Every year, over 8000 people attend the Cleveland Festival popularly known as the “Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana”. The schedule of the ten-day festival includes the who’s who of Indian classical music and dance, and brings together a tremendous outpouring of support from Indian cultural connoisseurs from all over the U.S. This year’s Festival is dedicated to the memory of Maestros Tanjore Balasaraswati (celebrated Indian dancer), Madras Lalitangi Vasanthakumari (fondly known as MLV; legendary Carnatic musician and playback singer), and Sandhyavandanam Srinivasa Rao (Musicologist, Carnatic musi ..read more

H-1B CAP season is upon us once again. It is time to recap and highlight some of things to bear in mind. Filing Your H-1B With the Correct Service Center In October last year, the USCIS made several changes to how certain H-1B petitions were to be filed. Two important changes were made to the filing process: Form I-129 should be filed according to the state where the company or organization’s primary office is located. Previously, petitioners filed Form I-129 based on the beneficiary’s temporary employment or training location. Petitioners located in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas ..read more

I read with interest an article in the NY Times by David Leonhardt entitled, Lost Einsteins: The Innovations We’re Missing; the basis for the Article is  a study by The Equality of Opportunity Project. The study seeks to analyze the lives of more than one million inventors in the United States to understand the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in America. The findings reveal: there are many “lost Einsteins” – women, minorities, and children from low-income families who would have had high-impact discoveries had they been exposed to innovation while growing up. If these groups inv ..read more

From all indications, it is now apparent that the Trump administration policies have taken extraordinary precedence over business interests and long-established Service policy when it comes to the H-1B Visa. All year long, the administration has waged a silent and sometimes insidious battle to shut down the legitimate use of this visa category. It all started with the now notorious executive order in April this year, entitled “Buy American and Hire American”. Unfortunately, this half-baked policy is being treated as carte blanche by the USCIS to overhaul anything and everything. The Service ev ..read more

Unsurprisingly, the current administration continues to explore options to target all forms of immigration for singular attention. Unfortunately, employment based immigration, which has largely escaped scrutiny is now under the magnifying glass! For as long as I can remember, USCIS has been increasingly overwhelmed by their workload contributing to slower and slower immigration processing times. Even after the Visa Numbers become current, it takes approximately 10-12 months longer for final adjudication of a pre-adjudicated Application. Waiving the interview process for employment immigrants w ..read more

Recently, I read an article entitled, “Why, as an immigrant, I am not outraged by Trump’s immigration proposal”. The clickbait worthy title aside, I found the very notion that a fellow immigrant would not feel outraged by a reduction in overall immigration to the United States selfish, abhorrent and wholly lacking in compassion. I commented on the article posted on LinkedIn: With all due respect, Congress should try achieving meaningful immigration reform through a comprehensive (business and family) approach. The “clickbait worthy” title of your article hurts the cause of hard working advocat ..read more

A client pays all employees on an hourly basis. This includes U.S. Citizens, Permanent Residents and Non immigrants in H-1B status. The Employer honors the minimum salary (required wage) commitment as specified on Form I-129. Earlier this week, this employer received an email from an employee which ran thus: I am not sure I can be paid on an hourly basis as an H-1B employee. H-1B status is linked to my salary. I don’t believe you can stop paying me while I am on vacation. This would result in my going out of status. Kindly withhold a portion of my salary to be paid when I travel abroad (on vac ..read more

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