USA Green Card Immigration Blog

The USCIS has come forward with further information on the Employ American Workers Act (EAWA) to those employers looking to file H-1B petitions. The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa which permits U.S. employers to temporarily recruit alien workers.

The EAWA has been brought into effect to make sure that those companies which receive financial support under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act do not remove U.S. workers from their concern. Under EAWA, any concern that has received covered funding for hiring H-1B employees is an “H-1B dependent employer”. While filing a Labor Condition Application (LCA), the EAWA puts forth employment and non-displacement constraints of U.S. workers. An H-1B dependent employer ought to make statements on them to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

Following the enactment of the EAWA, the USCIS has included a new question (A.1.d) to its Form I-129 to make out if the employer has received any covered funding. Those employers who have repaid their obligations might answer “No” to that question. To know if your obligations have been repaid, the Department of Treasury, or the Federal Reserve has to be contacted.

While the H-1B petition is filed with USCIS, a valid Labor Condition Application must be filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. If the LCA does not match up with the question A.1.d of the H-1B petition, it may lead to a delay or rejection in processing, unless the petitioner comes up with a convincing explanation about the discrepancy to the USCIS.

The H-1B dependent employer should note that the EAWA pertains only to hires taking place on or after Feb 17, 2009 and before Feb 17, 2011. It is not applicable to a petition which is applied to extend the H-1B status of a current employee with the same employer. Neither to a petition applied to change the status of a work-authorized employee to H-1B status.

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection have reminded travellers to the U.S. who fall under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries to complete the electronic travel authorization. This reminder has been issued with regards to one-year anniversary of the implementation of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).

The reminder stated that as of January 20, a 60-day transition will be enforced by CBP on ESTA compliance for air carriers. Boarding a U.S. bound plane might not be allowed for VWP travellers without an approved ESTA.

All citizens of the Visa Waiver Program countries are required to obtain electronic travel authorization, if they want to travel by air or water to the United States. All nationals of VWP countries travelling to U.S must have the electronic travel authorization mandatorily as of January 12, 2009. U.S. citizens returning from overseas and citizens of VWP countries travelling on a valid U.S. visa are not required to follow the ESTA reminder.

Citizens of Visa Waiver Program must submit ESTA applications any time prior to travel. The approved ESTA will be valid for two years or until the applicant’s passport expires or whichever comes first. This authorization can be used for multiple entries into the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security urges that the ESTA applications are best submitted as soon as the travel plans are made by the applicant.

The Visa Waiver Program travellers can complete an online application by logging onto the ESTA website. The online application is similar to a paper I-94W form. The applicant just has to answer basic biographic and eligibility questions. The paper I-94W form will be completely replaced by ESTA in the coming months. A VWP traveller can send a third party, such as a relative, a friend, or a travel agent if he cannot submit an application by himself.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has made an announcement stating that the H-1B visa cap has been reached for Fiscal Year 2010 (FY2010.) 65,000 new H-1B visas are the maximum number of visas authorized by the congress for each fiscal year. But, the first 20,000 H-1B visas issued to individuals who fall under the advanced degree in the U.S. are excluded from the 65,000 cap. As of December 21, 2009, the USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions from individuals excluded from the H-1B visa cap under the advanced degree exemption.

The numerical restriction specified yearly by the Congress on some of the nonimmigrant visa applications is called Cap. H-1B and H-2B fall under this category. Cap is contemplated to control the number of workers that can acquire a visa agreeable to a particular nonimmigrant classification in a fiscal year to enter the United States of America.

This numerical restriction helps manage the number of outsiders already present in the United States who can lawfully change their status to a cap-subject classification. Individuals kept out of the cap in a specific nonimmigrant classification and deciding to prolong their stay in this classification are generally not applicable to these annual numerical limitations.

United States employers desiring to employ foreign nationals in special jobs that require hypothetical or sound technical expertise use this H-1B non-immigration visa program. Architects, engineers, computer programmers, accountants, doctors, college professors, and certain renowned fashion models of merit are the most common occupations included in the H-1B non-immigration visa program. This visa program is also applicable to about 100 persons with exceptional services with Department of Defense (DOD) research and development projects. All nonimmigrant visa applications are not subject to the cap.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to use a computerized random selection for all petitions received for the H-1B visa cap. Petitions received after December 21, 2009 will be rejected by USCIS.

Letters to the Editor: Smart Immigrants Yes, but H1-Bs Are No Panacea – WSJ.com.

Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld assert that we should make it easy for immigrants to move here in order to create start-ups by stapling green cards to the degrees of foreign students and easing H1-B restrictions (“Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy,” Dec. 2). In support of their argument that immigrants are entrepreneurial, they list several start-ups founded by immigrants, including Google, Pfizer, Intel, Yahoo, DuPont, eBay, and Procter & Gamble. However, a closer look at these examples proves very enlightening. Three of these immigrant-founded start-ups were created in the 19th century. Andy Grove of Intel, a Hungarian immigrant, was not the founder of Intel. That honor goes to two Americans, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Mr. Grove originally joined the company as an employee. Of the remaining companies, all of their founders immigrated to the U.S. with their families as young children. Google’s co-founder (with an American) Sergey Brin left Moscow with his family at age 6; Yahoo co-founder (with an American) Jerry Yang left Taiwan at age 8; eBay’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, emigrated from France at age 6.

Note that none of these immigrants was on an H1-B or even a student visa. Essentially, the “immigrant” entrepreneurs whom the authors so admire were raised as Americans and were co-founders of businesses with Americans.

Mara Alexander

Alexandria, Va.

Messrs. Kedrosky and Feld’s appeal to allow would-be immigrant entrepreneurs and technical grads to enrich our economy with fast-track visas is spot on. I would add that we should also allow investors, holders of advanced degrees, and in-demand skilled professionals, regardless of their country of origin, to be fast-tracked also. They are most likely to enrich our country. We allow special consideration for compassionate reasons such as family reunification and amnesty from abusive regimes, even though they may be net revenue drains on our economy via social services, schools and prisons. Why not allow in those immigrants w

ho will create jobs through investment, innovation and valuable education or technical skills which they’ve acquired by becoming successful and who want to take a chance on us?

Debra Janssen-Martinez

Los Gatos, Calif.

Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld: Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy – WSJ.com.

While fast-growing companies have long been the main source of new jobs and innovation, this country makes it outrageously difficult for immigrants to launch new companies here. This doesn’t make any sense. After all, Google, Pfizer, Intel, Yahoo, DuPont, eBay and Procter & Gamble are all former start-ups founded by immigrants. Where would this country be today without their world-changing innovations?

Immigrants have not only founded big, well-known companies. Foreign-born residents made up just 12.5% of the U.S. population in 2008. But nearly 40% of technology company founders and 52% of founders of companies in Silicon Valley.

Yet we don’t seem to care. We send recent, foreign-born university science and engineering graduates back to their own countries after their student visas expire—unless these creative sorts are willing to spend some of the most entrepreneurial years of their lives working in a big company under an H-1B visa after they finish their studies.

For those who studied elsewhere, but who nonetheless want to bring their job-creating ideas here, American policies treat them—the job-creating, trouble-making innovators that they are—as a cross between deadbeats and queue-jumpers. Why can’t they wait in line like everyone else to get a visa in five years or so? What’s their hurry?

Their hurry is Joseph Schumpeter’s hurry: They want to hustle out and disrupt markets when the opportunity arises.

In the 21st century those opportunities don’t wait for our interminable, employment-based visa programs. As a result rather than saying “Come and create jobs here” we, in effect, tell them to shove off. Come back when you have a few million in sales— at which point they will be rooted elsewhere and creating jobs somewhere else.

That needs to end now. Immigrants who come here to create companies create jobs. We need the jobs.

One good idea to make this process easier is to create a new visa for entrepreneurs, something that is increasingly being called by venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and angel investors a “start-up visa.” It might work like this: If immigrant entrepreneurs want to start a company in the U.S. and are able to raise a moderate amount of money (perhaps as little as $125,000) from an accredited U.S.-based venture capital firm or qualified U.S.-based angel investors, we should let them start a company here. It could be a couple of founders with an idea—that’s it. We would give visas to the founders and welcome them in to our country.

Would it work every time? Of course not. It would fail more often than not. Start-ups often fail.

But having failed, the immigrant entrepreneurs could try again, and again. And as long as they are trying, raising money, creating jobs, and making sales, we would let them stay here. Founders of new companies are precious for a vibrant economy, and we should welcome them. Indeed, the country would be better served to find more of them.

Some will say a start-up visa program will be abused. They will say that it will become a way to end-run immigration rules, to jump the queue if you have money.

There are at least two answers to these objections. First, to get such a visa you would have to raise money from real investors. Second, Canada and other countries already allow entrepreneurs to start a company in their country. Shouldn’t the U.S. stop worrying so much about keeping these people out, and start worrying about bringing them in?

We also think science and engineering graduates should get visas stapled to their diplomas. You complete your higher education here, you get to stay so that you can get out and create jobs, innovate, and grow the economy. Uncle Sam wants you, if you’re a prospective entrepreneur.

The U.S. remains one of the most attractive countries for entrepreneurs. It has a culture of risk taking, capital formation, and an economic dynamism that is the envy of the world. This gives us a competitive edge that we should not let slip through our fingers.

The number of applicants for visas in the H-1B category for immigration to the United States has seen a sharp rise. Those who have a bachelor’s or an equivalent degree and wish to seek employment in the United States can apply for an H-1B visa.

Professionals such as scientists, management consultants, journalists, accountants, engineers, programmers, and research analysts can apply for visa in this category. In addition, famous fashion models are also eligible to apply for H-1B visa.

This visa is also suitable for aliens entering the United States to offer services related to cooperative research and development projects that are administered by the US Department of Defense. Professional nurses who want to enter the United States to perform complex duties or to supervise nursing operations also are eligible to apply for employment visa in this category.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recently updated the number of H-1B petitions received for the fiscal year 2010. It reveals an increase in the number of petitions received for H-1B visas for the year 2010. USCIS received around a thousand H-1B petitions for visa in just one week. It has received nearly 58,900 visa applications for the H-1B category as of November 27, 2009.

The US immigration service has approved an adequate number of H-1B petitions for foreigners who have advanced degrees to meet the exemption number of 20,000 from the fiscal year 2010 cap. If any H-1B petitions are filed on behalf of an alien with an advanced degree, then those visa applications will now be counted towards the general H-1B cap of 65,000.

USCIS will continue to accept both cap subject and advanced degree petitions till it reaches the statutory limit. The number of petitions that are denied, revoked, or withdrawn will also be taken into account while calculating the total number of petitions.

The Other Immigrants – WSJ.com.

Low quotas, long lines hurt U.S. competition for human capital.

The immigration debate has long been preoccupied with illegal aliens. But what about foreign-born professionals seeking green cards who stand in line and play by the rules? A new report by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy says the U.S. is mishandling this important human resource.

A former official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Mr. Anderson focuses on foreign nationals from India, who fill nearly half of the annual quota for H1-B temporary work visas. Indian professionals who want to become permanent U.S. residents face a wait time of at least 12 years and as long as 20. “To put this in perspective,” says the report, “children today in kindergarten may graduate from college by the time Indians who file new applications for an employment-based immigrant visa would receive a green card.”

One of Mr. Anderson’s findings is that the multiyear waits aren’t due to bureaucratic delays so much as to the impractical low annual limits on who can come. Under current law, no more than 140,000 employment-based green cards are issued each year. And since the spouses and children of these workers also count against the cap, the actual quota is much lower.

Congress hasn’t raised the annual cap since 1990. Over the past two decades U.S. GDP has risen by 64%, and the demand for skilled workers, notably in technical fields populated by foreign-born professionals, has risen dramatically. Yet our immigration policies pretend nothing has changed.

“The problem facing skilled foreign nationals, employers and the U.S. economy is current law does not match the aspirations of these individuals or allow the country to harness their abilities,” writes Mr. Anderson. “One result is many outstanding foreign nationals see potentially brighter futures in their home countries, leaving the America vulnerable to losing a pool of talent that has helped spur jobs, growth and innovation inside the United States.”

The costs of losing this human capital are high. Between 1990 and 2007, an astounding 25% of publicly traded companies in the U.S. that were started with venture capital had an immigrant founder. Many foreigners come initially to study or do research at our superior colleges and universities. But the barriers to remaining are forcing them out. A survey of 1,200 international students taken in March shows we can no longer take for granted that skilled immigrants will want to stay and work in America. Some 55% of Chinese, 53% of Europeans and 38% of Indian students worried about being able to obtain permanent residence in the U.S.

Canada, Australia, the European Union and others have streamlined processes for hiring foreign workers to lure skilled immigrants away from the U.S. Unless Congress addresses these long wait times and low quotas, more immigrants will take the skills they acquire in U.S. universities and use them to help other nations prosper.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a bureau of United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS.) Its main responsibilities are promoting national security, eliminating backlogs in immigration cases, and improving customer care services. As part of its responsibilities, USCIS handles all forms and processing materials related to immigration and naturalization.

A Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Accredited Representative, popularly known as the USCIS G-28 Form, is a standard form that notifies USCIS that you will be represented by an attorney or anyone else belonging to a religious, charitable, social service or similar organization before it. All the notifications will be sent to him from then on and whenever he files papers for you, a Notice of Appearance (NOA) must be submitted. You can change your attorney anytime by filing a new USCIS G-28 Form.

USCIS has recently announced the publication of a revised USCIS Immigration Form, which can be downloaded online by U.S. Immigration Support members with a current subscription. A grace period of 30 days has been granted. This means that, till October 30 Forms G-28 that are in the mail currently will be considered valid when received at the USCIS lockbox facility or the USCIS center. After this date any prior versions of the form received will be considered invalid. Forms filed before October 30 will be honored for previously filed cases if the forms were properly completed by an eligible attorney.

Applicants must ensure that they submit the correct form because if an incorrect form is submitted the application may be denied and not processed. So read through the immigration guide that best suits your case, containing filling instructions and the procedures before you start filling the form.

USCIS G-28 Form is included in application guides such as Green card renewal, Green card replacement and in Green card updates.

Should the U.S. increase its H-1B visa program? Wages belie claims of a labor shortage | NumbersUSA – For Lower Immigration Levels.

Once again, the tech industry is putting heavy pressure on Congress to expand the H-1B visa program. Though the industry says the foreign workers are needed to remedy a tech labor shortage, for most employers the attraction of H-1Bs visa holders is simply cheap labor. The H-1B visa program allows skilled immigrants to work in the United States on a temporary basis.

Labor Set to Fight Over Guest Workers – WSJ.com.

Yet another example of the general ignorance the American public has concerning guest workers and the (false) perception that foreigners with H-1B visas are displacing qualified American workers.  Bogus.  American companies wouldn’t have the voracious appetite for foreigners if there were sufficient US workers qualified and willing to work in these positions.  It looks like battle lines are being drawn for the next push for major legislative immigration reform.  One point that does make sense:  it is doubtful that any immigration bill that is “immigrant friendly” will become law in the current economic climate.