U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced earlier this month changes to where Form I-129 petitions should be filed.

Effective immediately, applicants are now required to submit their Petitions for a Nonimmigrant Worker to the service center with jurisdiction over the state where their company or organization’s primary office is located. Beginning next month, Form I-129 petitions filed at the wrong filing venue will be subject to rejection, USCIS added. The intervening one-month grace period is slated to end Nov. 11.

Prior protocol required I-129s to be filed at the service center determined by the location of a beneficiary’s worksite. For example, the petitioner for an alien employee who is applying to work in Oregon for a business headquartered in New York would have filed the associated I-129 at the California Service Center. Now, however, such a petition would be submitted to the Vermont Service Center.

In addition, USCIS announced that it has moved the filing venue for petitioners in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas to the California Service Center.

The changes in filing procedure will not impact certain classifications of I-129 petitions that are required to be filed at specific service centers, irrespective of a company or organization’s principal office. Among these specific types of I-129s are cap-exempt H-1B visa petitions, which must be filed at the California Service Center.

For more information on the changes, including a complete list of the states over which service centers have jurisdiction, refer to USCIS’s Direct Filing Addresses for Form I-129 webpage.

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Former U.S. Consular officer, Attorney Sechyi Laiu joined Zhang & Associates, P.C. on June 26, 2017

At Zhang & Associates, P.C., Attorney Laiu specializes on Consular Processing cases and business development. Attorney Laiu also focuses on TN visas, E visas, CBP administrative proceedings (monetary confiscation, deferred inspection), and overseas financial compliance.

Prior to joining Zhang & Associates, P.C., Attorney Laiu worked for the U.S. Department of State as a Chinese and Portuguese speaking diplomat. As a consular-coned officer who served in Vancouver (Canada), Shenyang (P.R. China), and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Attorney Laiu processed over 30,000 visa cases and worked in every section of Consular Affairs overseas (Fraud Prevention Unit, Immigrant Visas, Non-Immigrant Visas, and American Citizen Services).

He will use his experience and expertise to deliver the highest quality of service to our clients.

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Founded in 1996, Zhang & Associates, P.C. offers legal services to clients worldwide in all aspects of U.S immigration law. We have successfully handled over ten thousand immigration cases.

At Zhang & Associates, P.C., our attorneys and supporting professionals are committed to providing high-quality immigration and non-immigration visa services. We specialize in NIW, EB-1, EB-5, PERM, I-485 I-130, H-1B, O, L and J cases. In the past twenty-one years, we have successfully helped over ten thousand clients get green cards. If you plan to apply for a green card, please send your CV to Attorney Jerry Zhang (info@hooyou.com) for a free evaluation.

Zhang & Associates, P.C.

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Tel:	1-800-230-7040, 713-771-8433
Email:	info@hooyou.com
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(10/25/2017)