H-1B Transfer Activity Will Be Unprecedented
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T11:05:57-05:00On May 1, prospective employers who sponsored H-1B visa candidates this year began to get receipt notices for US Masters Cap cases. In the month to follow, employers will find out the fate of the blind lottery used to determine which H-1B petitions will be adjudicated.
Every year, USCIS starts accepting H-1B petitions on April […]
Foreign National Students: Optional and Curricular Practical Training, Transition to H-1B Status and Individual Income Tax Filings
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T11:40:37-05:00Foreign students come to the U.S. for full-time study under the F-1 visa. In order to qualify for the visa, they must first apply to an authorized educational institution, which can include any private elementary or secondary school, community or junior college, university or language institute. Once they apply to that institution and are […]
Immigration Status and Employment Laws in New York
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T11:22:06-05:00Foreign workers in the U.S. occupy every position from farmhand and dishwasher to engineer, doctor and CEO, and their visas and legal statuses also vary greatly. For the majority of the twelve-plus million undocumented immigrants, there is no such thing as legal employment, and therefore employers are not supposed to hire them at all. […]
“Outside-In Immigration”
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T11:34:33-05:00SMA Law Firm has its origins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where its founder, Steve Maggi, set up shop in 2004 and started offering U.S. immigration legal assistance to people and companies from his native Argentina. What developed from that was a specialization in what we call “Outside-In Immigration”. What does this mean? Essentially it […]
USCIS Announces Alarming Changes in Immigration Petition Adjudications
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T11:47:20-05:00On July 13, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted a policy memorandum on its website, that provides guidance to USCIS adjudicators regarding their discretion to deny an application, petition, or request without first issuing a Request for Evidence (RFE) or Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) when required initial evidence was not submitted […]
Hang On! Tips for Surviving the 2018 H-1B Roller Coaster Ride
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T14:13:38-05:00The annual roller coaster ride known as the H-1B visa application process is about to go up the hill and come speeding down, with unknown twists and turns coming your way.
For the next four weeks, employers are scrambling to decide whether to sponsor foreign nationals for professional positions, American university grads from foreign countries […]
Can Your Business Investment Bring You to the United States?
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T14:32:48-05:00Business owners and investors are using Treaty Investor visa, also known as the E-2 visa, to set up shop in the US.
The E-2 visa allows passport holders from any of the 80 E-2 countries that have treaties with the US to set up businesses in the US. […]
Trump’s Vague and Empty Executive Order on H-1B
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T14:36:31-05:00President Trump signed a new Executive Order on April 18, 2017, two weeks after the H-1B season opened for Fiscal Year. The executive order commissions the Department of Homeland Security, to review the way the visas are processed and issued.with the goal of future H-1B visas going to highly paid, specially skilled applicants, and […]
The H-1B Visa under Trump
SMA Law Firm2024-12-04T14:39:14-05:00President Donald J. Trump recently announced plans to issue an executive order which would change the way the H-1B visa is used by U.S. employers. The “specialty occupation” visa is essentially used by U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals to occupy professional positions that generally require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree […]