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What does this District Court ruling mean for the ban:

While this is great news, this is not necessarily the end of the battle. The government can appeal this decision and continue to try and impose the ban. The Department of State can appeal the decision to the federal appeals court and then even to the U.S. Supreme Court. For now however, we hope the DOS respects this decision, and resumes processing of all immigrant visas.

You can learn more about this decision here.

What is the status of the similar ban against nationals from certain countries applying for adjustment of status in the U.S.

The Trump administration also attempted to put a similar ban on any immigration benefits filed in the U.S. by nationals from certain countries. This ban was also halted by a district court, and now is being evaluated by a federal appeals court.

These bans blatantly violate our existing immigration laws. We hope the federal courts continue to perform their fundamental duty of checking the executive branch (the President) when he violates the law.

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Here is a link to the announcement (which actually uses more extreme language than the actual memo). There is a link to the actual memo at the bottom of this page.

Adjustment of status (“AOS”) is the common process of applying for and receiving a green card in the U.S. rather than having to return to one’s home country (that process is called “immigrant visa processing” or “IVP” for short). The IVP process is much longer, costlier and inefficient. Also, due to our complex immigration systems, some individuals that are eligible for AOS are not eligible for IVP since the moment they leave the U.S., they are subject to onerous penalties (often a 10-year penalty before becoming eligible to return to the U.S.).

AOS eligibility is relatively straightforward for individuals with no grounds of inadmissibility (such as criminal convictions and serious immigration violations), though there are different requirements for different pathways and categories of immigration. Most relevant to this memo, if an individual meets the requirements, AOS cases have always been approved as long as there are no negative discretionary factors. If there are negative discretionary factors, they must be outweighed by positive factors.

The new policy memorandum attempts to unlawfully change this standard by instructing immigration officers to only grant AOS cases if the applicant shows “extraordinary circumstances” and explains why it is not possible to consular process.

This creation of a new standard out of thin air directly contradicts the actual law. This change affects a great number of our clients and we are closely monitoring how USCIS will try to implement this new policy. In the meantime, there will be many lawsuits challenging this new policy since it clearly violates the law. We hope this new policy will be stopped by the Courts and/or USCIS will back off on fully enforcing it (at a minimum, we hope USCIS will be  generous with what circumstances can justify an AOS grant). We will be posting additional content and videos on this subject as it continues to develop.

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y “NEW” H-1b petitions, individuals seeking H-1b status for the first time, and filed after September 21.

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[EDIT: EB1 India Filing Date did jump by a year. I mistakenly said it did not at the end of the video.]

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