Palmer Polaski Blog

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit of the H-1B program and determined that USCIS employer site visits were being conducted in a sparse and inefficient manner. The purpose of these visits is to determine if the foreign national is working at the jobsite indicated in the petition, if the salary stated in […]

Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions has expressed his frustration with the pace of case processing before the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), and its immigration court. The agency is facing a caseload of 650,000, which has far outstripped the agency’s resources to hear cases in a timely manner. The initial response was to hire […]

On December 5, the Senate confirmed Kirstjen M. Nielsen as the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary with a 62-37 vote. She was sworn in the following day. While Secretary Nielsen is the first former DHS employee to hold the position, many senators who voted against confirmation noted that she lacks sufficient management experience.

Below is our top 10 list of changes that the current administration has put into place, without legislation or regulations, that drastically change the immigration landscape for employers, immigrants, and their families: 10. USCIS increases site visits to employers who hire H-1B and L-1 nonimmigrant workers. 9. Consular officers re-adjudicate approved employment-based petitions to ensure […]

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The following additional items may be of interest to our readers: DACA Update: In November, a myriad of advocates took to the phones, Facebook, and Twitter to contact members of Congress in support of DACA. Scheduled to expire in March, the legislative branch has not yet come up with a solution for recipients and does […]

For over 10 years, USCIS has taken the approach that, when adjudicating extension petitions involving the same employer, the same beneficiary, and the same underlying facts, its adjudicators would defer to prior approval determinations. USCIS has now reversed this policy, interpreting it as placing an extra burden on the agency to find and compare an […]

The following is an update and roundup of the current status of TPS for some 10 countries. As of August 2017, an estimated 325,000 TPS beneficiaries live in the United States. More than 90 percent of individuals with TPS are nationals of El Salvador (195,000), Honduras (57,000), or Haiti (50,000). The remaining beneficiaries come from […]

On December 4, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two orders staying the preliminary injunctions issued against President Trump’s September 24, 2017, Presidential Proclamation, or “Travel Ban,” pending disposition of appeals still pending in the courts. The ban restricts nationals of Chad, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia from entering the United […]

All new employees are required to complete a Form I-9 when they are hired. While many new employees do so with little thought, the consequences for foreign nationals of improperly completing the form can be disastrous, leading to serious immigration consequences. Some USCIS districts have been scouring I-9 forms to see if there are any […]