USCIS Adds a List of Factors That May Be Relevant in Considering Adjusting an Applicant’s Status

Status Application Adjustments Guidelines Updated by USCIS
Nov26

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri On November 17, 2020, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated their guidelines in their Policy Manual regarding what type of discretion the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should use in adjudicating status application adjustments.[1] Typically, in order to get approval for adjustment of his/her/their immigration status, the applicant must show their eligibility and prove that an exercise of discretion in favor of his/her/their application is warranted.[2]   Whether discretion is positive or negative depends on how the USCIS balances and weighs the

November 26, 2020
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California Voters Approve Ridesharing Drivers from Labor Protections

California voters approve Uber-Lyft-sponsored proposition 22
Nov24

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri In an earlier post, we talked about how the First District Court of Appeal in California ruled that Uber and Lyft drivers were employees and were entitled to full protections under California’s Assembly Bill 5 law (AB5) such as paid sick leave, overtime, and fair wages.[1] Around the same time, however, Uber and Lyft were sponsoring a state ballot-initiative for Election Day known as Proposition 22 that would have exempted their drivers from the protections of AB5 and identified them as “independent contractors” rather than “employees.”

November 24, 2020
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State Appellate Court Classifies Uber and Lyft Drivers as Employees

Uber-Lyft Drivers either Employee or Independent Contractor
Nov11

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri The rise of the gig economy has to new forms of work that face tremendous obstacles when it comes up against worker legislation like the NLRA. No job has become more symbolic of the gig economy than the rideshare services known as Uber and Lyft. There has long been a debate about whether Uber and Lyft drivers were either employees or independent contractors. Being the latter would exempt Uber and Lyft from giving their drives their necessary protections and benefits under the National Labor Relations Act and other

November 11, 2020
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The Department of Labor’s New H-1B Wage Hike Rule Faces Overwhelming Legal and Empirical Challenges

H-1B Wage Hike implemented by Trump Administration
Oct30

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri The Trump administration caused an uproar among employers when it implemented its Interim Final Rule on October 8th, 2020 substantially increasing the amount in wages to be paid to employees who held H-1B visas in an attempt to pressure employers to drop them in favor of a domestic American workforce.[1]   In addition to boosting wages to pressure employers to look domestically for employees, it also changed the requirements for an H-1B visa by looking not simply for a college degree but specifically for degrees in “specialty occupations”

October 30, 2020
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SEC vs CFTC: two different reporting systems that require the reporting of similar data.

SEC and CFTC Record Similar Data with Two Different Systems
Oct28

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri Over the past several years, experts have called for the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to harmonize their regulatory standards in order to minimize duplicative or contradictory regulatory reporting requirements.[1] Not doing so has led to market participants creating “two different reporting systems and/or processes – one for the CFTC and one for the SEC” despite both require the reporting of similar data.[2] The obstacles posed to cross-jurisdictional transparency in following the regulatory rules and the

October 28, 2020
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Chicago’s New Plan to Partially Re-Open Schools for Special Needs Kids Amid Concerns Over Halting the Spread of COVID-19

Special Needs Kids Need A New Plan on Re-Open Schools
Oct19

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri The protective measures taken against potentially crowded facilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has left many special needs parents in the Chicago Public School system anxious as to when to partake of these interpersonal activities again.[1] While many parents recognize the importance of social distance learning at this time, parents of very young children or special needs children are particularly concerned that remote learning is not meeting the distinctive needs of their children and could fundamentally disrupt their education in the long term.

October 19, 2020
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Trump’s New Final Rule for the H-1B Visa and How It Helps Stifle Work-Based Immigration

Immigration Work-Based visa H-1b Changes Employment
Oct16

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri A recurring talking point from the Trump Administration has been that “illegal immigration” allegedly steal jobs from American workers.[1] He has consistently tried to link illegal immigration (however tenuously) to detrimental changes in the U.S. by pointing to the performance of the U.S. economy and the job market.[2] In the early days of his campaign, he was very clear that, in his view as well as that of his supporters, immigrants were “taking our jobs…our manufacturing jobs…[and] our money.”[3]   Since taking office in 2017,

October 16, 2020
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SEC Codifies New Disclosure Requirements for Banking Registrants

SEC Codifies Disclosure Requirements for Banking Registrants
Oct14

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri For the past 30 years, the rules and requirements for banks and savings & loan registrants for making disclosures to investors have been a mess as they simply duplicated other rules and requirements of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).[1] This failed to take into account major changes in financial reporting since 1986 when the last substantive update to Industry Guide 3, Statistical Disclosure by Bank Holding Companies, the guide published by the SEC’s Division of

October 14, 2020
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Physical Violence Towards Special Needs Children

Special Needs Children and Physical Violence
Oct12

Written by Taher Kameli & Chathan Vemuri Educating children with special needs requires a heightened degree of specialized training, experience, individualized attention, patience and above all empathy beyond that required for children in general. Missteps and errors by those who do not know what they’re doing can potentially cause serious damage to both that child’s educational as well as their emotional well-being. As such, the relationship between adult supervisors/teachers/principals and children with special needs is an unequal one where the child is potentially vulnerable to errors or wrongful actions by the adult.   This is painfully apparent with the phenomena of physical abuse

October 12, 2020
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EB-5 To The Rescue

EB-5 TO THE RESCUE by Taher Kameli
Oct09

Written by Taher Kameli America needs help, here comes EB5? The “EB-5 Program” refers to employment-based immigration under section 203(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (codified as 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)).  The EB-5 Program has been in existence since the 1980’s, and until recently, long-term stakeholders in the community thought that they had seen it all. But with the pandemic continuing to impact every sector of the U.S. and global economy, industry experts are now required to speculate as to how the EB-5 Program will be impacted.   Based on this introduction, one would expect the next couple paragraphs to

October 9, 2020
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