John Valdez’s Legal Blog

Many religous workers and immigrant investors are anxious about the coming sunset of the immigration programs concerning them; thus, I have been providing regular updates on the subjects.  Both the religous worker immigrant visa program and the EB-5 regional center program are due to expire on March 6, 2009.  Congress is notorious for waiting until […]

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The USCIS has a very nice feature in its system called the CIS Ombudsman.  This person examines the way the USCIS adjudication process is working, issues criticism when appropriate, and makes recommendations to increase service to non-citizens.  Of course, if the USCIS officials do not agree with the Ombudsman, they may not make any systematic changes.
 A case in point involves the […]

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Congress has a way of putting off legislation until the last second.  Take for example the Religious Worker and EB-5 Regional Center programs.  Throughout my years of practice, I have watched Congress wait until the last second to renew these categories before they sunset.  Sometimes, Congress has allowed the religious worker statute to sunset, only to renew it shortly […]

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The time is now for employers to start the process of hiring foreign national graduates.  The traditional visa for hiring new graduates is the H-1B.  This nonimmigrant category is designed to help companies hire well educated foreign nationals with specialized knowledge in areas such as computers, engineering, accounting, teaching, finance, architecture,  math, science, and economics. 
Unfortunately, there […]

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