September 13th, 2010
The Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010 has recently been passed by the U.S. Senate. The L-1 and H-1B visa fees for some employers, who have a workforce of more than fifty percent of H-1B and L-1 nonimmigrants, has been increased by the provisions of the law. On August 5, the bill was initially passed in the House. However, a constitutional requirement forced the bill to be sent back to the House. After its return to the Senate, the bill was approved by the President.
In order to raise funds to protect the US-Mexico border, the L-1 and H-1B visa fees has been increased mostly for Indian companies. Most of the Indian as well as American companies have termed the bill as “discriminatory.”
After the US Senate reconvened on August 12, 2010, the passage of the new border security bill was welcomed by Obama. Charles Schumer and Democrats Ben Cardin were the only two senators who attended this short session. As per the Senate rules, if legislation is agreed by everyone, only two senators have to be present in the session. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in early August.
Senator Claire McCaskill stated that the H-1B and L-1 visa fees will be increased by USD 2,000 per visa application to those foreign-controlled companies who greatly depend on H-1B and L-1 visas to bring foreign nationals into the US and work for them.
President Obama is of the view that the increase in fees for L-1 and H-1B petitions will strengthen not only the work of federal law enforcement forces, but also their partnership with local, state, and tribal law enforcement. He said that communities along the Southwest border and all over the country would be effectively protected through the resources that are made available. He also added that the new legislation will help build up the partnership between America and Mexico in their mission of deterring criminal activities along the border.
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H-1B Visas | 
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Posted by GreenCardTeam
September 9th, 2010
Entries for the DV-2012 DV must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT -4), Tuesday, October 5, 2010, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT -5), Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Applicant are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays!
You can get a head start by registering with USA Green Card for the upcoming visa lottery program. Learn full program details and register at http://www.usa-green-card.com
The Congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 and provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants.” Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. For fiscal year 2012, 50,000 DVs will be available.
The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses selectees for DVs. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than 7% of the available DVs in any one year.
The Department of State implemented the electronic registration system beginning with DV-2005 in order to make the DV process more efficient and secure. The Department utilizes special tecnology and other means to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or those who submit multiple entries.
1 Comment | diversity visa, Green Card Lottery | Permalink
Posted by usagreencardblog
September 2nd, 2010
Illegal immigration down sharply; immigration hysteria up sharply
From the Wall Street Journal:
Illegal immigration to the U.S. has slowed sharply since 2007, with the bleak U.S. job market apparently discouraging people from heading north.
The influx of illegal immigrants plunged to an estimated 300,000 annually between March 2007 and 2009, from 850,000 a year between March 2000 and March 2005, according to new study released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group.
The decline contributed to a contraction in the overall size of the undocumented population to 11 million people in March 2009 from a peak of 12 million two years earlier, according to the Pew analysis, which is based on data from the Census Bureau.
The news comes as the Obama administration continues to tighten border security (assigning National Guard units to assist border patrols, and increasing drone flights) and more aggressive enforcement of laws preventing the hiring of illegal immigrants. As the Dallas Morning News reports, “removals from the U.S. interior have steadily climbed. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said their goal is to expel a record 400,000 people for the fiscal year ending this month.
All that said, the dismal economy has no doubt had a much bigger impact on cutting illegal immigration than anything that the federal government or the Obama administration has done. It has always been about jobs; as long as U.S. firms were gonna hire them, the immigrants were gonna come. The hiring has largely stopped, the inflow has largely stopped.
However, the unsurprising news that illegal immigration has slowed to a relative trickle — and that the total population of illegal immigrants has declined — highlight the fact that the overheated rhetoric about the administration “abandoning American soveriegnty” on the border and the passage of a draconian Arizona law (also backed by both gubernatorial candidates here in Georgia) all lack a cause in actual fact.
The problem is much less serious than it ever was, the federal government is doing more than it ever did, yet to hear the rhetoric the sky is falling and the country is collapsing and the world is coming to an end at the hands of illegal immigrants. I can’t remember a time in which hysteria so dominated the American political scene.
1 Comment | illegal immigrants, Immigration Statistics, Jobs/Economy | Permalink
Posted by usagreencardblog