- Corporate LawMr. Weber was the Chair and Discussion Leader for the entire one-day conference, covering all major topics, including corporate and securities law in EB-5, lawfully advising on the selection of EB-5 projects, structuring the deal for project funding with EB-5 funds, developing the I-924 petition (the application for USCIS designation as an EB-5 regional center), managing risk in EB-5 transactions, I-526 petitions and source-of-funds issues, I-829 petitions and documenting job creation, escrow and funds administration, innovation in EB-5 (including alternatives to regional center development), finding EB-5 investors in China, and finding EB-5 investors in other areas of the world.
- Business DisputesThe U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary last week held a hearing titled “Is the Investor Visa Program an Underperforming Asset?,” which signaled its ongoing efforts to achieve a passable EB-5 bill that would reauthorize the Regional Center Program (currently set to expire on September 30, 2016) contingent on comprehensive EB-5 program reforms. The February 11, 2016, hearing gave Committee members a fresh opportunity to publicly air their persisting concerns about the EB-5 program, in particular the “gerrymandering” of targeted employment areas (TEAs) by states under existing EB-5 regulations and policy. The Committee heard testimony from Nicholas Colucci, Chief of the Immigrant Investor Program (IPO); Rebecca Gambler, Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO); Jeanne Calderon, Clinical Associate Professor of Business Law at NYU Stern School of Business; and a CEO of a U.S. company focusing on direct (non-regional center) EB-5 investments.
- Citizenship and Naturalization
- Family ImmigrationPlease note: the discussion on this page focuses only on certain employment -based applications for permanent residency. If you want to know about when you can file an I-130 (i.e., a different form) and an I-485 at the same time in family -based green card applications, please see the Peng & Weber Family-Based Immigration page instead.
- Employment ImmigrationThe U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) released its annual report for Fiscal Year 2014 on the prevailing wage determination process, permanent labor certification, and temporary nonimmigrant labor certification. The report also contains state employment-based immigration profiles as well as profiles of the top five employment-based permanent immigration countries.
- Green Cards
- Business ImmigrationNOTE: This practice update is based on a paper that Peng & Weber Co-Founder and Partner, Cletus M. Weber, wrote with San Francisco attorney Ron Wada in 2002. [footnote 2] The excerpt below includes only the materials originally written by Mr. Weber, discussing the current state of the law and practice regarding National Interest Waivers. The full article was previously published as C. Weber & R. Wada, "National Interest Waivers - a 2002 Practice Update," 7 Bender's Immigration Bulletin, 391 (2002) and republished as a book chapter in Homeland Security, Business Insecurity: Immigration Practice in Uncertain Times, 23-30 (AILA 2003). Mr. Weber also presented this paper at the 2003 Midyear Conference for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, "Business Immigration: The Challenges of Practicing In Today's Recessionary Environment" in Cancun, Mexico in January 2003. Although this article was written for other attorneys and should not be relied on as legal advice, general readers should find the excerpt below to be a helpful introduction to National Interest Waiver law.
- Student VisasThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is amending its F-1 nonimmigrant student visa regulations on optional practical training (OPT) for certain students with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) from U.S. institutions of higher education. The final rule allows STEM students who are pursuing 12 months of OPT in the U.S. to extend their OPT by 24 months, replacing the previous 17-month STEM OPT extension. DHS said the amended rule also increases oversight over STEM OPT extensions, including requiring employers to implement formal training plans, adding wage and other protections for STEM OPT students and U.S. workers, and allowing extensions only to students with degrees from accredited schools. As with the prior 17-month STEM OPT extension, the rule authorizes STEM OPT extensions only for students employed by employers who participate in E-Verify. The rule also includes the "Cap-Gap'' relief first introduced in a 2008 DHS regulation for any F-1 student with a timely filed H-1B petition and request for change of status. This rule is effective May 10, 2016.
- Work VisasThis page describes different temporary work visas, not permanent ones. For permanent (i.e., green card) visa opportunities for employment, please see information on employment-based green cards.
- Investor VisasElizabeth Peng and Cletus M. Weber, Co-Founders and Senior Attorneys of Peng & Weber, PLLC, were invited to speak on EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visas at the 5th Annual EB-5 Market Exchange Conference held October 21-23, 2015, in Dallas, Texas. The conference was sponsored by Invest in the USA (IIUSA