Alan Lee's Talk At Rutgers University On January 27, 2008 - H-1B
Issues (Part 3 of 6). Published in Sing Tao Weekly on 3/2/08
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
(This is the third of six parts of the talk given by Alan Lee,
Esq, before the Rutgers University Chinese Students and Scholars
Association on January 27, 2008. In this part, Mr. Lee discusses
the filing addresses for H-1B's cap cases for April 1st and the
correlation between visa number availability and U.S.C.I.S.'s processing
time charts. The next installment will discuss PERM labor certifications.
The talk has been edited to improve readability and is available
on our website at
www.AlanLeeLaw.com. )
The next item on this outline is direct filing addresses for I-129
H-1B's. I'm giving you the filing addresses from last year. They
may be the same or they may change this year. We have not heard
at this time that they're changing addresses this year.
[NOTE: Since the date of the talk, we understand that the addresses
will remain the same and that e-filing will not be permitted. H-1B
petitions for applicants applying on April 1st for cap cases are
to be submitted to the Vermont Service Center if the work site will
be in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington D.C.,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North
Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Virgin Islands, or
West Virginia. Persons without U.S. master's degrees who are not
applying for premium processing should file at U.S.C.I.S., Vermont
Service Center, ATTN: H-1B Cap, 1A Lemnah Drive, St. Albans, Vermont
05479-0001. For U.S. master's cases without premium processing requests,
H-1Bs should be filed at U.S.C.I.S., Vermont Service Center, ATTN:
H-1B U.S. Master's Cap, 1A Lemnah Drive, St. Albans, VT. 05479-0001.
Premium processing addresses for H-1B cap cases (without U.S. master's
or higher degrees) are Premium Processing Service, U.S.C.I.S., Vermont
Service Center, ATTN: H-1B Cap, 30 Houghton St., St. Albans, VT.
05478-2399 and (with U.S. master's or higher degrees) Premium Processing
Service, U.S.C.I.S., Vermont Service Center, ATTN: U.S. Master's
Cap, 30 Houghton St., St. Albans, VT. 05478-2399.
If the work site will be in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio,
Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin or Wyoming, the
petition should be filed to the California Service Center. Persons
without U.S. master's degrees who are not applying for premium processing
and sending by the U.S. Postal Service should file at U.S.C.I.S.,
California Service Center, ATTN: H-1B Cap, P.O. Box 10129, Laguna
Niguel, CA. 92607-1012. For U.S. master's degree holders, non-premium
H-1Bs sent by U.S. Postal Service should be filed at U.S.C.I.S.,
California Service Center, ATTN: H-1B U.S. Master's Cap, P.O. Box
10129, Laguna Niguel, CA. 92607-1012. Delivery by private courier
for non-U.S. master's H-1B cap cases without premium processing
requests should be sent to U.S.C.I.S., ATTN: H-1B Cap, California
Service Center, 24000 Avila Road, 2d Fl., Rm. 2312, Laguna Niguel,
CA. 92677. U.S. master's and higher degree cap cases without premium
processing requests should be sent to the same address with the
different legend, "ATTN: H-1B Masters Cap". Premium processing
for H-1B cap cases sent by the U.S. Postal Service should be addressed
to Premium Processing Service, U.S.C.I.S., California Service Center,
P.O. Box 10825, Laguna Niguel, CA. 92607. The appropriate legend
of "ATTN: H-1B Cap" or "ATTN: H-1B U.S. Master's
Cap" should be included in the address. The same insertion
of the appropriate legend applies for private courier deliveries
of premium processing cases which are to be filed at Premium Processing
Service, U.S.C.I.S., California Service Center, 24000 Avila Rd.,
2d Fl., Rm. 2312, Laguna Niguel, CA. 92677.]
I now want to talk about processing times and the visa chart. The
processing times of U.S.C.I.S. service centers is published periodically
by U.S.C.I.S.. You can access them through the U.S.C.I.S. website
or on our website, www.AlanLeeLaw.com., in a consolidated form which
shows the processing times of the four major U.S.C.I.S. service
centers on the majority of forms which are used by the public. All
we try to do is to amalgamate and post the times so that you can
see in a glance what the four service centers are doing instead
of accessing each one's times separately through the government's
website. Knowing about the processing time chart is good for you
because it can help you stop wondering when your case may begin
to be processed by U.S.C.I.S. You can just look on the chart to
see when you should start tracing your case. When you file an employment
based case or application for any other benefit with Immigration,
you're going to get a receipt. The receipt will have two dates,
the receipt date and the date of receipt notice. Immigration believes
that you should hold off contacting them until at least 30 days
after the receipt notice date has been reached on the processing
time chart. At that time, if you have not yet received any further
word from Immigration, you can contact them. But Immigration does
not want to hear from anyone until the processing times have been
reached. Immigration would otherwise tell you that your inquiry
is premature. Our clients often ask us, "Why don't you check
my case with Immigration?" We have to tell them many times
that the cases have not yet exceeded Immigration's stated processing
time, and that they should read the processing time chart on our
website. Even when we attempt to inquire with Immigration on a case
which has not been reached, Immigration tells us, "Counselor,
read the processing time chart. "
Immigrant visa numbers -- This is the visa bulletin. (Mr. Lee pointing
to a copy of the visa bulletin as part of his power point presentation.
It is also available on his website at www.AlanLeeLaw.com). It tells
you what is the visa availability date of certain categories of
cases. If you have a case which is pending but visa availability
has not yet been reached, there's no point in checking on that case
also. For example, if you file an I-485 adjustment of status application,
Immigration cannot approve the I-485 before the date is reached.
The priority date of the case actually has to be surpassed. In a
case where you are from China and submit a national interest waiver
I-140 case, pick up a filing date of January 7, 2003, your I-140
has already been approved, you filed an I-485 and are just awaiting
its adjudication, Immigration will tell you to don't bother inquiring
about the case until the priority date has been surpassed on the
visa bulletin. [At the time of the talk, the priority date for that
category for China born was January 1, 2003. It has since surpassed
that date.] In other words, if your priority date is January 7,
2003, and the visa chart says January 8, 2003, Immigration has authority
at that time to approve the case. They did not have the authority
to approve it before that time.
[At this point in the talk, Mr. Lee flashed copies of the processing
time chart and visa bulletin side-by-side on the screen in the power
point presentation.] Why are they in combination? They are because
this is the way that we look at them to see whether we can chase
a I-485 adjustment of status case with Immigration. If your visa
number is open, but Immigration has not reached the case on the
processing time chart, Immigration would not welcome your inquiry.
By the same token, if Immigration has already reached the case on
the processing time chart, but the visa bulletin shows that the
visa number is not yet available, Immigration would also not welcome
your inquiry. Looking at the two charts and knowing that most employment
cases in this region are being handled out of the Texas Service
Center, in a typical case we look at the processing time chart and
see that Texas is processing I-485s submitted by January 21, 2007.
So there would be little point in inquiring about your case if you
filed in February or March 2007. But even if the time has already
passed on this chart, you have to look to see whether the priority
date of the case has been surpassed on the visa bulletin. If you
look and there is no visa availability, there's again little reason
to inquire about the I-485 since Immigration has no authority to
approve the case anyway.
I bring up the point about the visa and processing time charts
to assist you in knowing what to expect in your future cases. I
can't tell you how many times clients have called me and other lawyers
to demand that we check on their cases when to do so would be entirely
fruitless. You have to look at the combination of the two to determine
whether you can actually effectively chase your case.
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