Immigrant labor rights

Federal law prohibits discriminatory practices during the search, hiring, employment eligibility verification process (known as Form I-9), or termination of persons authorized to work in the United States. It is important to know what guidelines hiring managers must follow to avoid being a victim of discrimination and to understand what your rights and responsibilities are. Read more

Changes in sending family petition forms from abroad

Beginning August 15, 2011, individuals living in countries that do not have USCIS offices will be required to submit their family-based Form I-130 petitions to the Chicago Lockbox facility. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that this change will improve the efficiency of the process for those filing family-based petitions from the Chicago Lockbox facility. Read more

Spanish-language E-Verify website launched

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the launch of the Spanish version of its E-Verify website. E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine whether their employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. USCIS says it will add information to the website as it ... Read more

Actress convicted of immigration fraud

A federal judge sentenced Mexican actress Fernanda Romero to 15 consecutive weekends in jail, 1,000 hours of community service and five years on probation after she was found guilty of lying to immigration authorities about her marriage. Last year, the soap opera and movie actress was charged with the federal crime of ... Read more

Man fined for abusing immigrant employees

In Sunday's edition of The Post Standard newspaper, there was a story about the abuse of a group of immigrants recruited in Mexico to work in Syracuse, New York at a fair. The account of the abuse and mistreatment suffered by 19 Mexicans horrified me. It also infuriated me to learn that there are such inhumane people willing to practically enslave and ... Read more

Significant drop in naturalizations in 2010

The total number of people over the age of 18 who became U.S. citizens in fiscal year 2010 was 619,913. According to the Bureau of Immigration Data, of that number, people from Mexico performed the largest number of naturalizations in the U.S. One notable thing about the recently released report is that there has been a large ... Read more

Registration period for H-1B visas now open

Beginning tomorrow, April 1, applications for H-1B visas for fiscal year 2012 will begin to be accepted. The number of visas available is 65,000. This number does not include the first 20,000 petitions submitted on behalf of individuals who hold graduate degrees obtained in the U.S. The acceptance date for H-1B visas is April 1, ... Read more

Confusion about visas for same-sex couples

Immigration authorities on Monday hinted that decisions on immigration cases involving same-sex couples would be postponed. But today, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told reporters that after a legal review by Department of Homeland Security attorneys, it was concluded that the law prohibiting gay and lesbian couples from ... Read more

Complaint against USCIS for delays affecting thousands of Salvadorans

Salvadoran immigrants covered by Temporary Protected Status (TPS) continue to not receive Employment Authorization Documents from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), putting them in a precarious situation. In some cases harming them, preventing them from applying for or remaining in their jobs, or having ... Read more

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