News and Announcements

The U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Commerce announced changes to the Cuba Sanctions Rules, effective June 5, 2019. Changes include ending group people-to-people travel to Cuba and ending certain US exports to Cuba.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced, effect June 24, 2019, that the Student and Exchange Visitor Program fees charged to international students, exchange visitors, and SEVP-certified host institutions will increase.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of State announced that it is immediately suspending indefinitely all commercial and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela.

On April 10, USCIS completed the random selection process (“lottery”) as it has received sufficient H-1B petitions for both the regular 65,000 cap and the 20,000 US-earned advanced degree (Masters degree or higher) cap for fiscal year 2020.

USCIS announced that is has received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the 65,000 H-1B visa regular “cap” for fiscal year 2020.

Our US Federal tax filing resources are now available.

The US DHS SEVIS system is currently experiencing significant technical difficulties which are resulting in long delays for the issuance of the Form I-20 and the Form DS-2019. Your requests for documents will be processed as soon as SEVIS is operational. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

The U.S. Supreme Court took no action on the request by the Trump Administration to expedite review of the current court challenges to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

In light of the change in Massachusetts State Law, MIT updated its drug policy to provide clarification on questions concerning the use and possession of marijuana, and we strongly advise you to review the MIT policy. Even with these changes to Massachusetts State Law and MIT policy, international students should be warned of the severe consequences on your immigration status for possession or use of marijuana.

The ISO wanted to remind all members of the MIT community to beware of being a target of a scam, whether by email, phone, or by postal mail. The holidays are a common period given that we may be buying items more frequently – and scammers take advantage of this time.