Business Immigration in a Minute by Honigman LLP

• The Department of State recently released the April 2022 Visa Bulletin.  In addition to the final action dates and dates for filing charts for employment-based immigrant visa and adjustment of status cases, it contains notes on the diversity visa category and DV-2022 results. Notably, the dates for filing for EB-2 India will advance by one year. The rest of the dates for filing in April will remain virtually unchanged from last month. All first employment-based preference countries of chargeability remain current for April. For April 2022, employment-based applicants must use the dates for filing chart for adjustment of status applications.
  
  
• Starting May 1, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced that employers will no longer be able to accept expired List B documents for purposes of completing Form I-9. Previously, DHS adopted a temporary policy where employers were to accept expired List B documents in response to the difficulties many individuals experienced with renewing documents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that document-issuing authorities have reopened and/or provided alternatives to in-person renewals, DHS is ending this flexibility. If an employee’s Form I-9 was completed between May 1, 2020 and April 30, 2022 with an expired List B document, employers are required to update their Forms I-9 by July 31, 2022.
  
  
• The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico have resumed limited processing of nonimmigrant visas and have reported changes to nonimmigrant visa processing at specific posts. TN-2 appointments are now only available in Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, and Guadalajara. Previously scheduled TN appointments in Tijuana will be honored, but expedited appointments cannot be accommodated, and new TN appointments cannot be made at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana.
  
  
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) stated that it has updated its policy guidance to reflect E and L spouses to be employment authorized incident to their valid E or L nonimmigrant status. USCIS also stated that it will issue spousal designation notices to E and L dependent spouses who possess valid Forms I-94 that were issued by USCIS before January 30, 2022 and therefore do not contain the new I-94 spousal annotation. These new notices, along with the spouse’s current, valid Form I-94, will be sufficient evidence of employment authorization under List C for purposes of Form I-9 employment verification. USCIS will not issue these notices to E and L spouses whose current Forms I-94 were issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after travel to the United States.

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