Articles Posted in Embassies

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the process of applying for a green card via “consular processing” for individuals residing outside of the United States.  Additionally, in this video you will learn how long it is taking for an immigrant visa interview to be scheduled as of September 2024.

Please note that the green card application process will differ for individuals applying from inside the United States (this process is known as Adjustment of Status).

For the purposes of this video, we will focus solely on consular processing for applicants applying for their green card from outside the United States via a U.S. Consulate or Embassy overseas.

Steps Involved in Applying for a Green Card via Consular Processing

There are multiple steps involved when applying for a green card visa consular processing. To understand this process, here is an overview of what lies ahead:

Step 1: The first step to begin consular processing is for your qualifying relative to petition for your visa by submitting Form I-130 Petition for Alien Relative with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Step 2: After submitting the immigrant petition, it takes USCIS several months to approve the petition. The time it takes for this petition to be approved depends on several factors including the workload of the service center processing your petition and current USCIS backlogs.

Step 3: Once your petition is approved by USCIS, you must check the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin to see whether a green card is available for you based on your priority date as listed on your I-130, I-140, or I-360 approval notice. For PERM applications, the priority date is the date when the PERM was filed with the Department of Labor. Please note that immediate relatives of U.S. Citizens have a green card immediately available, and they do not need to wait in line. However, other green card applicants are subject to numerical quotas.

Step 4: Once your priority date is current on the Visa Bulletin, and a green card is available, USCIS will forward your petition to the National Visa Center (NVC) for further processing. It takes approximately 90 days for the NVC to receive your case from USCIS. The NVC is an intermediary between USCIS and the Department of State, responsible for preparing your application to be sent to the U.S. Consulate or Embassy abroad where you will be interviewed at the end of your application process.

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the current status of parole in place applications under the Keeping Families Together program and how a new lawsuit will impact the approval of applications under the program.

To learn more, please keep on watching this video.

What is Keeping Families Together?

The Keeping Families Together program was recently established by presidential executive order to create a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. Citizens, who entered the country without inspection, and have been continuously present in the United States since at least June 17, 2024.

Those granted parole in place under Keeping Families Together are given three years to apply for temporary work authorization and permanent residency from inside the United States. At least 500,000 spouses, and about 50,000 of their children are set to benefit from this program.

Parole in place simplifies the green card application process by eliminating the need for spouses to apply for an extreme hardship “waiver,” and to depart the United States to attend a visa interview at a U.S. Consulate abroad.

In doing so, this process prevents prolonged family separation and enables applicants to obtain permanent residency without departing the United States.

Federal Judge Temporarily Halts Parole in Place Program

On August 19, 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting online applications for parole in place, using a new electronic form called Form I-131F, Application for Parole in Place for Certain Noncitizen Spouses and Stepchildren of U.S. Citizens.

Several days later, the state of Texas along with 15 other states filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the program.

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the top work visa alternatives to the H-1B visa for those who were not selected in the H-1B lottery for the FY 2025 cap season.

To learn more, please keep on watching this video.

Overview

As our readers may know, the electronic registration process for the H-1B work visa occurs every year during the month of March. During this period, U.S. employers petitioning for foreign workers must submit an electronic registration on behalf of each employee for a chance to be selected in the H-1B visa lottery.

Once the electronic registration period has closed, the H-1B lottery is conducted to select enough beneficiaries to participle in the program. Unfortunately, competition for the H-1B visa is fierce because only 65,000 H-1B visas are available each fiscal year, and another 20,000 are available for foreign workers possessing a U.S. master’s degree or higher.

Due to these numerical limits, the demand for H-1B visas far outweighs available visas, causing many to miss out on the visa.

As a result, U.S. employers and their workers should be familiar with alternative work visa options to provide relief in cases where they were not selected.

The H-1B Work Visa Alternatives

The O-1A Visa

The O-1A Visa is a nonimmigrant visa for individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary ability in fields such as the sciences, education, business, and athletics. It allows individuals with exceptional talents to work in the United States, if they can prove sustained national or international acclaim in their domain. It also enables their family members to accompany them to the United States on O-3 visas.

O-1 applicants must be petitioned for the visa directly by their employers or agents (employers are U.S. companies that direct the work the beneficiary will undertake in the U.S., while agents are individuals or entities acting on behalf of multiple employers). The employer or agent must provide an employment contract or agreement detailing the job offer, the applicant’s roles and responsibilities while in the United States, etc.

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If you are currently going through the immigrant visa process and are waiting for your interview to be scheduled at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy overseas, then you won’t want to miss this important video. In this video attorney Jacob Sapochnick shares the latest updates regarding the operational capacity of U.S. Consular posts and Embassies worldwide as of June 2024.

Annual Numerical Limits – Visa Bulletin

Please note that certain categories of immigrants are subject to annual numerical limits which means that applicants must wait until an immigrant visa becomes available to them, before they can be scheduled for an immigrant visa interview at a Consulate overseas.

These include unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. Citizens, spouses and children of permanent residents, unmarried sons and daughters (21 years or older) of permanent residents, married sons and daughters of U.S. Citizens, and brothers and sisters of adult U.S. Citizens.

Additionally, all employment-based immigrant visa categories are subject to annual numerical limits.

If any of the above-mentioned categories apply to you, you must check the Visa Bulletin every month to determine whether your priority date is current according to your preference category and country of nationality. Only once your priority date is current on the final action date chart of the Visa Bulletin, can your case be scheduled for a visa interview.

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Have you ever been confused about how to read the Visa Bulletin or wanted to learn more about how it works? Then you won’t want to miss this important video.

In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick breaks down everything you need to know about how to read and understand the Visa Bulletin issued by the State Department.

Overview

What is a Priority Date?

First, let’s discuss what a priority date is in immigration law.

A priority date is the date that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received your I-130 immigrant petition for alien relative, or I-140 immigrant petition for alien worker. For employment-based cases, where a labor certification application is required, the priority date is the date on which the labor certification was received by the Department of Labor.

Essentially, a priority date determines a person’s place in line in the immigrant visa queue because there are a limited number of green cards available in a given year. The limited number of visas is also referred to as an annual numerical limitation or “visa cap,” set by the U.S. Congress.

A priority date is critically important because it determines when you can apply for your green card (if you are in the U.S.), or your immigrant visa at a consulate overseas.

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In this video and blog post, we discuss a recent Supreme Court decision finding that U.S. Citizens do not have a fundamental right in having their noncitizen spouses admitted to the United States.

What is this ruling all about?

Department of State v. Muñoz

On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in Department of State v. Muñoz that U.S. citizens petitioning for their foreign spouses do not have a constitutional liberty interest in their spouses being admitted to the country.

What’s worse, the court upheld the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, which says that there can be no judicial review of a consular officer’s decision finding a visa applicant inadmissible, except in a very limited class of constitutional cases.

About the Case

The plaintiff in the case, Sandra Muñoz, married her husband, a Salvadoran citizen in 2010, and shared a U.S. Citizen child with him. Thereafter, her husband applied for an immigrant visa at the U.S. Consulate in El Salvador so that they could live together in the United States and sought a waiver of inadmissibility. He denied having any gang affiliations despite being heavily tattooed.

After undergoing several interviews, the consular officer denied his application, citing §1182(a)(3)(A)(ii), a provision that renders inadmissible a noncitizen whom the officer “knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, seeks to enter the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in” certain specified offenses or “any other unlawful activity.”

The plaintiff’s husband assumed that he had been denied a visa based upon the erroneous finding that he was a member of the gang MS-13. He denied being a member and requested the Consulate to reconsider its findings.

After the consulate refused, they appealed to the Department of State, which ultimately agreed with the consulate’s determination.

The couple then sought Congressional intervention and sued the State Department, claiming that they violated the plaintiff’s constitutional liberty interest in her husband’s visa application by failing to give a sufficient reason why he was inadmissible under the “unlawful activity” bar.

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Did you register for the Diversity Visa Lottery in fiscal year 2025? If so, then you won’t want to miss this important video where attorney Jacob Sapochnick shares how you can check the status of your entry online to know whether you have been chosen to apply for a Diversity Visa (DV). Checking the status of your entry is an important step in the application process because the State Department does not notify lottery winners directly.

Learn more about how to check your status in this video.

Overview

Earlier this month, the State Department selected the winners of the fiscal year 2025 Diversity Visa lottery. Registrants can now check whether they have been chosen by navigating to the 2025 Entrant Status Check webpage.

To check your status, you will need to have your confirmation number, enter your last/family name, and year of birth.

Once you have confirmed that you have been selected in the DV lottery, the State Department webpage will include detailed information on how and when you must apply for permanent residence in the United States.

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In this video attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses the State Department’s release of the June 2024 Visa Bulletin. Learn all about the changes we are seeing in the family-sponsored and employment-based categories for the month of June in this video.

Adjustment of Status Filing Chart June 2024

For the month of June 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will continue to use the Dates for Filing Chart for all family-sponsored preference categories, and the Final Action Dates Chart for all employment-based preference categories, when applying for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the United States.

Top Highlights of the June Visa Bulletin

Employment-Based Categories

Unfortunately, for the employment-based categories, the June Visa Bulletin shows no movement.

  • The Dates for Filing chart in June remains unchanged from the previous months.
  • The Final Action Dates for EB-1, EB-2, and EB-5 remain unchanged.
  • Only EB-3 India will advance by one week.

Family-Sponsored Categories

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In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick provides a new update regarding the recent increase in the Immigrant Visa backlogs, which grew to more than 25,000 additional cases in the month of April alone.

To find out why this is this happening and what can you expect, please keep on watching.

Did you Know? Every month the Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC) publishes an Immigrant Visa Backlog report, which provides data and statistics relating to the current status of worldwide visa operations, including the number of documentarily complete immigrant visa cases currently at the National Visa Center waiting for interviews, the number of cases that were scheduled for interviews at the end of each month, and the number of immigrant visa cases still waiting to be scheduled for a visa interview after interview appointment scheduling was completed at the end of the month.

Overview

According to the Department of State’s Immigrant Visa Backlog Report for the month of April 2024, there has been a substantial increase in the immigrant visa (IV) backlog rising from 326,415 pending cases in March to 351,624 cases in April —  nearly a 10% increase amounting to a jump of 25,209 additional cases added to the backlog in just a one-month period. 

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Did you know? The May 2024 Visa Bulletin was recently released by the Department of State. In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick talks about the exciting movement we are seeing in almost all the family-sponsored categories in the month of May, and what we can expect to see for the employment-based categories in the coming months.

Adjustment of Status Filing Chart May 2024

For the month of May 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will continue to use the Dates for Filing Chart for all family-sponsored preference categories, and the Final Action Dates Chart for all employment-based preference categories, when applying for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the United States.

What Can We Expect to see in the Month of May?

Family-sponsored categories

FINAL ACTION DATES FOR FAMILY-SPONSORED PREFERENCE CASES

The Final Action Dates Chart for the family-sponsored categories advanced for nearly all categories as follows:

  • F1 Mexico will advance by 5.5 months to October 15, 2001
  • F1 Philippines will remain the same at March 1, 2012
  • F1 All other countries will advance by 4.9 months to July 8, 2015
  • F2A Mexico will advance by 2.8 months to November 8, 2020
  • F2A Philippines will advance by 8.7 months to June 1, 2021
  • F2A All other countries will advance by 8.7 months to June 1, 2021
  • F2B Mexico will advance by 4.3 months to March 1, 2004
  • F2B Philippines will remain at October 22, 2011
  • F2B All other countries will advance by 4.3 months to April 1, 2016
  • F3 Mexico will advance by 10.4 months to July 22, 1999
  • F3 Philippines will advance by 1.8 months to August 1, 2002
  • F3 All other countries will advance by 3 months to January 1, 2010
  • F4 Worldwide and China will advance by 1.4 months to July 22, 2007
  • F4 India will advance by 1 month to January 15, 2006
  • F4 Mexico will advance by 3.3 months to January 22, 2001
  • F4 Philippines will advance by 2.8 months to September 8, 2003

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