards U.S. citizenship.
The U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, India will no longer process Immigrant Visa petitions as of January 1, 2012, as mentioned on its website. However, an immigrant who has a pending immigrant visa application with the Chennai office and were requested to provide additional documents before the Chennai Consulate should contact the U.S. Consulate General Chennai at ChennaiIVU@state.gov.
The website further reports that pending applications will be processed in Chennai through March 30, 2012 and any pending applications which have not been completed by March 30, 2012 will be transferred to Mumbai office. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and U.S. Consulate in Mumbai will become the only acceptance centers in India for Immigrant Visas.
There has been great movement in the visa numbers for employment-based, EB-2 nationals of India and China. The cutoff date has jumped forward and changed from March 15, 2008 to January 1, 2009 for the January 2012 visa bulletin.
The cutoff date for the EB3 category for India has moved forward from August 1, 2002 to August 8, 2002, which is a slow movement of eight days.
Any individuals, who have priority dates prior to Jan 2, 2009, should immediately gather their documents in preparation of filing their adjustment of status application in January, 2012. Some preparatory works include medical examination, financial documents, and passport pictures among other documents.
H-1B QUOTA FY 2012
The H-1B quota cap for 2012 (i.e., for employment starting October 1, 2011) was reached on November 22, 2011.
DOL ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE PROCESSING OF PWD
The Department of Labor ("DOL") has provided an update on the current PERM processing dates. The processing of PWD requests has resumed, following the DOL's complete cessation of PWD issuance and are taking two and half months to three months for processing. The volume of such PWDs continues to be fairly low, and the DOL remains quiet on the matter of backlogged requests. PWD requests currently received at our Firm are being processed from August, 2011.
We hope that DOL will improve the PERM processing times over the next few months to one month processing time.
THE RESUMPTION OF INTERVIEWS IN MUMBAI FOR H AND L VISAS
The U.S. Consulate in Mumbai has announced the resumption of interviews in Mumbai for H and L visas. The Consulate has announced that it will open the appointment schedule on August 26, 2011, and the first interview appointments available are on September 6, 2011. All interviews will be conducted at the Lincoln House Consulate building, located at 78, Bhulabhai Desai Road, until further notice.
Earlier this year, in march, the Mumbai Consulate suspended all H and L visa stamp processing due to ageing infrastructure.
USCIS CHANGE IN PROCEDURE REGARDING ORIGINAL H-1B APPROVAL NOTICE
According to, the new USCIS procedure, employers have started receiving "original" H-1B approval notices (I-797A or I-797B) from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This is at variance with long standing procedures, and there was no public announcement. Previously, all such original notices related to a decision on any immigration filing were sent to the attorney of record. The attorney then accepted responsibility for mailing out these important documents to clients.
Thus, employers/petitioners should be diligent about how they handle original USCIS approval notices, by ensuring the mail is carefully checked.
