Coronavirus Immigration Blog

Latest from Coronavirus Immigration Blog

President Biden is expected to sign legislation very early on in his tenure relating to the COVID and will likely use the House’s Heroes Act as the model. That bill, passed last May, had significant COVID-related immigration provisions. The provisions included

  • deferred action relief for undocumented essential workers
  • modified immigration procedures when agencies can’t function

The Senate has passed HR 8337, the continuing resolution bill funding the government until December 11th. President Trump will sign this evening in order to avoid a government shutdown at midnight. In that legislation, Congress has included important changes to the USCIS Premium Processing Program that will also allow USCIS to avoid threatened furloughs of

USCIS posted the following notice regarding interpreters at asylum interviews:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a temporary final rule to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) by using government-contracted telephonic interpreters for affirmative asylum interviews at no cost to the applicant.
This temporary final rule changes for the next 180 days

In news welcomed by the immigration bar, USCIS just sent the following email announcement extending the policy of allowing an extra 60 days to respond to RFEs:

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is extending the flexibilities it announced on March 30, 2020, to assist applicants, petitioners, and requestors

Dear Clients:
I hope this email finds you all well and enjoying the summer.  Siskind Susser continues to operate 90% remotely with a few people in the physical office each day.
As you recall, on June 22nd President Trump issued a proclamation suspending the issuance of H, L and J visas through the end of