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The new calendar year brings in new employment laws that both employees and employers should consider. Notably, the changes are geared towards providing more protections for employees in the workplace and some are in response to recent high profile sexual harassment incidents in the entertainment industry. Please note that the information provided here is for…

The USCIS will resume premium processing on Monday, Jan. 28, 2019, for all fiscal year (FY) 2019 H-1B cap petitions, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption (the “master’s cap”). Petitioners who have received requests for evidence (RFEs) for pending FY 2019 cap petitions should include their RFE response with any request for premium…

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions to first electronically register with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during a designated registration period. Under the proposed rule, USCIS would also reverse the order by which USCIS selects H-1B petitions…

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld a preliminary injunction keeping in place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program pending judgment in a challenge to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to cancel it. Judge Kim M. Wardlaw wrote the 90-page majority opinion, joined in by Judge Jacqueline H. Nguyen. Judge…

The California Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the matter of Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles earlier this year establishing a new and employee-friendly test in determining whether an employee has been misclassified as an independent contractor. In particular, the Court embraced a standard presuming that all workers are…

Gone are the days when a foreign student in F-1 status who fails to maintain their status, such as by failing to attend school or working without authorization, could nevertheless enjoy “duration of status” for several years or more and not accrue unlawful presence in the U.S. until either an immigration judge or the USCIS…

From Metnews.com: Off-clock time which employees are expected to put in regularly, for such purposes as locking up, cannot be disregarded under California wage-and-hour laws, which do not incorporate the de minimis doctrine found in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the Supreme Court said yesterday in response to a question certified by the Ninth…

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently updated its guidance, taking a much stricter approach to approving applications that are largely filed by those seeking work in the tech industry. Under the new policy, which goes into effect Sept. 11, 2018, agents will be able to deny applications deemed incomplete or containing errors, without…

Immigrants on the H-1B highly-skilled visas, as well as their partners, are the targets of an under-the-radar effort to weed out foreign workers. Activists say the move is inhumane and business leaders argue it will hurt the economy. A report released Tuesday by the Silicon Valley-backed immigration lobbying group FWD.us lays out the White House’s…

The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday affirmed an order to an African American medical doctor, who was fired from his post as provost of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, a predominantly African American university, and sued for racial and age discrimination in addition to retaliation and whistle-blowing, to pay $94,017.50…