Aug212026
Snapshot: USCIS has released a policy memo providing guidance regarding the new public charge rule that will be implemented on September 18, 2026 Your filing date will determine if the new rule applies to you Any benefits received before September 18 mostly will not count, do not drop coverage in a panic After September 18,...
No, You Do Not Need a Board of Directors to Self-Petition Your Own H-1B I’ve been telling people this for a while now: if you own your own company and want to sponsor yourself for an H-1B through it, you do not need a board of directors. No investors. No outside corporate governance. None of...
On August 18, 2026, a coalition of university groups and labor unions filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to block the rule ending duration of status that I wrote about last month. They filed a motion for a preliminary injunction along with the complaint. The lawsuit claims that DHS...
On July 17, 2026, DHS published a final rule ending duration of status for F-1 students, replacing it with a fixed admission period capped at four years. I wrote about what that means for Day 1 CPT here. Less than a month later, on August 12, 2026, SEVP issued Broadcast Message BCM 2608-01, “Reminder of...
A rule effective January 17, 2025, changed what’s possible for entrepreneurs and business owners pursuing an H-1B visa. It allows H-1B beneficiaries to self-petition even when they hold a controlling interest in the petitioning entity. For founders and beneficiary-owned businesses, that opened a real path forward. But this path comes with specific documentation requirements. This...
On August 13, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) issued a decision that reverses fourteen years of settled immigration law and could affect many people who are pursuing a green card from inside the United States. The case is Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026). The short version: if you have...
Filing an immigration case has always required patience. Families gather personal records, employers pull together business documents, and applicants spend months and often thousands of dollars preparing forms, translations, and supporting evidence. Through most of the past several years, there was an unwritten safety net built into the process: if something important was missing from...
Just when employers thought they had a handle on the $100,000 H-1B fee, the litigation took another turn. On July 24, 2026, the First Circuit Court of Appeals declined to let the government reinstate the fee while its appeal plays out. A quick recap We’ve been tracking this fee since before it even took effect....