The State Department will launch a pilot program later this year offering visa renewal options in the US for H-1B specialty occupation workers and other temporary visa holders who are currently required to travel abroad.

Restoring stateside visa renewals, which were discontinued in 2004, will save those applicants from having to leave the country, and will reduce the workload of consular offices abroad.

For more on this: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/state-department-plans-pilot-for-domestic-visa-renewal-this-year

The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) is offering a number of free, informative webinars for the public in January, 2023.  These include webinars for workers, employers, and advocates.  Please review IER’s webinar schedule to choose the right presentation for you.

IER enforces the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This law prohibits citizenship, immigration status, and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee; unfair documentary practices; retaliation and intimidation. For more information visit www.justice.gov/ier.

This will be effective 12/12/2022 and will have a notation on the N-400 Application for Naturalization receipt notice that can be presented with the expired Green Card as evidence of continued status as well as identity and employment authorization under List A for form I-9, the Employment Eligibility Verification form, if presented before the expiration of the 24-month extension period provided in the notice.

This is expected to help naturalization applicants who experience longer than usual processing times.

For more on this please refer here: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20221209-ExtendingPRC.pdf

E-Verify requires all employers to take action on Tentative Nonconfirmation cases (TNC) for their employees within 10 federal government working days. Although most Social Security Administration offices are currently closed, this does not affect the 10-day requirement. Employers are reminded to complete the following steps in E-Verify within 10 federal government working days after issuance of a TNC result:

• Notify your employee of their TNC result as soon as possible within the 10 days.
• Give your employee a copy of the Further Action Notice.
• Review the Further Action Notice with your employee in private and have them confirm whether the information listed at the top is correct.
  • If the information is incorrect, close the case and select the statement indicating the information was not correct. After the case is closed, create a new case for your employee with the correct information.
  • If the information is correct, proceed to the next step.
• Tell the employee they must decide whether to take action on the TNC by the 10^th day after TNC is issued.
• If your employee chooses to take action on the TNC, select the appropriate option in E-Verify. Be sure to provide your employee with their Referral Date Confirmation which provides details on the next step your employee must take.
• If your employee chooses not to take action, select the appropriate option in E-Verify and close the case.
• Please see the E-Verify User Manual for more information on confirming your employee’s TNC decision.

If your employee does not give you their decision by the end of the 10th federal government working day after E-Verify issued the TNC, then you close the case.

Please note that if your employee no longer works for you or their TNC is a duplicate case, you are still required to close their TNC case in E-Verify. Employers should not delay closing cases and should close all cases as soon as possible. Please see E-Verify User Manual for more information on closing cases in E-Verify.

Please note that if your employee no longer works for you or their TNC is a duplicate case, you are still required to close their TNC case in E-Verify. Employers should not delay closing cases and should close all cases as soon as possible. Please see E-Verify User Manual for more information on closing cases in E-Verify.

Completing Form I-9 for Employees with Extended Work Authorization

Notice: The govDelivery message dated January 4, 2021 had an incorrect form number and subject line. Please see the corrected message below.

When completing Form I-9, employees may choose to present their unexpired Form I-766, Employment Authorization Document (EAD) with Category code of C33 that was issued on or after July 28, 2020, along with an I-797 Extension Notice issued by USCIS that shows a one-year extension of their deferred action and work authorization under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In Section 1, employees may enter the end validity date from the notice in the “Authorized to Work Until” field.

If your employee presents this document combination, you must enter the end validity date from their notice in the Expiration Date field in Section 2. Enter DACA Ext. in the Additional Information field.

You may reverify a current employee before reverification is required if they present this document combination to you. Enter the end validity date from their notice as the Expiration Date in Section 3. Enter DACA Ext. in the Additional Information field in Section 2.

The initial registration period for FY 2022 will open at noon Eastern Time (ET) on March 9 and run through noon ET on March 25. Both representatives and registrants must wait until March 9 to create and complete H-1B registrations.

The electronic registration process has streamlined processing by reducing paperwork and data exchange, and has provided overall cost savings to employers seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.

Under this process, prospective petitioners (also known as registrants), and their authorized representatives, who are seeking authorization to employ H-1B workers subject to the cap, complete a registration process that requires only basic information about the prospective petitioner and each requested worker. We will open an initial registration period for a minimum of 14 calendar days each fiscal year.The H-1B selection process will then be run on properly submitted electronic registrations. Only those with selected registrations will be eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.

Please refer here for more information.

Our office is available to assist you with your case filing strategy and case submissions. We are already in planning mode. We can be contacted at info@immigrationcompliancegroup.com

USCIS will now replace the sticker that is currently issued to lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to extend the validity of their Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card (PRC or “Green Card”) with a revised Form I-797, Notice of Action for Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card. LPRs file Form I-90, when their Green Card expires or are about to expire.

The revised I-797 receipt notice, together with an applicant’s PRC (Permanent Resident Certificate), will serve as temporary evidence of lawful permanent resident status for 12 months from the expiration date on the face of the Green Card. The revised I-797 receipt notice, together with an applicant’s PRC, will serve as temporary evidence of lawful permanent resident status for 12 months from the expiration date on the face of the Green Card.

Applicants with expiring Green Cards will no longer receive a sticker from the Applicant Support Center (ASC) at their biometrics appointments to obtain temporary evidence of LPR status. Instead, USCIS will send applicants a revised Form I-797, Notice of Action, the receipt notice for Form I-90, as proof of the extension of their Green Card.

For more information: Please see the Replace Your Green Card page for more information. For questions specific to employment, please see I-9 Central

The Biden administration’s immigration reform bill will have a provision that seeks to replace the term “alien” with “noncitizen” in immigration law.

This new proposal to improve the way we refer to people who move to the U.S. from other countries is a welcome start and an important signal from the new administration. It is not the first time that a bill has proposed to make this change in terminology.

For more, refer here

For Employees: Your employer may inform you that your E-Verify case received a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and/or Social Security Administration (SSA) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) case result. A DHS and/or SSA TNC means that the information your employer entered in E-Verify from your Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, did not match records available to DHS and/or SSA. A DHS and/or SSA TNC case result does not necessarily mean that you are not authorized to work in the United States.

The process description here explains the types of TNC’s and guides you through the resolution process.

For Employers: Employers whose employees receive a TNC must provide them with the further Action Notice from E-Verify and discuss it privately with them. Please review here for the steps in the process.

A quick review: In the I-9 verification process, the employee presents – and the employer must verify – evidence of both identity and work authorization. List A documents establish both identity and work authorization. Other documents establish only identity, List B documents. And other documents establish only employment authorization–List C documents.

The employee may present either a List A document OR a List B plus a List C document for I-9 employment eligibility verification.

You will not find the newly approved acceptable I-9 documents mentioned in this post in the current edition of the M-274 Employer Handbook, but you will find them on I-9 Central in their FAQs with document examples in the referenced LawLogix Blog post here. Document examples are taken from the ICE Guide to Selected US Travel and Identity Documents. This is an older version. We provide information at the end of this post where you can obtain a current copy of the February 2018 version.

Let’s highlight the new acceptable documents:

1. Certificate of Naturalization: This is now an acceptable List C document as evidence of employment authorization, but you must also request that the employee produce a List B identity document as well.
2. Resident Alien Card first introduced as a permanent residency card in 1977 that does not have an expiration date; the card is valid indefinitely. It displays a profile photograph, fingerprint and other details. These are still accepted as valid List A documents if they reasonably appear to be genuine and relate to the person presenting them. Bear in mind that the photos on these cards will be very old.
3. Trusted Traveler Documents: Global Entry, Nexus (travel between the US and Canada) and Sentri (travel from Mexico) can now be accepted as valid List B identification cards issued by a federal government agency, since they contain a photograph and various other required identifying information. The employee would also be required to present an acceptable List C employment authorization document.

To order a copy of the most recent edition of the M-396 Guide referenced above, requests can be submitted here.

We are always available to assist you with navigating the often confusing process of establishing a legal workforce and culture of compliance. The new year is an ideal time to review your I-9 inventory, update you staff training program, and arrange for a partial or a full audit.