The U.S. Senate approved the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill that will grant some 10 million illegal immigrants a chance at U.S. citizenship. That's no so good news for legal immigrants who have been waiting patiently for years to get permanent residency. The bill that was heavily debated in the Senate and which senate conservative republicans put every possible effort to kill also includes some last minute pro-legal immigrant provisions. The whole thing was a roller coaster ride with amendments after amendments being introduced that did nothing to benefit legal immigrants. Finally as a fitting climax these provisions were added in the last amendment called the Manager's amendment. The Immigration Voice team and their strategic counselors have managed an almost impossible feat by adding these provisions in the CIR bill.
Some of the highlights of this amendment are:
- Hard country limit on visa numbers which was set at 10% per country was replaced by a soft limit wherein if any country does not use its quota those unused visas will go to oversubscribed countries. This is good news for applicants from India and China as these countries which have large population will always be oversubscribed.
- Certain US Masters degree holders and other advanced degree holders will be exempt from the visa number limits.
- Allows I-485 to be filed as soon as labor certification is approved
- EAD and Advance Parole will be issued at 3 year extensions instead of yearly.
- Labor backlog elimination.
The next step in this uphill struggle is the House-Senate Conference where the Senate version and the House version will be reconciled. While the entire nation hopes that sanity will prevail, it is entirely possible that since the two version are so vastly different that nothing may come out in the end.
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