Prakash Khatri of Khatri Law Firm, LLC, presented this presentation at the INSZoom Immigration Conference 2015 - Bengaluru. The topic covered updates from Washington, D.C.

1. Washington Update
Presented at
INSZoom Conference
Bangalore, India
October 28, 2015
• Prakash Khatri, Moderator
• Khatri Law Firm, LLC, Bethesda, MD, USA.
• prakash@khatrilaw.com

2. Washington Update
• Immigration Act Of 1965 – 50 year anniversary this month.
• November 20th 2014 President Obama Announced Executive Orders to
assist immigrants in the face of Congressional inaction:
• Granting Work permits to certain spouses of H-1B
nonimmigrants – implemented in May 2015.
• New Guidance on L-1B specialized knowledge– this guidance
was finalized.
• Employment Based Immigrants awaiting adjustment can file
applications earlier than the priority date. --Implemented through the
Visa Bulletins in September 2015.

3. Washington Update (cont)
• New STEM OPT Rules announced on October 19th , 2015.
• No new legislation expected to be passed in the coming months to
resolve the many issues that exist with the US Immigration System.
• Fraud Detection Units have now been expanded at USCIS, at ports of
entry, at Consular posts, at the Department of Labor and at ICE.
• RFE’s for both H-1B’s and L-1 petitions continue to be high while
approval rates are increasing at USCIS offices.
• US/India negotiations on a totalization pact has hit a roadblock. The
agreement could help Indian IT companies operating in the US save up
to $4 billion in annual deposits made into the US’s social security fund
that Indian workers could neither utilize or get refunded.– Pankaj will
provide details.
•

4. Historical Perspective
PEW RESEARCH CENTER

5. Historical Perspective

6. H
Historical Perspective

7. Historical Perspective

8. Future Perspective

9. Future Perspective

10. 2015 Ombudsman Report – June 2015
• Concerns persist with USCIS adjudication of nonimmigrant petitions
for high-skilled beneficiaries including H-1B Specialty Occupations,
L-1A Intracompany Transferee Managers or Executives, L-1B
Specialized Knowledge Workers, and O-1 Individuals with
Extraordinary Ability or Achievement.
• RFE’s continue to be redundant and seek documents which were
previously provided, unnecessary, irrelevant, exceeds what is
necessary to complete the adjudication, or is unduly burdensome in
scope or intrusiveness.
• L-1 A areas of focus include “new” office L-1A extension cases and
on the petitioning entity’s organizational structure.
• L-1B USCIS policy memorandum on “Specialized Knowledge.”

11. 2015 Ombudsman Report
• In FY 2014 USCIS approved:
• 96.5% of H-1B visa petitions
• 80.3% of all L-1A petitions
• 70.9% of all L-1B petitions
• At the same time RFE rates keep going up while denial rates keep
going down
• On the Immigrant Visa side, I-140’s for EB-1 and EB-2 are at the
highest approval rates in recent years. Maybe the RFE’s are having
a positive effect…

12. Introduction to L-1 Visa CategoryRFE Trends

13. L-1 Denial Trends

14. FDNS Site Visits
• USCIS announced their Fraud Detection and National Security
(FDNS) unit will soon begin conducting randomly-selected
compliance visits for Extension of Status petitions filed with USCIS
for L-1A managers and executives.
• FDNS plans to expand the site visit program to other L-1 petitions in
the future, but the date of implementation is uncertain.
• L-1 Petitions will be selected at random for the unannounced site
visit at the worksite address listed on the petition.
• Federal Immigration Officers will conduct the visits.

15. I-140 & I-360 Filing Receipts and Decision
Rates by Preference Category