Legal Updates Archive

At a hearing on June 7, 2023, of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability, Rena Bitter, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said the Bureau and the Department of State have taken "extraordinary measures" to meet current U.S. passport and visa demand.

The Department of Homeland Security has rescinded the Trump administration's terminations of the temporary protected status designations for El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, and extended TPS for these countries for 18 months.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has released policy guidance on the eligibility criteria for initial and renewal applications for an Employment Authorization Document in compelling circumstances.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is expanding premium processing for applicants filing Form I‑539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and seeking a change of status to F‑1, F‑2, M‑1, M‑2, J‑1 or J‑2 nonimmigrant status. Online filing of Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service, will also be available for these applicants. This phase of premium processing service is only available for change-of-status requests. Premium processing is not available for individuals seeking an extension of stay in M-1 or M-2 status.

Effective July 1, 2023, the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration is updating the adverse effect wage rates under the H‑2A temporary agricultural employment program that apply to a limited set of H‑2A job opportunities for which the AEWR is determined using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has updated policy guidance regarding the J visa classification, including USCIS's role in the adjudication of waivers of the two-year foreign residence requirement and change-of-status requests.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's online change-of-address form for noncitizens is now fully operational, ICE announced on June 13, 2023. The new system gives noncitizens the option to update their information online instead of doing so by phone or in person.

Employers will have an additional 30 days to comply with Form I-9 requirements after COVID-19 flexibilities sunset on July 31, 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Following the Department of Homeland Security's recent announcement that it was rescinding the Trump administration's terminations of the temporary protected status designations for El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, and reinstating and extending TPS for these countries for 18 months, DHS has published notices for each country in the Federal Register providing the eligibility criteria, timelines, and procedures necessary for current beneficiaries to re-register for TPS and renew their employment authorization documents.

Clients often contact us seeking to raise capital for or invest in North Dakota farm and ranch land. North Dakota’s previously strict corporate farming law made this a complicated process. Things have changed. In the recently completed 2023 legislative session, North Dakota lawmakers added a substantial new exemption for livestock operations, allowing significant new direct capital investment into the state.

The Minnesota legislature got busy this year. Changes to Minnesota’s pregnancy and parenting leave, lactation and pregnancy accommodations, and city minimum wages, as well as marijuana legalization, a noncompete ban, and new prohibitions on so-called captive audience meetings become effective imminently. Employers would be wise to pay close attention to implementation dates for these laws.

What was intended to be a short-term, soon-to-be-supplanted directive, the interim policy remains in place, and the NCAA has offered little in the way of additional guidance since its adoption. As a result, NIL activity has skyrocketed across its hundreds of member institutions with participating parties operating in an environment akin to “The Wild West,” largely free of significant oversight and clear boundaries.

On May 26, 2023, Minnesota's Governor Walz approved a bill (HF 402) that requires advance notice to the attorney general and commissioner of health of certain health care transactions and prohibits anticompetitive transactions. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on May 4, 2023, that employers will have 30 days to comply with Form I-9, Employment Authorization Verification, requirements after the COVID-19 flexibilities sunset on July 31, 2023.

On May 3, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the extension and expansion of employment authorization under Deferred Enforced Departure for eligible Hong Kong residents.

As of May 12, 2023, COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be required for international travelers entering the United States via air, land ports of entry, and ferry terminals. The Biden administration said the rescission of these travel restrictions were in alignment with the end of the Public Health Emergency on May 11, 2023.

As of May 6, 2023, Diversity Visa entrants can check their status online at Entrant Status Check, using their unique confirmation number, to see if their entry was selected.

The Department of State’s (DOS) Visa Bulletin for June 2023 reports a retrogression for the India EB-5 category and a likely retrogression soon for the India EB-3 category.

The Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification is postponing to June 1, 2023, the date for filers to begin submitting the new, revised applications for permanent employment certification and CW-1 applications for temporary employment certification in the Foreign Labor Application Gateway system.

The Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman released tips on how F-1 students seeking Optional Practical Training can avoid delays in processing the Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization.

On May 16, 2023, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice published a final rule released on May 10, 2023, “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways,” which was effective May 11, 2023. 

On May 18, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced an updated process for granting advance travel authorization for up to 30,000 noncitizen Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans each month to come to the United States to seek parole on a case-by-case basis.

The Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification has released public disclosure data and selected program statistics, and it has updated its H-2B labor recruiter list.

FL 1718, effective July 1, 2023, was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

On May 26, 2023, the Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification announced Form ETA 9089 case submission for PERM in the Foreign Labor Application Gateway and related technical guidance.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a broadcast message to all Student and Exchange Visitor Information System users to remind them about updated visa issuance guidance and a fee increase.

On May 25, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, significantly contracting the jurisdictional reach of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) over wetlands. The majority decision is the most consequential CWA decision in decades, one likely to exclude millions of acres of formerly jurisdictional wetlands from federal regulation.

The Bank Term Funding Program has been initiated by the Federal Reserve and the FDIC to provide liquidity to financial institutions. Under the program, banks can borrow from the applicable Federal Reserve Bank with any collateral eligible for purchase by the Federal Reserve Bank so long as the collateral was owned by the bank on March 12, 2023.

With conversion schedules for core processing vendors booking out increasingly further, two-step bank mergers are becoming increasingly common. Under this scheme, the “legal merge” takes place on the closing date, but the “operational merge” doesn’t take place until sometime post-closing. While this might seem like a great solution, banks considering a two-step merger must take into account and carefully plan for a lengthy list of legal, operational, and regulatory issues.

Current Minnesota law does not provide lenders, owners, and junior creditors with much guidance regarding surpluses that result from a bid at a mortgage foreclosure sale of more than the amount due on the mortgage. Historically, Minnesota case law has provided some guidance on these issues, but a bill recently introduced in the Minnesota House would provide more guidance on issues surrounding surpluses.

As Iowa landlords know, there remains a good deal of inconsistency among small claims magistrates across Iowa’s 99 counties regarding various legal questions pertinent to residential evictions, resulting in the need to appeal certain small claims eviction decisions to an Iowa district judge or district magistrate judge.

Governor Walz is expected to sign into law the highly anticipated bill that bans virtually all non-competition agreements in Minnesota, apart from those relating to the sale or dissolution of a business.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received enough electronic registrations during the initial registration period to reach the fiscal year 2024 H-1B numerical allocations (H-1B cap), including the advanced degree exemption (master’s cap).

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is removing the requirement that civil surgeons sign Form I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record, no more than 60 days before an individual applies for an underlying immigration benefit.

Effective May 30, 2023, a Department of State final rule raises most consular service fees, although the fee increases are smaller than those proposed in the notice of proposed rulemaking due to revised projections.

The Department of State is extending Special Student Relief to eligible Ukrainian students in the United States on J-1 visas “to help mitigate the adverse impact on them resulting from the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has begun accepting petitions for workers for the late second half of fiscal year 2023—those requesting employment start dates from May 15, 2023, to September 30, 2023—under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule.

The Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification has stopped issuing denials for this issue for pending applications and “will not deny for this reason for any application submitted on or before May 30, 2023.”

The Department of State’s Visa Bulletin for May 2023 includes a variety of updates.

After years of litigation, IADU Table Mound MHP and Impact MHC Management, LLC were vindicated by an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which the court held that landlords are not required to accept Section 8 vouchers as a supposed reasonable accommodation to a tenant’s disability and related economic hardship.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued comprehensive guidance on parole for international entrepreneurs and new entrepreneur resources.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to publish a Federal Register notice on March 13, 2023, extending and redesignating Somalia for temporary protected status. DHS also announced special student relief for certain F-1 nonimmigrant Somali students.

On March 6, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the expansion of premium processing for certain F-1 students seeking Optional Practical Training (OPT) and F-1 students seeking science, technology, engineering and mathematics OPT extensions who have a pending Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, and wish to request a premium processing upgrade.

The Department of Labor released frequently asked questions on a final rule published February 28, 2023, and effective March 30, 2023, revising the methodology by which it determines the hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates for non-range agricultural occupations.

On May 3, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security published an interim final rule extending the REAL ID card-based enforcement deadline to May 3, 2023. A new final rule published March 9, 2023 further extends the date for card-based enforcement of the REAL ID regulations to May 7, 2025. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has engaged in a series of business transformation initiatives aimed at modernizing their processes, enhancing security, optimizing existing resources, reducing operating costs and creating a welcoming environment for all arriving travelers.

According to the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin for April 2023, the EB‑4 category, which includes special immigrant religious workers, now has a worldwide backlog of 5+ years. Also, the EB‑2 final action dates for Rest of World, India, Mexico and the Philippines have retrogressed several months to keep number use within the FY 2023 annual limit.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that certain flexibilities first introduced in March 2020 to address the COVID-19 pandemic ended on March 23, 2023. USCIS previously notified the public that barring any changes presented by the pandemic, the extension of these flexibilities announced on January 24, 2023, would be the last.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Carrier Liaison Program recently issued a reminder that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began producing redesigned employment authorization documents on January 30, 2023.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has expanded its Mobile Passport Control program to include the Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver Preclearance locations in Canada.