Insights & Updates on EB-1A Green Card and U.S. Immigration

On October 22, 2026, the State Department released the November 2026 Visa Bulletin. Manifest Law notes that family-based applicants saw “the biggest gains,” with F1, F2B, F3 and F4 final action dates advancing a full year for most countries. Murthy Law Firm offered a one-line summary: “Several employment-based and family-based cutoff dates advance, while others remain unchanged.” It is the second bulletin of fiscal year 2027. The State Department made its allocations based on demand received by October 5. Tune with us as our EB-1A consultants analyze and comment on the November visa bulletin.

The “final merits determination” is the last step in USCIS’s review of an initial EB-1A petition, and it has drawn a string of legal challenges. In January, a federal judge in Nebraska ruled that USCIS had unlawfully adopted it. Last month, a judge in the same district reached the opposite conclusion in Agarwal v. Miller, according to a report by Manifest Law on October 20, 2026. Here our EB1A consultants have analyzed and discussed these two contradictory legal verdicts and what they mean for the eb-1a green card applicants.

The foreign professionals who are waiting on employer-sponsored green cards, have to go through a mandatory first step of PERM application. It has become a long wait in its own right. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is taking an average of 336 days to review permanent labor certification (PERM) applications, and tens of thousands of prevailing wage requests are queued before that stage even begins. The numbers do not show a system in free fall. They do show how many separate waits are stacked end to end. Here, our EB-1A consultants have discussed in detail everything foreign professionals and H-1B applicants need to know about the long PERM wait.

On October 9, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the Justice Department’s top immigration appeals tribunal, issued a precedent decision that could change who gets a full hearing in U.S. immigration court. In Matter of B-S-A-N-, the Board told immigration judges to generally deny asylum applications from nationals of highly developed democracies. It also held that European Union citizens are “presumptively ineligible for a discretionary grant of asylum” (BIA, Matter of B-S-A-N-). Because the decision is a published precedent, it binds immigration judges nationwide. As always, here, our EB1A consultants have dived deep into this important news and all the nuances associated with the precedent.

On October 14, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a proposal that could make every work visa extension feel like a first-time application. USCIS proposes to remove 8 CFR 214.1(c)(5), a rule that generally tells officers to defer to a prior approval involving the same facts when reviewing an extension. Comments are due November 13, 2026, under Docket No. USCIS-2026-0529. Nothing changes yet, because deference stays in place unless DHS issues a final rule. As always, our EB-1A experts have presented a detailed breakdown of the new proposed policy in clear language.

Between April and June 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied 35,767 work permit applications from people waiting for green cards. That pushed the denial rate on those applications to about 44%. In the first two quarters of the fiscal year, covering October 2025 to March 2026, the rate was about 25%. For many applicants, the work permit, formally an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), is the only legal way to earn a living while the green card case drags on. How should we interpret this striking number? Here, our EB1A experts have presented a detailed analysis of this surge.

On Monday, October 5, the Justice Department announced that it had filed civil lawsuits seeking to revoke the citizenship of 40 naturalized Americans. The complaints were filed in federal courts between August 21 and October 2. The department says they are the largest volume submitted in a single period under the Trump administration. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the effort the “largest denaturalization effort in modern history”. In other words, a legal tool once used sparingly is now being deployed at scale. Here, our EB-1A consultants have dived into all the details pertaining to this important piece of news.

Previously, an international student at an American university could take an academic-credit internship with little more than a signature from a school official. That routine is now in doubt. On Monday, October 5, four of the country’s most influential higher-education bodies sued the federal government over a sudden narrowing of Curricular Practical Training, known as CPT, the program that lets F-1 students work in jobs tied to their degrees while still enrolled. Here, our EB-1A consultants have explored the disputes surrounding CPT in great detail.

Across the country, immigrants with pending cases have been opening a one-page USCIS letter titled “FBI Privacy Requirements for Biometrics Collection by USCIS,” and many have feared the worst. Attorneys say the notice is a routine procedure and needs no reply. Read closely, though, it points to an important shift in terms of functional level. The fingerprint check that once ended at a biometrics appointment may now keep running long afterward. Here, our EB-1A experts have presented a detailed analysis of this notice and what it means paired up with the case.

A federal judge has dismantled the Justice Department’s nationwide effort to collect state voter registration records and screen them for noncitizens. The ruling also bars the department from using data that cooperating states had already handed over. The decision is the most sweeping court setback yet for the administration’s push to take a larger role in election administration, which the Constitution leaves largely to the states.

A federal judge in Washington has suspended a Trump administration policy that stopped immigration authorities from collecting fingerprints and photographs from detained immigrants with pending applications. Those biometric checks are a required step in applying for legal status. Without them, applicants were effectively barred from relief that Congress created for some of the country’s most vulnerable people. Here, our EB-1A experts have provided a detailed glimpse of this important news.