**UPDATE** October 11, 2019: Today, a federal district court temporarily stopped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from implementing new “public charge” requirements for certain nonimmigrant and immigrant petitions and applications. This means that the new versions of forms mentioned in the October 9, 2019 post below will NOT go into effect, and have Read More »
Alerts
DHS Fraud Alert regarding telephone scam (March 2019)
On March 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a fraud alert to warn about reports that DHS telephone numbers have been used as part of a telephone spoofing scam throughout the country. As stated in the DHS press release: “The perpetrators of the scam represent themselves Read More »
Update on Partial Government Shutdown, 2018-2019
**UPDATE** on January 25, 2019, the President signed a short-term funding bill that reopened the federal government. The bill does not include funds to construct a border wall, and only includes funding through February 15, 2019. Congress passed the bill immediately, but another partial shutdown could occur again if Congress and the White House do Read More »
TPS Status Preserved and Extended due to October 2018 Court Order
October 31, 2018: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice in the Federal Register that temporarily preserves Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. All were countries whose nationals were set to lose their TPS status over the course of the next year: Sudan on November Read More »
Changes to the Public Charge inadmissibility grounds
October 10, 2018: The Trump Administration has proposed changes to rules regarding how the acceptance of certain public benefits may impact admissibility to the U.S., including the ability to change or extend nonimmigrant status. As summarized by Fragomen Worldwide (immigration law firm): “The proposed regulation would impose stricter standards for determining whether an applicant for Read More »
Premium Processing Fee to Increase on October 1, 2018
September 4, 2018: USCIS has announced that effective October 1, 2018, it will raise the Premium Processing fee to $1,410 (from the current amount of $1,225). All eligible petitions and applications received by USCIS on or after that date requesting this expedited service must include the higher fee. Premium Processing is a service offered by USCIS in Read More »
Beware of Police Complaint Scam
July 12, 2018: A Professor on NC State’s campus has reported that scammers pretending to be with the police called him, and appear to be targeting NC State University faculty and students by asking for immigration documentation and information, and possibly claiming that there are outstanding warrants and fines owed. The scammers might be sophisticated Read More »
Trump Administration “Immigration Principles & Policies” summary
On October 8, 2017, President Trump sent a letter to Congress setting forth his plan to reform the U.S. immigration system. These reforms are requirements for any legislative relief for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Below is a good summary of the plan from the global immigration law firm of Fragomen, Del Rey, Read More »
IRS Phone Scam and NC State University Police
August 21, 2017: NC State University Police are investigating a phone scam operation impacting the campus community. The phony callers are representing themselves as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents attempting to collect an outstanding debt. The scammers are asking for payment with gift cards or iTunes cards. The phony calls also appear to be coming Read More »
Beware of Immigration Fraud Schemes
In April 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an alert to warn the public that the OIG Hotline telephone was used in a scam targeting foreign nationals to reveal personal information. OIG never uses its Hotline number to make outgoing calls and people should never provide personal information Read More »