Legal Updates Archive

As Iowa landlords know, there remains a good deal of inconsistency among small claims magistrates across Iowa’s 99 counties regarding various legal questions pertinent to residential evictions, resulting in the need to appeal certain small claims eviction decisions to an Iowa district judge or district magistrate judge.

Governor Walz is expected to sign into law the highly anticipated bill that bans virtually all non-competition agreements in Minnesota, apart from those relating to the sale or dissolution of a business.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received enough electronic registrations during the initial registration period to reach the fiscal year 2024 H-1B numerical allocations (H-1B cap), including the advanced degree exemption (master’s cap).

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is removing the requirement that civil surgeons sign Form I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record, no more than 60 days before an individual applies for an underlying immigration benefit.

Effective May 30, 2023, a Department of State final rule raises most consular service fees, although the fee increases are smaller than those proposed in the notice of proposed rulemaking due to revised projections.

The Department of State is extending Special Student Relief to eligible Ukrainian students in the United States on J-1 visas “to help mitigate the adverse impact on them resulting from the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has begun accepting petitions for workers for the late second half of fiscal year 2023 — those requesting employment start dates from May 15, 2023, to September 30, 2023 — under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule.

The Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification has stopped issuing denials for this issue for pending applications and “will not deny for this reason for any application submitted on or before May 30, 2023.”

The Department of State’s Visa Bulletin for May 2023 includes a variety of updates.

After years of litigation, IADU Table Mound MHP and Impact MHC Management, LLC were vindicated by an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which the court held that landlords are not required to accept Section 8 vouchers as a supposed reasonable accommodation to a tenant’s disability and related economic hardship.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued comprehensive guidance on parole for international entrepreneurs and new entrepreneur resources.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to publish a Federal Register notice on March 13, 2023, extending and redesignating Somalia for temporary protected status. DHS also announced special student relief for certain F-1 nonimmigrant Somali students.

On March 6, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the expansion of premium processing for certain F-1 students seeking Optional Practical Training (OPT) and F-1 students seeking science, technology, engineering and mathematics OPT extensions who have a pending Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, and wish to request a premium processing upgrade.

The Department of Labor released frequently asked questions on a final rule published February 28, 2023, and effective March 30, 2023, revising the methodology by which it determines the hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates for non-range agricultural occupations.

On May 3, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security published an interim final rule extending the REAL ID card-based enforcement deadline to May 3, 2023. A new final rule published March 9, 2023 further extends the date for card-based enforcement of the REAL ID regulations to May 7, 2025. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has engaged in a series of business transformation initiatives aimed at modernizing their processes, enhancing security, optimizing existing resources, reducing operating costs and creating a welcoming environment for all arriving travelers.

According to the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin for April 2023, the EB‑4 category, which includes special immigrant religious workers, now has a worldwide backlog of 5+ years. Also, the EB‑2 final action dates for Rest of World, India, Mexico and the Philippines have retrogressed several months to keep number use within the FY 2023 annual limit.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that certain flexibilities first introduced in March 2020 to address the COVID-19 pandemic ended on March 23, 2023. USCIS previously notified the public that barring any changes presented by the pandemic, the extension of these flexibilities announced on January 24, 2023, would be the last.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Carrier Liaison Program recently issued a reminder that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began producing redesigned employment authorization documents on January 30, 2023.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has expanded its Mobile Passport Control program to include the Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver Preclearance locations in Canada. 

On June 24, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will dispose of E‑Verify records that are more than 10 years old.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion upholding the MPCA’s adoption of new vehicle emission standards across the state. 

The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Jesson, reversed the City of Cohasset’s determination that an environmental impact statement was not required for Huber Engineered Woods LLC’s proposed oriented-strand-board manufacturing facility to be built west of Cohasset.

USCIS announced on March 31, 2023, the H-2B supplemental visa cap has been reached for the second half of the Fiscal Year 2023. USCIS is returning petitions to employers that were filed with USCIS after March 30, 2023, seeking visas under the supplemental/additional visas cap for the second half FY2023.

Property tax reassessment notices began going out this week to Iowa property owners, and Iowa business owners and homeowners are seeing record increases. By way of example, Polk County reported an average 22 percent increase in residential property values.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released updates related to the fiscal year 2024 H-1B cap season.

The SEC, through its Division of Examinations, has published its exam priorities for 2023. According to the SEC, these priorities reflect practices and products that may present more risk to investors and/or the integrity of U.S. capital markets.

The Department of State plans to launch a pilot program later this year to allow visa renewals in the United States for H and L nonimmigrant workers.

A district court has ordered the U.S. government to provide relief to approximately 41,000 nonimmigrant visa applicants who were denied a waiver during the Trump administration’s travel ban under Presidential Proclamation 9645 and who have not subsequently been granted a visa.

Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements plans to enable a new initial verification response, “Unable to Create Case,” on February 20, 2023. SAVE will provide this response when a user tries to submit a duplicate case via a web browser.

The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has announced the annual updated dollar amount per day that H-2A employers may charge workers. They also released the maximum and minimum rate per day at which H-2A and H-2B workers must be reimbursed for travel-related subsistence expenses.

The Department of State's Visa Bulletin for March 2023 includes updates on visa availability in various categories, including possible retrogressions in the coming months.

E-Verify recommends that employees with E-Verify Social Security Administration Tentative Nonconfirmation mismatch cases falling within certain timeframes to visit their local SSA offices within preferred date ranges, and that all affected employees must visit SSA to resolve their mismatch by September 29, 2023.

The court noted that to establish whether an employee works or has worked in a managerial or executive role, the sponsoring employer must submit a detailed list of the job-related tasks the putative beneficiary performs or has performed; general or vague descriptions are insufficient.

The United States and Mexico have signed a memorandum of understanding “to strengthen protections for workers participating in temporary foreign worker programs,” the Department of Labor reported.

The Biden administration issued a new proposed rule that it called “temporary,” which introduces a “rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility for certain noncitizens who neither avail themselves of a lawful, safe and orderly pathway to the United States nor seek asylum or other protection in a country through which they travel.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has released policy guidance to clarify the validity period of employment authorization for F-1 nonimmigrant students experiencing severe economic hardship due to emergent circumstances who are authorized to work under the SSR provisions. The guidance applies to all pending and future applications for SSR employment authorization as of February 22, 2023, the date the guidance was published.

F and M student visas for new students can now be issued up to 365 days before the start date for a course of study. However, the student cannot enter the United States on a student visa more than 30 days before the start date.

The Department of Homeland Security has extended the comment period for a rule published on January 4, 2023, by five days, to March 13, 2023. The rule proposes to change the fee schedule for certain immigration benefits. DHS said the extension was due to technical problems on the General Services Administration’s eRulemaking Portal that prevented some commenters from submitting their comments and supporting documentation.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on March 2, 2023, that it has received enough petitions to meet the congressionally mandated H-2B cap for the second half of fiscal year 2023. USCIS also announced the filing dates for supplemental H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2023 made available under the FY 2023 H-2B supplemental visa temporary final rule.

Effective April 5, 2023, the Department of State is updating its regulation regarding visa applicants' furnishing of signed photographs as required under Immigration and Nationality Act. DOS said the updates reflect changes in technology, including the ability to upload digital photographs electronically as part of the online visa application process.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is updating guidance in its Policy Manual regarding on-site inspections for special immigrant and nonimmigrant religious worker petitions. To assess the efficacy of on-site inspections for petitioning religious organizations, USCIS conducted a large-scale review of the results of these inspections over the past 12 years.

The Department of Labor issued a final rule effective March 30, 2023, revising the methodology by which it determines the hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates for non-range occupations. DOL said it believes the new methodology "strikes a reasonable balance between the statute's competing goals of providing employers with an adequate supply of legal agricultural labor and protecting the wages and working conditions” of similarly situated U.S. workers.

USCIS clarified how it evaluates evidence to determine eligibility for O-1B nonimmigrants of extraordinary ability in the arts and nonimmigrants of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disapproved the implementation plans of Minnesota and 20 other states addressing interstate transport for the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

EPA recently doubled down on the commitment it made in the 2021-2024 PFAS Strategic Roadmap.

A District of Minnesota Court recently issued an opinion granting and denying portions of a motion to dismiss stemming from a proposed mining project.

Payments fraud is nothing new — but neither is one of the best tools for combatting it: positive pay. Yet some banks still do not offer a positive pay program to their commercial customers — and even some of those that do offer positive pay do not market it well to their customers. In response to both of these facts, I ask, “Why on earth not?”

While economic forecasts may fluctuate like the winter weather of the Upper Midwest, as recently as mid-October 2022 some projections have 100 percent guaranteed the next U.S. recession in the next calendar year. With the total amount of outstanding commercial and industrial loans currently standing at over $2.8 trillion in November 2022, and outstanding consumer loans standing at $4.7 trillion in October 2022, it is clear that the U.S. lending industry may be facing a gargantuan credit default.

Since the Department of Justice announced its redlining enforcement effort in October of 2021, four lending institutions agreed to consent orders for alleged redlining violations by the end of 2022.