STEM OPT Under Siege for Third Party Placements By Roujin Mozaffarimehr and Eddie Corona Without any warning, USCIS has re-interpreted the STEM OPT Rule from 2016 to eliminate third party placements and product implementations at a client’s worksite. The current STEM OPT regulations at 8 CFR 214.2(f) do not have any explicit bars to employers placing…
Sunnyvale ‘Dreamer’ Heads to Capitol Hill to Advocate for DACA Recipients By Kalpana Peddibhotla/MPLG Founder Since 2010, I have represented Ruchir Parikh and his family, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1992 when Ruchir was only six years old. For the past twenty-five years, this “DREAMer” has been struggling to stay in the only country…
SABA Naturalization Drive This past Sunday April 22nd, Kalpana joined the host of Power Hour on 92.3 FM, Yogi Chugh, to discuss the SABA Naturalization Drive that she is spearheading. SABA is a professional association of South Asian American attorneys with over 7000 members across the U.S. Kalpana, a lifetime member of SABA is spearheading…
H-1B Cap for FY 2019 Reached in Five Days By Kalpana Peddibhotla and Roujin Mozaffarimehr H-1B season ended almost as quickly as it began. On April 2, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting petitions for FY 2019 for the coveted visa for highly-skilled foreign workers. Mid-morning April 6, the agency announced that it had reached…
Members of Congress Fight to Save Work Authorization for H-4 Visa Holders By Kalpana Peddibhotla and Roujin Mozaffarimehr Last month, 15 members of Congress from California signed a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urging her to reconsider the agency’s proposal to revoke work authorization for certain H-4 visa holders. Key signatories included…
USCIS Issues Policy Memorandum Confirming Stricter Evidence Requirements for H-1B Petitions Involving 3rd-Party Worksites On Thursday February 22nd, The USCIS issued its latest Policy Memorandum, “Contracts and Itineraries Requirements for H-1B Petitions Involving Third-Party Worksites.” The Memorandum largely confirms our firm’s warnings over the last year regarding the stricter adjudication of H-1B petitions involving 3rd party…
MPLG Founder Kalpana Peddibhotla Honored With Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award from Tahirih Justice Center Kalpana Peddibhotla, founder of the Mathews & Peddibhotla Law Group, will receive the Tahirih Justice Center’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year award at its inaugural San Francisco Bay Area gala March 8th. The Tahirih Justice Center is…
DHS Delays Decision on Terminating Work Authorization for H-4 Visa Holders On February 28th, the Department of Homeland Security submitted a court filing in the Save Jobs USA lawsuit stating that it would not issue a new rule terminating work authorization for H-4 visa holders until June because it needed to review the economic impact…
Entrepreneur Parole Rule as of December 14, 2017 On December 14, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it would start accepting applications for parole under the International Entrepreneur Rule (IER) in compliance with National Venture Capital Association v. Duke. Entrepreneurs should be cautiously optimistic since USCIS also stated in the same announcement that it is…
H-4 EAD in Jeopardy Since May 2015, certain H-4 spouses of H-1B principals who have an approved I-140 have been able to apply for employment authorization pursuant to the Employment Authorization for Certain H-4 Dependent Spouses rule. This rule has since been under attack through a legal challenge in the Courts. We have recently learned…