usavisanow.com – Immigration Law Office of Eran Regev, Esq.

To be eligible for deferred action the applicant must meet all of the following criteria:

Have arrived in the U.S. when they were under the age of sixteen.

Have continuously resided in the U.S. for at least five years prior to June 15, 2012 and have been present in the U.S. on June 15, 2012.

Currently be in school, or have graduated from high school, or have a GED, or be an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard or the U.S. Armed Forces.

Not have been convicted of a felony offense, a “significant misdemeanor offense,” three or more non-significant misdemeanors, or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Have been under thirty-one years old on June 15, 2012

We expect USCIS to issue the application guidelines within 60 days. Please check back for updates.

H-4 Visa:

Question: Can you please let me know if I can send my wife and son to India for a few months and return to US without stamping with new petition? Their H4 visa on passport is valid till Jan 2013 but with my previous petition.

Answer: Yes you can. The H-4 visa is valid until expiration as long as you are in H-1B status. The H-4 is not tied to your current employer in the same way as your H-1B status.

USCIS released a statement that their online case status and other customer relationship information system sites will be unavailable from 12/2/11 at 7PM EST until 12/5/11 at 9AM EST.

Please click here for the November 2011 Employment based dates

We have added the Visa Bulletin dates to our site for easy reference. Please click here for the Employment based dates:

(Reuters) – Two days after same-sex marriage became legal in New York, the state’s attorney general has taken legal action challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. law which defines marriage as between a man and woman.

In court papers filed on Tuesday in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, violates same-sex couples’ right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

The 1996 law prohibits same-sex couples from receiving marriage-based benefits such as Social Security survivor benefits, health benefits and the right to file taxes jointly.

Schneiderman argued the law intrudes on the state’s right to regulate marriage. On Sunday, gay couples began to marry in New York after it was made legal.

New York is the sixth and largest U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia also do so.

“By discriminating among married couples based on sexual orientation and sex, DOMA deprives New York of the ability to extend true equality to all marriages valid in the State,” Schneiderman wrote.

Schneiderman made his arguments in support of a case brought by Edie Windsor, a woman who sued the United States last year after an inheritance from her former partner was taxed. Windsor, who was married in Canada in 2007, said she had to pay $350,000 in inheritance tax in 2009 after the federal government refused to recognize her marriage.

Windsor argued she “was forced to pay in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law.”

In February, the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act’s section which defines marriage as between a man and woman.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/26/us-gaymarriage-newyork-doma-idUSTRE76P7BT20110726