Starting February 16, 2017, USCIS began reissuing receipt notices (Form I-797) to individuals who applied to renew their Employment Authorization Document (EAD) between July 21, 2016 and January 16, 2017, and whose applications remain pending in the following categories:

• (a)(3) Refugee
• (a)(5) Asylee
• (a)(7) N-8 or N-9
• (a)(8) Citizen of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, or Palau
• (a)(10) Withholding of deportation or removal granted
• (c)(8) Asylum application pending
• (c)(9) Pending adjustment of status under section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act
• (c)(10) Suspension of deportation applicants (filed before April 1, 1997), cancellation of removal applicants, and special rule cancellation of removal applicants under NACARA
• (c)(16) Creation of record (Adjustment based on continuous residence since January 1, 1972)
• (c)(20) Section 210 Legalization (pending Form I-700)
• (c)(22) Section 245A Legalization (pending Form I-687)
• (c)(24) LIFE Legalization
• (c)(31) VAWA self-petitioners

On January 17, 2017, USCIS began automatically extending expiring EADs for up to 180 days for renewal applicants in these categories. However, some of the receipt notices that USCIS sent out before that date did not contain the applicant’s EAD eligibility category. Therefore, the reissued receipt notices will contain:

• The applicant’s EAD eligibility category;
• The receipt date, which is the date USCIS received the EAD renewal application and which employers must use to determine whether the automatic EAD extension applies;
• The notice date, which is the date USCIS reissued the receipt notice; and
• New information about the 180-day EAD extension.

Applicants may present the reissued receipt notice with their expired EAD to their employer as a List A document for the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to show that they are authorized for employment.

Applicants with an EAD based on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) who filed their EAD renewal applications before January 17, 2017, already received a 6-month extension through the Federal Register notice that extended their country’s TPS designation. Therefore, these applicants will not receive a reissued receipt notice. Please visit the Temporary Protected Status page for current information on each TPS designation. All renewal applicants who file Form I-765 applications on or after January 17, 2017, including TPS renewal applicants, will be receiving Form I-797 receipt notices that contain eligibility category information and information about the 180-day EAD extension.

AILA’s Texas Service Center (TSC) Liaison Committee has been receiving reports that USCIS is issuing problematic RFEs for EB-1(A) and EB-1(C) I-140 petitions requesting information previously not required or evidence already provided. These RFEs often include boilerplate language reiterating the qualifications and evidence needed for the specific category requested.

The TSC Liaison Committee is collecting these examples for the purpose of raising broader trends to USCIS. If you have an example that you would like to report, please complete the form below (one case per form please.) Please do not send examples where you disagree with USCIS’s analysis. The committee is only looking for examples in which USCIS issued an RFE without fully reviewing the filing and considering the evidence submitted. If you have questions or technical issues, please email reports@aila.org, subject line “Problematic I-140 RFEs at TSC.”

Parole in Place for Families of Certain Military Personnel and Veterans

USCIS has authority to grant parole to noncitizen applicants for admission, including those residing in the United States (through “parole in place”),4 on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. INA § 212(d)(5)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A).

The 2013 PM provides guidance on granting parole, on a discretionary case-by-case basis, for certain spouses, children, and parents of, among others, individuals who “previously” served on active duty or in the Selected Reserve of the Ready Reserve. This PM clarifies that such language in the 2013 PM is meant to include former designated military personnel (who were not dishonorably discharged) whether they are living or deceased. The close family members of such individuals, who served and sacrificed for our Nation, are deserving of consideration for a favorable exercise of discretion on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the 2013 PM. This is true regardless of whether the former military service members are living or deceased. In addition, the 2013 PM contains multiple references to the “children” of current or former military personnel. Under the INA, the term “child” is limited to individuals who are unmarried and under the age of 21. See INA § 101(b)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(b)(1). This PM seeks to expand on the provisions in the 2013 PM by replacing all references to “children” in the 2013 PM (and the corresponding provisions in the AFM) with the term “sons and daughters.” This change would further expand the provisions in the 2013 PM to the adult and married sons and daughters of covered military personnel and veterans. Because covered military personnel and veterans generally will be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (or, in the case of MAVNI, soon-to-be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents), their sons and daughters will often be on paths to lawful permanent resident status and eventual citizenship. See INA § 203(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(a). Parole in place or deferred action would therefore serve as a temporary bridge for such sons and daughters while they apply for and await adjudication of their applications for lawful permanent resident status. Moreover, important family relationships continue to exist even after children turn 21 or marry. The same morale, deservedness, and preparedness rationales articulated in the 2013 PM with respect to military personnel and their children continue to apply when such children turn 21 or marry.

US Customs and Border Protection has long considered US borders and airports a kind of loophole in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections, one that allows them wide latitude to detain travelers and search their devices. For years, they’ve used that opportunity to hold border-crossers on the slightest suspicion, and demand access to their computers and phones with little formal cause or oversight. Even citizens are far from immune. CBP detainees from journalists to filmmakers to security researchers have all had their devices taken out of their hands by agents. “There’s not that much you can do when you cross the border in terms of the government’s power,” warns University of California at Davis law professor Elizabeth Joh.

Before going into customs, alert a lawyer or a loved one who can contact a lawyer, and contact them again when you get out. If you are detained, you may not be able to access your devices or otherwise have the opportunity to reach the outside world. And in the worst case scenario of a lengthy detention, you’ll want someone advocating for your release and legal representation.

If customs officials do take your devices, don’t make their intrusion easy. Encrypt your hard drive with tools like BitLocker, TrueCrypt, or Apple’s Filevault, and choose a strong passphrase. On your phone—preferably an iPhone, given Apple’s track record of foiling federal cracking—set a strong PIN and disable Siri from the lockscreen by switching off “Access When Locked” under the Siri menu in Settings.

Remember also to turn your devices off before entering customs: Hard drive encryption tools only offer full protection when a computer is fully powered down. If you use TouchID, your iPhone is safest when it’s turned off, too, since it requires a PIN rather than a fingerprint when first booted, resolving any ambiguity about whether border officials can compel you to unlock the device with a finger instead of a PIN—a real concern given that green card holders are required to offer their fingerprints with every border crossing.

Be warned, however, that denying customs officials access can at the very least lead to hours of uncertain detention in a bleak, windowless CBP office. And for visa and even green card holders, the right to enter the US is far less clear. “If they truly want to come into America, then they’ll cooperate,” DHS secretary Kelly told Congress last Tuesday. “If not, you know, next in line.” If the DHS does adopt that hardline policy of privacy invasion, it could leave non-citizens without easy answers.

In fact, the issue of privacy rights for digital devices at the border remains troublingly unsettled, Joh says. While the Supreme Court decision in Riley vs. California in 2014 declared warrantless searches of devices at the time of arrest unconstitutional, no case has set such a precedent for the American border—much less for non-Americans seeking those same privacy rights.

Until such a precedent is set, that border zone will remain in a kind of legal limbo. The government has the power to open bags crossing into its territory or even dismantle cars to search for contraband, she points out. “What does that mean in an age when people bring their digital devices across borders? The Supreme Court hasn’t spoken to that issue,” Joh says. “The real problem here is there’s still no good set of protections for a portal into your private life.”

(this article is based on information from A Guide to Getting Past Customs With Your Digital Privacy Intact, https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-digital-privacy-intact/ )

INA §212(d)(3) provides U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with the authority to waive most grounds of inadmissibility for individuals entering the United States as nonimmigrants. CBP’s Admissibility Review Office (ARO) adjudicates applications for nonimmigrant waivers.

Nonimmigrant waivers are broken down into two subcategories. Waivers under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(i) are filed at a U.S. Consulate in connection with a visa application. There is no specific form or a filing fee for these waivers. Consular officers may recommend approval of the waiver, but the ultimate decision is made by the ARO. In these cases, since nonimmigrant visas are limited to only a single nonimmigrant category, and waiver approval is annotated on the face of the visa, the waiver is valid only in connection with the visa with which it was issued.

Waivers filed under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(ii) are issued to individuals who are visa-exempt, i.e., Canadian citizens, and are submitted to CBP on Form I-192, with the appropriate fee at the port of entry, and forwarded to the ARO for adjudication. Because these waivers are not issued in connection with a visa, CBP has indicated that applicants who intend to enter the United States on different occasions in different nonimmigrant categories (i.e., B-1 and then E-2) must indicate this on Form I-192 . CBP will list all of the nonimmigrant categories for which the waiver has been approved on the I-194 approval notice. While nonimmigrants can only enter the U.S. in one nonimmigrant classification at a time, waivers for Canadians can be issued with a validity period up to five years.

On November 18, 2016, DHS published a final rule intended to improve the retention of high-skilled nonimmigrant and immigrant workers. Effective January 17, 2017, the regulations require the use of the new Supplement J to Form I-485 to either:

1. Confirm that the job offered to the applicant in the Form I-140 is the basis of the Form I-485 and remains available; or
2. Request job portability in a same or similar occupational classification under INA §204(j) where the adjustment application has been pending for 180 days or more.

The final version of Supplement J, Confirmation of Bona Fide Job Offer or Request for Job Portability under INA Section 204(j) and the accompanying instructions has been posted to the USCIS website. The form requests identifying data regarding the applicant and the employer, asks for the new job description, and includes signature space for the applicant, the employer, and the preparer (if applicable).

When should I file Supplement J?

According to the USCIS website and Supplement J instructions, a Supplement J is required if you are filing Form I-485 based on a previously filed Form I-140 or you have received a Request for Evidence (RFE) or a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) from USCIS requesting Supplement J. During a February 8, 2017 call with SCOPS, AILA confirmed that USCIS will send an RFE requesting Supplement J if it is not included. If you are concurrently filing a Form I-140 and Form I-485, you do not need to include Supplement J.

If you are requesting job portability to a new, permanent job offer under INA §204(j), you may file Supplement J after your Form I-485 based on an I-140 that has been approved or pending for 180 days or more. You should also file Supplement J if you receive an RFE or NOID asking for confirmation that the job is still available, or if the petitioner has withdrawn the I-140 or has gone out of business.

Is there a fee for filing Supplement J?

There is no filing fee for Supplement J at this time.

Will I receive a receipt notice and/or approval notice?

USCIS will issue a receipt notice when Supplement J is filed and an approval notice when it is approved.

What happens if USCIS determines that the position in Supplement J is not the same or similar to the position described in the underlying Form I-140?

USCIS will issue an RFE on the underlying Form I-485 and allow the applicant to present evidence that he or she either has an indefinite offer of employment with the original sponsoring employer or a new offer of employment for a same or similar position and that he or she intends to assume that position when the adjustment application is approved.

(this information has been generously provided by AILA)

USCIS has received a high number of fee waiver requests that do not meet USCIS guidelines when submitted in connection with Form I-360 visa petition under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) for Battered Spouse, Children & Parents, and Form I-914, Application for T Nonimmigrant Status and Form I-918, Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status, for Victims of Human Trafficking and Other Crimes.

Filing Fees

Forms I-360, I-914 and I-918 do not require a filing fee; however, other applications that are often filed in connection with these forms may require a fee. Examples of these forms include:

• Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization
• Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
• Form I-131, Application for Travel Document, and
• Form I-192, Application for Advance Permission to Enter as a Nonimmigrant

Fee Waivers

Recognizing that some applicants cannot pay the filing fees, USCIS established a fee waiver process for certain forms and benefit types. USCIS will approve a fee waiver only if you clearly demonstrate that you are unable to pay the filing fees.

If you are filing an application in connection with the T, U and VAWA Humanitarian Programs that requires a fee but you cannot pay the fee, complete the most current version of Form I-912, Request for Fee Waiver to request a fee waiver. Instead of Form I-912, USCIS will also accept a letter with all the necessary information that states your request for a fee waiver, includes all the necessary supporting evidence and is signed by everyone over 14 years old who is requesting the fee waiver.

For more information about our fee waiver policy, eligibility, frequently asked questions, and how to avoid common mistakes, please visit our website at www.uscis.gov/feewaiver.

We also want to remind the public about the risk of immigration scams. Visit the Avoid Scams Initiative at uscis.gov/avoidscams for more information on common scams and other important tips.

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We would like to share information about the 2017 District Export Council (DEC) Scholarship for International Business.

District Export Councils contribute leadership and international trade expertise to complement the U.S. Commercial Service’s export promotion efforts, through counselling businesses on the exporting process and conducting trade education and community outreach. The 56 District Export Councils (DECs) nationwide are organizations comprised of leaders from their local business community. The DEC Members are appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. These international trade professionals use their knowledge and international business experience to act as consultants to small and medium sized businesses who want to export their products into markets outside of the United States. For more than 30 years, DECs have served the United States by assisting companies in their local communities export, thus promoting our country’s economic growth and creating new and higher-paying jobs for their communities. The Houston DEC wishes to support those students at the university level who seek to pursue careers in trade, exporting and international business; such students are the talent the U.S. will need to continue to compete and expand our export opportunities overseas in the years ahead, and build jobs in the U.S.

Application Requirements:

• Applicants must have applied to attend or be currently enrolled as a full-time or part-time undergraduate student at an accredited university or community college in the Houston area.
• Be at least 17 years of age and must be a citizen of the United States.
• A legal resident of Texas for 12 consecutive months prior to completing the scholarship application.
• Be majoring in International Business or related field.
• Demonstrate academic potential, ability, or improvement that will be evaluated from two current and consecutive semesters.

For more details, please see the attached application, or visit the Houston District Export Council website and apply today.