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The Many Faces of Stern Elkind Curray & Alterman LLP

Since 1985,Stern Elkind Curray & Alterman has limited its practice to immigration law, with a special emphasis on matters relating to the employment of foreign professionals. Mr. Stern and Ms. Elkind founded the firm with the goal of providing the very best immigration advice and representation to our clients. As the firm has grown, we have continued our commitment to maintaining a high level of expertise combined with an understanding that our clients are individuals whose lives are deeply affected by the work we do. Over the years, we have developed expertise and wide-ranging experience in all facets of immigration law.

We continue to be deeply affected by our clients, some of whom are introduced within this web site.

What Happened to the New H-1Bs?

March 14, 2005

For the 2005 Fiscal Year, the law provided for 65,000 H-1B visas. Before the first day of the Fiscal Year, October 1, 2004, there were none left. They had all been approved allocated before the year even began. In response to what appeared to be an impending crisis, Congress passed the H-1B Visa Reform Act, which carved out an additional 20,000 H-1Bs for the fiscal year, specifically for individuals who had received advanced degrees from U.S. universities. The effective date of the Act was March 8, 2005. Immigration law practitioners believed that, beginning March 8, we could file applications for new H-1B visas for individuals with U.S. advanced degrees.

To everyone's surprise, on March 4, USCIS issued a press release stating that it was not going to accept applications on March 8 for the new 20,000 H-1B visas authorized for Master's/PhDs graduating from U.S. universities. Then, on March 7, USCIS advised that the 20,000 visas would NOT be limited to Masters/PhDs, and that the opening of the application period would be announced in the Federal Register "soon". As of Monday, March 14, no announcement had been made in the Federal Register, so it is still not possible to apply for the additional H-1B visas. We believe that the USCIS position that these visas would not be limited to individuals with advanced degrees is based on the government's assessment of already-approved H-1Bs, and its conclusion that there have already been 20,000 issued to advanced degree a pplicants. Such a conclusion will allow USCIS to open the 20,000 new slots to any qualified candidate - but not until a notice is published in the Federal Register.

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