USCIS’s new visa petition form blocked by federal court
In the kind of legal whiplash that has become the norm, USCIS’s new form for filing for an artist work visa petition has been stayed by a Federal Court injunction.
October 2, USCIS released of a new version of the I-129 form, adding fields requiring disclosure of Public Benefits information. It also announced that the new form be used for all petitions received on or after September 8. (Normally, when USCIS releases a new form the public is given month to comply, and sometimes years to phase out the prior form. Given the holiday on Monday, the public was given two working days to prepare to use the new form.)
Predictably, on October 11, three Federal courts stayed the new rules, and with them, the implementation of the new I-129. For more information see this article from the New York Times.
For now, the prior version of the I-129 will continue to be in force.