Join us this Saturday, March 24th at 5 pm for an event sponsored by the Barbados Association of Washington, DC Area Inc. (BAWDC) to learn about navigating immigration issues in the current political climate. Simone Williams, Managing Attorney with Williams Global Law, will be one of the expert attorneys participating in this important discussion. Understanding and navigating immigration laws can be very frustrating and confusing, especially in this current time. Our goal is to leave attendees with a better understanding of their legal rights within the current laws. The event will be held at the Embassy of Barbados, 2144 Wyoming Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20008. If you are interested in

As we reported earlier, changes to the current EB-5 program would happen soon... and as predicted, a draft EB-5 bill was proposed late last week, called the “Immigrant Investor Visa and Regional Center Program Comprehensive Reform Act” or “EB-5 Reform Act". The proposed bill is being circulating in draft form and may become enacted as early as March 23, 2018. As briefly outlined below, the draft bill proposes significant changes to the EB-5 program, including increases to the minimum investment amount from $500,000 to $925,000. Here are some key points on the proposed EB-5 Reform Act: - The bill was proposed by Senator Grassley and Senator Cornyn, Republican Senators - The bill is being

On March 1, 2018, USCIS released that during the beginning of February 2018, it has received over 27,000 H-2B cap-subject petitions requesting approximately 47,000 workers for the second half of the FY 2018. As a result, the Service conducted a lottery on February 28, 2018 to randomly select enough petitions to meet the cap. The H-2B visa program is designed for low skilled foreign national workers to come to the U.S. to fill temporary nonagricultural work. The H-2B visa cap for each fiscal year is 66,000, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (October1 - March 31) and 33,000 for workers, who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year

On March 2, 2018, Simone Williams attended the Celebration of Africa event, honoring the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo and the Honorable Edward Royce, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States House of Representatives.

As we have reported before, the Parole for International Entrepreneurs program (IEP) is a new USCIS program available to foreign entrepreneurs. Occasionally called the “start-up” visa, the IEP is specifically designed for entrepreneurs coming to the US to launch or operate a newly formed venture. What is different about the IEP as opposed to other visa programs is that it only grants qualified immigrant entrepreneurs “parole status”, which means that it provides them with status to run their companies in the United States for up to 30-months, extendable to up to 5 years. Therefore, IEP is not actually a visa, nor does it provide a direct path to permanent residency (green card). Requirements

On September 5, 2017, the Trump administration terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and permitted only a subset of current DACA recipients, whose protections were set to expire on or before March 5, 2018, to file renewal applications. As a result, more than 20,000 young people (known as “dreamers”) did not renew, thus losing their DACA protections. However, on February 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to bypass the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; returning the case back to the standard appellate process, starting at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In the meantime, the Department of

Effective October 1, 2017, USCIS implemented a new policy requiring all employment-based permanent residency (“green card”) applicants to attend an in-person interview with a USCIS officer before their case is finalized and approved. All employment-based green card applications, filed on or after March 6, 2017, are subject to this interview in the following categories: EB-1, employment based first preference EB-2, employment based second preference EB-3, employment based third preference Once the I-485, adjustment of status to permanent resident application has been filed and it is ready to be adjudicated, the application will be sent to the National Benefit Center (NBC). Upon transfer of

25 days left to submit your H-1B petition! Every year thousands of American employers apply for the H-1B nonimmigrant work visa for temporary foreign workers. This H-1B season is expected to be even more intense than ever before due to tougher review procedures at the USCIS. As part of his "Buy American, Hire American" order, President Trump has directed federal agencies to propose new rules and guidance to tighten the requirements for approval of visas, including H-1B visas. As a result, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released several new policies. One such directive rescinds the previous guidance, which gave "deference" to previously approved visas "as long as the

We noticed that getting immigration cases approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is more challenging than ever before! The number of Request for Evidence (RFE) notices issued by USCIS have significantly increased and USCIS is requesting exhaustive and extensive documentation on almost any aspect of a case. Please anticipate case processing delays and/or USCIS may issue an RFE for your case. However, please rest assured that we, at Williams Global Law are successfully working with our clients to manage the unpredictable and challenging immigration climate at this time!