At a White House press conference on 8 October, Vice President Vance said Microsoft had engaged in fraudulent behaviour. The same day, Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant and Infosys were suspended from permanent labour certification (PERM), the first step from H-1B status to an employer-sponsored green card; new and pending applications are no longer accepted.

The same day, nine elite universities were named

MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech and Arizona State face investigation over alleged J-1 visa fraud; subpoenas have been served.

The squeeze has been building all year

On 24 August a proposed H-1B fee reached around $103,000; on 7 October a first OPT application was set to cost universities $70,000, with $30,000 for an extension; on 15 September duration-of-status for F and J visitors was replaced by fixed admission of up to four years.

The tighter the policy, the cleaner the file

When pathways narrow, every document is read more closely. Degrees, transcripts, employment and financial evidence, and the birth and marriage certificates used for dependants, require accurate, complete and well-formatted English translations; inconsistent names or copied numbers bring requests for evidence, or doubts about authenticity. Raw machine output will not do, and stamp pages and footnotes cannot be dropped. How we do the work is described in “How Visa Documents Should Be Translated”, and “Certified Documents Allow Zero Error” takes the translator’s view. Enquiries are welcome via the contact page.

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