U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the filing period for certain Liberian nationals and family members to apply for adjustment of status under the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness provision has been extended until December 20, 2021.
The provision provides an opportunity for certain Liberian nationals and family members to obtain lawful permanent resident status in the United States.
Details:
The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) operations have been constrained by the global COVID pandemic, and consular backlogs have become the norm over the past 18 months. This is bad news for persons seeking visas, and particularly difficult for visa applicants languishing in “administrative processing.” It appears that many of these cases are put on the backburner, and for such individuals this means awaiting adjudication for years. In some instances where there is “unreasonable delay”, filing a lawsuit against DOS may be an option to get a visa application off the shelf and in front of a consular officer to make a final decision on the case. Earlier this week, our firm, together with Wasden Banias, assisted a Russian national to obtain an immigrant visa that had been filed and sitting idly for 27 months. The complaint explained how the delay had taken an extreme toll on the foreign national’s U.S. citizen spouse and children and argued that the inaction violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The U.S. government responded by filing a Motion to Dismiss, arguing that the visa application had already been “refused” by the U.S. Consulate in Moscow and that this refusal makes them immune to judicial review […]
The State Department has released the January Visa Bulletin. Below are highlights along with commentary from WR Immigration’s Director of Visa Consulting Charlie Oppenheim on the Visa Bulletin updates, many of which he predicted in his December 15, 2022, “Chatting with Charlie” webinar. Related: Chatting with Charlie webinar series continues in January! See upcoming dates>> EB-1: All countries remain current, except for India and China, which as predicted during the December 15 Chatting with Charlie, an EB-1 Final Action Date (FAD) of February 1, 2022 has been imposed for both India and China and an Application Filing Date (AFD) for adjustment filing for cases with priority dates earlier than June 1, 2022. USCIS will publish on its Visa Bulletin web page whether they will allow either the AFD or FAD to be used for the filing of adjustment of status applications for January. EB-2: The India EB-2 India FAD remains unchanged at October 8, 2011, and the India AFD remains unchanged at May 1, 2012. China EB-2 remains unchanged at June 8, 2019. All other countries stay on November 1, 2022. EB-3 Professionals and Skilled Workers: The India EB-3 FAD will remains unchanged at June 15, 2012, and the AFD remains unchanged at August 1, 2012. The China EB-3 FAD remains unchanged at August 1, 2018, and the AFD stays on September 1, […]
