All posts by Harun Kazmi

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigration Act (HR 3012), eliminating per-country caps on employment-based visa. This may allow more highly skilled immigrants from India and China to obtain green cards faster. Currently, immigration law limits employment-based green cards allowing permanent residence for citizens from any one country to …Read More

Two Senators have come up with a plan to boost the moribund U.S. housing market: Give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy a home in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal says Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah) are preparing to introduce the idea as part …Read More

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State. This law provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants“, with visas made available to persons from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. For fiscal year 2013, 50,000 diversity visas …Read More

On August 19, 2011 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that they are taking concrete steps to implement existing guidelines on prosecutorial discretion across the agency in an attempt to provide relief for low priority immigration cases. DHS also announced the creation of a committee which will review 300,000 immigration cases currently in removal …Read More

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that Global Entry members will now be issued a Global Entry version of the SENTRI card which allows expedited entry into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico using the NEXUS, SENTRI and Ready Lanes at land ports of entry. The new card operates as a SENTRI card for …Read More

On July 28, 2011, pursuant to a review of University of Northern Virginia’s (UNVA) certification, an Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) representative served school officials at UNVA with a Notice of Intent to Withdraw (NOIW) the school’s SEVP-certification and SEVIS access. UNVA students have two choices: 1. Continue to attend classes and maintain their …Read More

Due to the current political and security situation in Yemen in June and July of 2011, the Department of State has ordered all eligible family members of U.S. government employees as well as certain non‐emergency personnel to depart Yemen. Due to the fluid security situation in Sana’a, the Consular Section will only be able to …Read More

As of June 2011, for the first time in 20 years, immigrant visa applicants will again have scheduled interviews in Kabul, Afghanistan. U.S. Embassy Islamabad was previously the closest U.S. Embassy or Consulate where immigrant visa applicants could be interviewed. Applicants for petition-based visas, which are mostly temporary work visas, can also now interview in …Read More

The U.S. State Department is voiding the results of the Diversity Visa Program for 2012. The State Department said that due to  a computer programming problem, the results of the 2012 Diversity Lottery that were previously posted on their website have been voided. They were not valid and were posted in error. The results were …Read More

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the elimination of the list of countries whose nationals have been subject to registration under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS)-effectively ending the NSEERS registration process through the publication of a notice in the Federal Register:     DHS and the U.S. government have conducted roundtables, meetings, …Read More