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

For over 25 years, the regulations governing America’s J-1 Exchange Visitor Program have barely changed. It remained a relic of a paper-based era that predates SEVIS, the government’s electronic tracking system, by four years. That is now set to change. On last July 30, 2026, the US Department of State published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would rewrite how J-1 programs are terminated, and reinstated. The notice handed the department new discretionary power to end a participant’s status directly. It has also tightened the deadlines for corrections, and, notably, argued for doing away with a grace period. Exchange visitors have long relied on this period to wind down their affairs and leave the country in an orderly way. However, the proposed rule has placed the J-1 into a double jeopardy like never before.

On August 11, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security published an interim final rule that hands the US Citizenship and Immigration Services new authority to make electronic filing mandatory for immigration benefit requests. This would apply to a wide range of cases from green card applications to citizenship petitions and work permits. Moreover, this update will also end the long-standing norm that applicants could almost always choose to file on paper.

For around a decade, the 60-day grace period has quietly functioned as one of the most important safety valves in America's high-skilled immigration system. It is a modest cushion that gives H-1B workers time to find a new job or switch visa status. If nothing else, it is a great window to wind down their lives in the US after a layoff. That cushion may now be about to disappear. On August 6, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security sent a proposed rule titled "Eliminating the Discretionary 60-day Grace Period" (RIN 1615-AD22) to the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review.

On August 6, 2026, President Trump signed two executive orders reshaping the landscape around citizenship and international travel. One narrows the categories of people eligible for birthright citizenship; the other directs the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to actively curb what the administration calls "birth tourism". The latter is considered a practice of entering the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa for the primary purpose of giving birth on American soil. The orders followed the Supreme Court's June 2026 ruling in Trump v. Barbara, and senior adviser Stephen Miller described the birth tourism crackdown as one of the administration's most significant immigration actions to date.

Some fights, apparently, don't end just because the Supreme Court says they are over. On Thursday, August 6, President Donald Trump signed two new executive actions targeting birthright citizenship, a mere five weeks after the nation's highest court struck down his first attempt by a 6-3 vote. The first order, reportedly titled "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," aims once again to limit which U.S.-born children are eligible for automatic citizenship. The second, "Ending Birth Tourism," takes aim at a smaller and more politically manageable target: foreign visitors who travel to the United States specifically to give birth. Trump offered no additional details on implementation but told reporters he believes the new actions will hold up in court.

If you have filed anything with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the past year and felt like it vanished into a void, you are certainly not alone. According to new data compiled by the American Immigration Council, the agency responsible for processing everything from green cards to work permits is now completing fewer cases. Moreover, they are denying more of them, and making people wait dramatically longer for an answer, which, in some categories, is years longer.

On August 5, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued Policy Alert PA-2026-05. It is a significant update to the USCIS Policy Manual to change the practices of how officers evaluate evidence and issue Requests for Evidence (RFEs) & Notices of Intent to Deny (NOIDs). The change reverses a permissive, requestor-friendly approach that had been in place for years. On the other hand, it restores officers’ full discretion to deny incomplete or legally deficient filings outright.

A coalition of nearly two dozen Democratic-led states, joined separately by a group of civil rights organizations, filed suit this week to stop the Trump administration from handing federal immigration authorities access to the personal records of low-income families enrolled in one of the country's oldest safety-net programs. The legal fight is the latest, and, advocates say, one of the most consequential in a string of battles over the administration's effort to convert data collected by anti-poverty agencies into a tool for immigration enforcement.

The path to a US permanent residency could be achieved either through a merit-based pathway or marriage ties. And, two great alternatives for the same are the EB-1A extraordinary ability green card and the marriage-based green card. Many aspirants often wonder which of the two paths they should take when they have both these options available. These two sit at opposite ends of that spectrum, and both routes have grown noticeably more complicated in 2026. So which one is actually "easier"? The honest answer is that they are hard in different ways, and the better question is which set of hurdles you are better positioned to clear.

Immigration attorneys across the United States are issuing an unusual warning to their clients this summer: think twice before booking a domestic flight. This is because there have been a wave of arrests at airports in California, Colorado, Tennessee, Illinois, and at least six other states. This flurry of incidents has convinced several lawyers that routine air travel can now seem like a flashpoint for immigration enforcement. As always, our EB-1A consultants have discussed here in detail what could be the risks involved and how to best prepare if you book a domestic flight. Let's dive right into the matter.

A proposal is reportedly under consideration by the Trump administration to impose a $100,000 fee on international students seeking to work in the United States after graduation. This news has rattled universities and employers alike, who warn it could upend the financial logic of an American education for hundreds of thousands of foreign students. The plan, first reported by the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by Bloomberg, is not a full-blown policy yet. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security are reportedly discussing attaching the fee to Optional Practical Training (OPT), the program that lets international graduates work in the US for up to one year after finishing their degree (or up to three years for STEM graduates). It remains unclear whether the fee, if adopted, would fall on students, employers or universities.