News Update - July 13, 2007
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
More News on the Employment Based Visa Number Embroglio
The
Immigration Daily today quotes Attorney Jay Solomon's report
on his web site that a knowledgeable official in the Department
of State confirmed that U.S.C.I.S. was requesting visa numbers on
July 1st and July 2nd, and that visa numbers were still being issued
as late as the morning of July 2nd; that close to 30,000 visa numbers
were requested and issued in July through the morning of July 2nd.
Mr. Solomon believed that many if not most of the requests made
in the first two days of July were for applicants whose priority
dates were not current in June. He further questions the actual
usage of visa numbers by the U.S.C.I.S..
The above is a further indication of the frantic and apparently
illegal actions of U.S.C.I.S. to protect its fee hike coming into
effect on July 30th, but too late to prevent loss of hundreds of
millions of dollars by applicants who could have filed I-485 applications
in July under the earlier Department of State visa bulletin which
opened employment based categories one through three (EB-1through
EB-3).
What can be done to remedy the situation other than by lawsuit?
If the agencies can be persuaded to relent by public and congressional
pressure and the constant shining light of publicity, appropriate
beginning curative actions would be to reopen the employment based
classes and to delay U.S.C.I.S. fee hikes until the visa bulletin
reverts to the earlier July chart EB dates and applicants are given
a reasonable period of time (30 days) to submit I-485 applications
under the current fees.
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