American Immigration Blog

H-1B Registration Starts March 1, 2020. 

The new USCIS registration process for companies seeking to file petitions for H-1B employees  starts March 01, 2020.
The H-1B visa is one of the most valued options for company who wish to hire foreign nationals for professional positions in the United States. Demand for the H-1b visa far exceeds the supply which is subject to an annual cap of 65000 visas. An additional amount of 25,000 visas have are allocated from graduates of U. S. universities with Master’s Degrees.

Earliest Date for filing H-1B Petitions  this year is April 2020
Each year the H-1B filing season begins and ends in the first week of April because of overwhelming demand by employers and potential employees to be selected to obtain a coveted H-1 B visa no. USCIS conducts a lottery to randomly select petitions for the annual visa allocation. Most years the selection process or lottery is closed for further applications by the end of the first week of April.
For more information on the H-1B Visa process please contact us for a free initial telephonic consultation. Please see our website for more information on H-1 B visas as well as other visa options.

India's economy is booming and its Government is now aggressively competing with China for manufacturing jobs by reducing corporate tax rates to 22%. Increasing real estate values and stock market investments have made the EB5 investment visa option available to many Indian nationals from all parts of the country and from different sectors of society. Now, the rush is on for investors to select a Regional Center Investment to qualify for the $500,000 minimum investment needed for the EB5 visa before the amount increases to $900,000 on November 21, 2019. The EB5 visa remains the only effective means of obtaining permanent resident status for most Indian nationals because of visa retrogression in the employment and family  visa categories. H-1b and L-1 are non-immigrant visas and do not automatically convert to permanent resident status. Persons with H-1b status  who are fortunate to have been sponsored by employers for labor certification  and are approved for EB2 or EB3 visa categories may still  wait years for a permanent employment visa to become available. The uncertainty and risk of changes in employment or company structure have caused many H-1B holders as well as others to turn to the EB5 visa because of the relatively shorter time frame to obtain permanent resident status. The increase in interest may also lead to visa retrogression for Indian Nationals. Chinese investors are now facing visa quota waits which have been estimated to be longer than 10 years because of the country quota limitation. Time is of the essence to invest before the minimum investment amount increases and to avoid visa retrogression.

Today, immigrants make up around 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet they play a great role in entrepreneurship and business formation relative to their overall numbers. According to a report from the Kauffman Foundation, immigrants continue to be almost twice as likely as the native-born to become entrepreneurs.

President Obama will announce a major executive action on immigration reform on Thursday, the White House said today. In his address to the nation, president Obama will lay out his plan to fix our broken immigration system.The president will use an 8 p.m. EST address Thursday to announce his measures. The president will then travel to Del Sol High School Las Vegas on Friday and will sign the executive actions.

Immigration activists, frustrated with the rate of deportations under Obama and further exasperated with the delay in Obama's immigration action, have been urging the White House to go big and expand the deferred deportation order in a way that allows the maximum number of people to stay. But many who have been watching the process closely believe the eventual announcement will fall short of those appeals.

As early as this week, officials said, Mr. Obama is expected to announce plans to shield up to five million people from deportation and provide work permits for many of them. Mr. Obama’s actions come after a concerted lobbying campaign by immigration advocates demanding presidential action in the face of 400,000 deportations every year.  

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security will be addressing the Dream Act July 23, 2013. The committee will be working on proposing a bill that will address the “immigration Status of Illegal Immigrants Brought to the U.S. as Children.” The House of Representatives is tentatively calling the new bill they plan to propose the Kids Act while the very similar Senate Bill is called the Dream Act.  

http://www.azcentral.com/news/...

Americans are becoming more accepting of increased immigration to the U.S. than they were a few years ago. Although the majority of Americans were not in favor of increased immigration, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 23% of Americans currently support it, the highest percent of pro-immigration Americans ever recorded by Gallup.

“Americans More Pro-Immigration Than in Past”: Gallup.com, July 11, 2013 http://www.gallup.com/poll/163457/americans-pro-immigration-past.aspx

Only one month after the Obama administration announced the acceptance of applications under the Deferred Action program on August 15, 2012, and we now have the first set of approvals granted this week. This signifies that as early as this month many of these young immigrant students will have received deferrals. 

In the absence of definitive regulations, it is important to review all possible legal issues before filing for Deferred Action (DACA). We will continue to update our blog and website as more information becomes available and in the meantime will post blogs on frequently asked questions and other issues related to DACA

USCIS announced today August 3rd, 2012, the new procedures that will be implemented for the Deferrred Action program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA), which starts August 15, 2012. For full details go to our deferred action site.

The new Deferred Action program is a very exciting opportunity for more than a million persons who came to the United States when they were young and remain undocumented. The program, when implemented, requires completion of an application, which is submitted to the Department of Homeland Security. 

President Obama’s announcement on June 15th 2012, means that the Department of Homeland Security will stop all deportation of young immigrants that meet certain criteria and conditions. 

New Regulations for deferred action expected by August 16, 2012

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today announced that effective immediately, certain young people who were brought to the United States as young children, do not present a risk to national security or public safety, and meet several key criteria will be considered for relief from removal from the country or from entering into removal proceedings. Those who demonstrate that they meet the criteria will be eligible to receive deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal, and will be eligible to apply for work authorization.

USCIS Issued Guidance Memorandum on Establishing the "Employee-Employer Relationship" in H-1B Petitions.

The Administration has adopted  a schizophrenic approach to same sex marriage and immigration law. The President and the Attorney General have indicated that present laws which deny same sex couples who are married under State law are unconstitutional or at least morally wrong. At the same time the Department of Homeland Security is continuing to deny immigration benefits to same sex spouses and at present these couples who may have legal marital status under State law may still risk being deported. At least one Immigration Judge has stayed the removal proceedings of an individual who could benefit from Federal recognition of same sex marriage pending further review by the Department of Justice.

The ugly debate over immigration reform sometimes overshadows the heartwrenching decisions which Immigration Judges and the Appellate Courts  address on a daily basis. Judge Pregerson's dissenting opinion in a recent unpublished Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision highlights the harsh consequences that follow when Courts apply an inflexible approach to interpreting complex immigration laws.

A new version of the Entrepreneur Visa bill provides hope for overseas investors seeking to invest or start up businesses in the United States. The bill if passed would provide an alternative to the EB5 investor visa which has rigorous employment creation and  capital investment requirements in order to qualify for permanent resident Status ( green card).

“Public officials should create and administer laws that reflect the best of our aspirations as a just and caring society,” the church wrote in a statement. “Such laws will properly balance love for neighbors, family cohesion and the observance of just and enforceable law.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

“A hard-line approach mocks American values. It is irresponsibly expensive. It is ineffective.” For Full Opinion on New York Time Editorial READ FULL ARTICLE HERE.

As noted by a Forbes Magazine Article “There is a growing recognition of the impact foreign-born entrepreneurs can bring to an economy”

“Today there are 1 million highly skilled immigrants in this country legally, if temporarily, on H-1B visas. Another 125,000 foreigners graduate from our universities each year. If only 10% of them launched businesses under this program, we'd have 110,000 new jobs right off the bat. Immigrant founders would then have superstrong incentives to expand their businesses in the U.S. so they could stay here.”

There is talk of reviving bi-partisan Immigration Reform discussions between Republicans and Democrats.See the enclosed article regarding talks between Senators Schumer and Graham.

As reported in the New York Times, the Obama Administration is facing new legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Courts. If a constitutional challenge to DOMA is successful, then it is likely that the Federal definition of marriage as being between  a man and a woman would not be upheld for persons with same sex marriages seeking immigration benefits. 

The Senate failed to pass the Dream Act in the lame duck session of Congress 2010.We strongly encourage immigration reform advocates to rethink their positions on the Dream Act and other aspects of Immigration Reform.  The Dream Act is just one component of a multitude of challenges which we confront as a nation when considering the controversial topic of immigration. 

H-1 B and L-1 fee increases already in effect. A recent change in the Law increased fees for certain H-1B and L-1 petitions. Effective August 2010 the fee for certain H-1b employers [hyperlink to H-1 b page] increase by $2000 and for certain L-1 employers [insert hyperlink to l-1 page] increased by $2250. With these new fees, employers filing an H-1b petition could pay as high as $5320 to USCIS for the Government fees alone. An intra- company transferee petition for an L-1 visa [insert hyperlink] could cost as much as $4070 in USCIS fees.

Immigration fees continue to increase. Effective November 23, 2010 filing fees for many petitions or applications filed with USCIS will increase. The fee increases will make cost of obtaining immigration benefits even more expensive at a time when the economy has impacted many persons who would be seeking to obtain temporary visas or permanent visas to immigrate to the United States.