Watson Immigration Law is proud to share that we sponsored and attended the SelectUSA Mexico City event last week. SelectUSA is the U.S. government program led by the U.S. Department of Commerce that focuses on facilitating job-creating business investment into the United States and raising awareness of the critical role that economic development plays in the U.S. economy. Since its inception, SelectUSA has facilitated more than $200 billion in investment, creating and/or retaining over 200,000 U.S. jobs. Select USA held its inaugural event in Mexico City. It was a two-day event, attended by o ..read more

Watson Immigration Law’s very own Tahmina Watson was quoted in a newly published Bloomberg article by Andrew Kreighbaum titled “H-1B Domestic Visa Renewal Pilot Program Begins as Demand Soars“. The article discusses the U.S. Department’s newly initiated domestic visa renewal pilot program for H-1B workers, allowing them to renew their visas without leaving the country. This marks the first time in two decades that such an option is available. The program, releasing 4,000 application slots initially and accepting a total of 20,000 participants over 5 weeks, aims to reduce consular workloads and ..read more

Watson Immigration Law’s very own Tahmina Watson was quoted in a newly published Reason article by Fiona Harrigan titled “New York Wants to Help More International Students Become Entrepreneurs“. The article goes over how New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a plan to address the challenge of retaining international students after graduation. The plan includes creating university-sponsored visas for certain graduate and doctoral students, allowing them to continue research and commercialize their work within the state. Hochul’s initiative also involves offering competitive grants to researc ..read more

Copied from USCIS. Note that the H-1B lottery season is from March 6 to March 22. More to come soon. Announces FY 2025 H-1B Cap Initial Registration Period and Online Filing of H-1B Petitions WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a final rule to strengthen the integrity of and reduce the potential for fraud in the H-1B registration process, including by reducing the potential for gaming the registration system and ensuring each beneficiary would have the same chance of being selected, regardless of the number of registrations submit ..read more

The highly anticipated guidance rules for state-side visa stamping was released on Dec 20, 2023.  This will be a pilot program for H1B visas only with 20,000 visas only. Therefore, it is important to understand all the details.  When does the application window open? The window will open on January 29th, 2024 There will be weekly openings for about 2000 application slots available.  The dates to file: January 29th February 5 February 12 February 19 February 26 Who can apply? Only those who were issued H1B visas from Mission Canada or Mission India, and who need to renew th ..read more

A very Happy New Year from all of us at Watson Immigration Law! We are grateful to all our clients, partners, collaborators, listeners, readers and community. It is a privilege to be part of your lives! Here are some recent photos of our team and friends at outings/hangouts and more. We are grateful for each other. We hope 2024 brings you good health, joy and success. The post Happy New Year from all of us at Watson Immigration Law! appeared first on Watson Immigration Law ..read more

In this Science.org article published on December 27, 2023, WIL’s very own Tahmina Watson and friend of WIL Doug Rand were quoted on her thoughts regarding USCIS and recent positive trends for foreign-born workers in STEM fields in the United States regarding visa approvals and green card applications. The article mentions the increase in O-1A visas, a temporary visa for individuals with extraordinary abilities, and STEM EB-2 visas with a “national interest” waiver for those with advanced STEM degrees. The data from USCIS reveals significant jumps in these visa approvals following guidance cha ..read more

A HUGE congratulations to our very own Tahmina Watson and her new book The Startup Visa for being featured at Times Square in New York City! Check out the photos of her Times Square ad below! The post Tahmina Watson’s “The Startup Visa” at Times Square appeared first on Watson Immigration Law ..read more

USCIS has announced an increase for Premium Processing Fees on visa applications. Please see below for updated pricing: Release Date  12/27/2023 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a final rule that will increase the filing fee for Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing, to adjust for inflation. The USCIS Stabilization Act established the current premium processing fees and the authority for the Department of Homeland Security to adjust the premium fees on a biennial basis. After leaving these fees unchanged for the three years following passage of the ..read more

The January 2024 Visa Bulletin was released. There were multiple significant movements in this month’s Visa Bulletin. See below for more details Commentary: January 2024 Final Action Dates Update For all countries except India, China, Philippines, and Mexico: F1 category regressed 31 days to December 01 2014; F2A category advanced to Current, F2B remains at September 22 2015, F4 category regressed 31 days to March 22 2007; EB1 remains Current; EB2 advanced 109 days to November 01 2022; and EB3 advanced to Current.  For India only: F2A category advanced to Current, F2B remai ..read more