{"id":36678,"date":"2017-01-03T18:01:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T22:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=36678"},"modified":"2017-01-03T18:01:01","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T22:01:01","slug":"christmas-presents-from-uscis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=36678","title":{"rendered":"CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FROM USCIS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"text-align: left\">By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>When we woke up Christmas morning, we discovered that the Grinch at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had left two surprises in our stockings:<\/p>\n<p><b>1) <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">NEW FILING FEES<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Effective as of December 24, 2016, the filing fee for all O and P petitions is now $460.\u00a0<\/span><i>All petitions postmarked or received by USCIS on December 23, 2016 or later must include the new fee or the petitions will be rejected.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>2) <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">NEW FORMS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Effective as of December 24, 2016, USCIS updated many forms, including Form I-129\u2014the form used for O and P petitions.<\/span> The new edition of Form I-129 is marked \u201c12\/31\/16\u201d. USCIS will continue to accept old forms until February 21, 2017, but <i>all petitions postmarked or received by USCIS on February 21, 2017 or later must have the 12\/23\/16 edition of Form I-129 the petitions will be rejected.<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Read the new Form I-129 carefully. When USCIS updates forms, it rarely asks for new information, but often re-numbers and moves around the old blanks and questions for no apparent reason.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Because USCIS can amend forms without notice, <b><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">ALWAYS<\/span><\/b> download a fresh form directly from the USCIS website. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/forms\">www.uscis.gov\/forms<\/a>. <b><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">NEVER<\/span><\/b> use an old form, a form you used the \u201clast time\u201d, or a form you obtain from any other source.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first one we knew was coming, but the second was a complete surprise to everyone!<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>For additional information and resources on this and other legal, project management, and business issues for the performing arts, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ggartslaw.com\/\">ggartslaw.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>To ask your own question, write to <a href=\"mailto:lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.com\">lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>All questions on any topic related to legal, management, and business issues will be welcome.\u00a0However, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">please post only general questions or hypotheticals. Questions will be answered in future blogs<\/span>. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and\/or posthumously.<\/p>\n<p>__________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><b>THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:<\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><b>THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:34px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=36678\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. \u00a0\u00a0 When we woke up Christmas morning, we discovered that the Grinch at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had left two surprises in our stockings: 1) NEW FILING FEES Effective as of December 24, 2016, the filing fee for all O and P petitions is now $460.\u00a0All petitions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[872,873],"tags":[2444,2100,1164,1962],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36678"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36680,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36678\/revisions\/36680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}