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WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announced his decision to designate Yemen for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months due to the ongoing armed conflict within the country. Yemen is experiencing widespread conflict and a resulting severe humanitarian emergency, and requiring Yemeni nationals in the United States to return to Yemen would pose a serious threat to their personal safety. As a result of Yemen’s designation for TPS, eligible nationals of Yemen residing in the United States may apply for TPS with U.S.

USCIS has simplified the process for paying the USCIS Immigrant Fee online in our electronic immigration system. The revised payment process reduces the amount of information an immigrant must provide to USCIS. Additionally, in response to customer feedback, anyone can now pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee for an immigrant. For example, a family member, friend, employer, attorney, or accredited representative can pay the fee as long as they have the immigrant’s Alien Registration Number (A-Number) and DOS Case ID.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced the launch of a Spanish-language myE-Verify, plus the addition of Case Tracker and Case History services to the English and Spanish myE-Verify websites. myE-Verify is a one-stop shop for employees and job seekers to access features for identity protection in E-Verify and visibility into the E-Verify process.   

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has extended Haiti’s designation for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for an additional 18 months. The extended designation is effective Jan. 23, 2016, through July 22, 2017.

USCIS will discontinue its legacy e-Filing system in order to maintain data security standards and focus resources on the replacement Electronic Immigration System. The legacy e-Filing system has offered online filing for several USCIS forms. After the system is decommissioned, you must use paper forms when filing all categories of:

In order to balance workloads, USCIS recently began transferring some cases from the Vermont Service Center to the California Service Center. The affected cases include:

• Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative
• Form I-751, Petition to Remove the Conditions on Residence

How You Will Be Affected

A Washington DC Federal court has held that DHS improperly promulgated the 2008 regulations creating the 17-month OPT CAP GAP extension for STEM graduates (strictly speaking, this is not reallly "CAP GAP" issue).  According to the court, DHS should have placed the proposed regulation before the public, allowed everyone to comment, considered the comments and then published the final regulation.  Thus, DHS violated the procedural mandate requiring "notice and comment."  According to the court, there was no good reason to skip the "notice and comment" mandate.

• Dear Stakeholder,

On August 2, 2015, Typhoon Soudelor caused extensive damage in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). USCIS reminds customers affected by Typhoon Soudelor that certain U.S. immigration benefits or relief may be available to them. USCIS understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to maintain lawful immigration status or obtain certain other immigration benefits.

Eligible individuals may request or apply for temporary relief measures, including:

USCIS has accounted for over 99 percent of the approximately 2,600 identified invalid work permits requiring return. Twenty-two of the approximately 2,600 recipients failed to return their work permits or certify good cause for not doing so by the deadline of July 30, 2015. As a result, those 22 have been terminated from DACA.