USCIS Launches Customer Experience Improvements for H-1B Cap Season
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the launch of organizational accounts and online form filing for future H-1B cap seasons.
Organizational accounts will enable several individuals within a company or business entity, along with their legal representatives, to work together on H-1B registrations, Form I-129 (Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker), and the associated Form I-907 (Request for Premium Processing Service). USCIS plans to introduce organizational accounts in February 2024, with online filing for Form I-129 and Form I-907 as a fast-follow.
Iowa Voters Cite Immigration as Main Concern
Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump scored a record-setting win in the Iowa caucuses this week, performing particularly well among Iowa’s urban, small-town, and rural communities.
Ahead of the caucuses, immigration was one of the main topics for Republican candidates reaching out to Iowa voters. Many Iowa voters cited border security and a crackdown on immigration as more important issues than the state of the U.S. economy.
Civil Rights Group Sues U.S. Banks for Denying DACA Recipients Loans
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national civil rights organization, has filed ten lawsuits over the past seven years against various financial institutions for alleged discrimination against DACA recipients. The lawsuits claim that several U.S. banks and credit unions denied eligible DACA recipients loans and other financial services based solely on their immigration status.
U.S. Immigration Courts Struggle as 3M Cases Pile Up
According to recent government data, there are now 3 million pending cases in immigration courts around the U.S. The backlog has tripled since 2019, growing by more than one million cases in the last year alone.
The uptick in cases is largely driven by unprecedented surges in the number of migrants seeking asylum after being apprehended for crossing the border illegally. Immigration attorneys and advocates say the case backlog and subsequent long wait times for court dates are damaging to an already strained asylum system.