E-Verify Enhances Security; Now Checks Passports and Passport Cards.

Nov 10, 2010: The E-Verify program's security system has just been enhanced, says USCIS and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representatives. The new enhancements include enabling E-Verify to automatically check the validity and authenticity of all US passports and passport cards used as employment verification documents. As of November 10, E-Verify employers can verify the identity of new employees who present US passports or passport cards by comparing data on the documents with federal records.

"U.S. passport photo matching is another in the long line of enhancements we have made to improve the integrity of the E-Verify system," said DHS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. "Adding U.S. passport photos expands our current photo matching efforts and will play a significant role in preventing and detecting the use of fraudulent documents—all part of major anti-fraud initiatives undertaken by the Department."

New Application and Petition Fees for Immigrants/Nonimmigrants Will Be in Effect on November 23.

Nov 05, 2010: USCIS has posted a reminder to immigration applicants and petitioners that its new fee schedule will go into effect on November 23, 2010. All applications and petitions that are postmarked/filed on or after that date must include the new fee. If they do not include the new fee, they will be rejected by USCIS.

The new fee schedule was published in the Federal Register on September 24, after a review of public comments. Application and petition fees in the new schedule have risen about 10 percent on average; the naturalization application fee was not raised.

For a full list of the new schedule of fees, please visit: http://bit.ly/aBFapM .

ETA Extends Comment Period for Proposed H-2B Rule.

Nov 04, 2010: In early October, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to change the process by which nonimmigrant workers in temporary or seasonal non-agricultural employment are authorized to work in the U.S. In addition, this proposed rule would change the ways that regulations are enforced to employers of such workers.

As part of this proposed rule, ETA has allowed for a comment period for the text of the rule up to November 4, 2010. However, the agency received a number of requests to extend this comment period and has fulfilled these requests. The comment period for this proposed rule will now be open an additional 8 days, to November 12, 2010.

USCIS Terminates California EB-5 Foreign Investor Program.

Oct 29, 2010: The federal government has ended the Victorville, California EB-5 foreign investor program, the first time that USCIS has ended an EB-5 program. According to USCIS, the program was unable to demonstrate that it could meet the criteria to raise funds through the EB-5 program.

Victorville's application for EB-5 status in June 2009, which enabled the city to solicit loans of $500,000 from foreign citizens, as long as those funds were used to create a minimum of 10 local jobs each. USCIS asked for further information from the city repeatedly, but did not receive more information. The final notice of termination was sent by USCIS on October 20.

Backlog of Immigration Cases Continues to Grow.

Oct 27, 2010: A new record for the number of immigration cases awaiting review was made this September. At the end of September 2010, there were a total of 261,083 immigration cases awaiting review by the Immigration Courts, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). This backlog has grown by five percent since the end of June 2010 and is over 1/3 higher than the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2008. Wait times, however, have declined since the last report released by TRAC (June 2010). The average wait time for pending cases nationally is now 456 days, compared to 459 days at the end of June 2010. California has the longest average wait time (630 days). Massachusetts and Nebraska have the second and third longest average wait times, respectively (Massachusetts - 615 days; Nebraska - 519 days).

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