Visa Bulletin - September 2008

The visa bulletin is available here http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4357.html

E. EMPLOYMENT VISA AVAILABILITY
Item E of the May 2008 Visa Bulletin (number 118, volume VIII) indicated that many Employment cut-off dates had been advancing very rapidly, based on indications that the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) would need to review a significantly larger pool of applicants than there were numbers available in order to maximize number use under the FY-2008 annual limits. That item also indicated that if the CIS projections proved to be incorrect, it would be necessary to adjust the cut-off dates during the final quarter of FY-2008. The CIS estimates have proven to be very high resulting in: 1) the “unavailability” of all Employment Third preference categories beginning in July, 2) the “unavailability” of numbers for China and India Employment Second preference adjustment of status cases during September, and 3) the establishment of many October Employment cut-off dates which are earlier than those which applied during FY-2008.

Little if any forward movement of the cut-off dates in most Employment categories is likely until the extent of the CIS backlog of old priority dates can be determined. It is estimated that the FY-2009 Employment-based annual limit will be very close to the 140,000 minimum.

FAIR against legal immigration as well!

The FAIR gang is out again with anti-immigration action alerts. Here's their latest. This shows that they make no distinction between legal and illegal immigration even though this bill doesn't add any new visa numbers but only reuses those that were wasted because of bureaucratic delays. Here's what they say:

House Judiciary Renews Consideration of Measures That Will Harm American Workers
FAIR Action Alert
Thanks to your calls and e-mails last week, efforts to pass four detrimental immigration-related bills stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, victory was short-lived. Committee leaders remain committed to passing these bills, which would flood the workplace with hundreds of thousands of worker visas.

The Judiciary Committee is meeting again Wednesday, September 17th for another try!

Three of the four bills to be considered in Wednesday's markup amount to nothing more than gifts to big business special interests seeking to dramatically increase the stream of cheap foreign labor coming into the American workforce during these tough economic times:

• H.R. 5882 would reach back to 1992 and "recapture" employment-based and family-based visas, potentially adding over 550,000 new green cards.
• H.R. 5924 would lift the cap on employment-based visas for nurses and physical therapists until 2011.
• H.R. 6020 would grant amnesty to illegal aliens who are family members of armed forces personnel.

Anti-immigration groups go green

Readers of the Nation and other left-leaning magazines may have noticed a new addition to the usual advertisements — full-page advocacy ads by an ad hoc coalition of anti-immigration organizations.

The ads place the blame for traffic and sprawl, frequent villains for urban-oriented members of the left, on population growth, another such villain. The kicker? That population growth is blamed on immigration.

Read more at Politico.

USCIS Announces 2-Year EAD Issuance Beginning From 06/30/2008

The USCIS has announced that they will issue 2 year employment authorization cards beginning June 30, 2008. It only applies for those applicants who have filed an I-485 for adjustment of status and are expected to be in that status, waiting for a visa number for more than a year. This provides some relief for the vast number of EB-3 filers who have over half a decade long wait and had to file for an EAD every year. The cost of EAD filing was increased to $340 last July and asking people to keep paying that kind of money every year is nothing short of fleecing. What is the cost to reprint a card every year? Surely not $340! Looking at the card itself, I would be surprised if its anything more than $50. There is either a lot of inefficiency or unnecessary paperwork involved here. It would be shameful and immoral if this $340 repeat fee was used as a means to generate income for USCIS.

Visa Bulletin - July 2008

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to gain permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the July 2008 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Nov 2001

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 22 Mar 2003

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Mar 2006

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Jul 2002

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Mar 2006

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's retrogressed by over 6 years now for applicants born in India.

Special announcement on EB-3 availability in the future:
Demand for numbers, primarily by USCIS for adjustment of status cases, will bring the entire Employment Third preference category to the annual numerical limit by the end of June. As a result, this category will become “unavailable” beginning in July and will remain so for the remainder of FY-2008. Such action will only be temporary, however, and Employment Third preference availability will return to the cut-off dates established for June in October, the first month of the new fiscal year.

NYT - The Great Immigration Panic

Today's editorial in the New York Times though not related to skilled legal immigration but to the illegal kind, talks about the mood in the US on immigration in general and acknowledges the fact that legal channels are practically closed. Some excerpts:

Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, dreamed up by restrictionists and embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

The restrictionist message is brutally simple — that illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever Them and never Us, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.

Employment based bills not yet considered

The US Congress is back from the Memorial Day recess and many of the bills that were introduced in the house are yet to be scheduled in the calendar. With election year politics, the remaining months would polarize the vested interests further and fail to pass any legislation that could bring about relief to the skilled immigrant community. Comprehensive immigration reform advocates do not want any immigration related bills to pass until the new president is sworn in and comprehensive reform is taken up for debating. In the meantime the agony for frustrated applicants caught in the retrogressions continue.

Michelle Malkin's Immigration Rants

As one of the comments at Huffington Post said involving the Dunkin Donuts ad, "Why is malkin such a racist? I know she isn't white." to which one of the response was "The two aren't mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as reverse racism. Racism is racism." This may be true but while not all right wing whites are anti-immigrants but so far all anti-immigrants have been right wing whites. Michelle Malkin is the only exception and the reason she is given so much visibility by the right wing media is because she lends credibility to the notion that it's not just whites who oppose (illegal) immigration. Some would even call her leading a PAC "Immigrants against Immigration". It might be interesting to note that Malkin is of Phillipino heritage and as some of the very right wingers who seem to echo her would call, "an anchor baby".

I do not support illegal immigration and I certainly oppose public welfare for the illegal immigrants but I believe the US needs a whole lot of unskilled labor and needs to find a solution to the current problems to maintain their lifestyle. The reason I bring this up is because there are particular elements in the lunatic right wing who are implicitly racist by demonizing immigrants of a particular region and especially target their rants on issues involving immigrants from South America, Asia and Africa. Not many Middle Easterners immigrate to the US but they tend to club all these immigrants and their issues together in their self-feeding rants. To them being illegal or legal is a small difference that gets ignored in their rants. I believe while they may not show that they oppose legal immigration, they will do nothing to improve it but will do every thing to attack the racial aspects of illegal immigration and there by implicitly malign all immigrants with those backgrounds.

EU Blue Card Update

A while back I posted about the 'Blue card' visa program from the EU to compete for the high skilled brains of the world. I recently came across one of the best analysis of this program here. You would think what is the motivation for the EU economies for such a program considering their large native population and generally better off economies? Well, here are some reasons:

85% of unskilled labor migration goes to the EU and 5% to the US, whereas 55% of skilled labor goes to the US and only 5% to the EU.

Imagine the scenario where even 25% of the world's skilled labor goes to the EU. What would that do to the US competitiveness?

In 2007, 270,000 high-skilled Europeans emigrated to the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

So, the region is experiencing a brain drain for better options but that only leaves openings for people from the rest of the world to fill in. I have to remind the readers that the looking at the June 2008 visa bulletin, you can see how much more quicker it is for people from Europe to get US permanent residency compared to the people from over subscribed countries like India or China.

1 EUR = 1.57 USD (as of today)

If salaries were a deciding factor, this equation above fixes a lot of the disparity. (As a side note, I just heard that a bunch of European tourists with their fatter wallets have landed in Martha's Vineyard for the summer. It's cheaper for them to vacation here than in Europe.)

In times of immense competition for the world's talent, only the most competitive immigration policies will attract the best talent. The US was the preferred destination for many of these but faced with the long and difficult immigration policies of the US, many of these would opt for the easier and better rewarding options in the EU.

Development of Immigration Legislation Proposals on the Senate Side

From attorney Mathew Oh's blog

• Thus far, it is the House that has been active in introducing immigration bills, particularly the employment-based immigration bills and the Senate has remained in low keys. However, according to the AILA, there was some movement on the Senate court as part of the Emergency War Supplement Bill. AILA reports that the following bills were introduced and added to the bill in the form of amendments to the Supplement Bill in the yesterday's mark-up session of the Senate Appropriation Committee:
  • AgJobs bill, introduced by Sen. Craig and Sen. Feinstein
  • H-2B bill on 3-year returning worker extension, introduced by Sen. Mikulski
  • Bill on recapture of unused EB immigrant visas, and early adjustment filing, introduced by Sen. Gregg and Sen. Murray
  • Bill to reauthorize the EB-5 Regional Center Investment Program
• The movement in the Senate side took a strategy of attaching the immigration bills to another bill unlike the House approach to legislate the immigration bills as independent bills.

[Update: This bill passed the senate on 5/23/08 without any of the immigration related amendments fearing a veto from the White House.]

With H-1B in limbo, Congressional backers push Green Cards

Efforts to increase the H-1B cap have been stuck in a legislative swamp, but U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has introduced three bills in the last few weeks to help foreign nationals already working in the U.S. to obtain permanent residency. She announced her latest legislative effort late Wednesday.

News Link: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=E9FCCA76-17A4-0F78-31943D83ADDC573B

Visa Bulletin - June 2008

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to gain permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the June 2008 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	Advanced by 3 months
EB3	01 Nov 2001	No change

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	Advanced by 3 months
EB3	22 Mar 2003	No change

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2006	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Jul 2002	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2006	No change

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's retrogressed by over 6 years now for applicants born in India.

Special announcement on EB-3 availability in the future:
Demand for numbers, primarily by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices for adjustment of status cases, is expected to bring the Employment Third preference category very close to the annual numerical limit in June. As a result, this category is likely to experience retrogressions or visa unavailability beginning in July. Such action would only be temporary, however, and a complete recovery of the cut-off dates would occur for October, the first month of the new fiscal year.

Dollar's purchasing power

Don't want to sound like an economist because I have almost no formal education in that field but from what I have read and understood, prices of everything is going up while the value of the US dollar is going down.

It started with the housing bubble as home prices shot up much faster than income due to greed and some creative financing from Wall Street . As it turned out, without a rise in income, there's no way these mortgages could be paid. The results were mortgage defaults and a fall in home prices. This resulted in a credit crunch were no one wanted to lend money to anyone because of fear of not getting their money back. To stave off a financial breakdown, the US Federal Reserve decreased interest rates to almost negative rates(real rates considering inflation) at a time when Oil was already trading at record highs. The smart money saw what was coming and invested out of dollars and into anything that is real and necessary. Oil, metals and lately food commodities have all risen in prices as a result.

I also don't want to sound political but I believe Oil prices are also a derivative of the Iraq occupation but this is where we stand now. Take a look at the chart below to compare what $1 in 1800 means today and more particularly the steep decline in the recent past.

Decline in the U.S. dollar's purchasing power (1800-2005)
Source: Barron's

So, you may ask what this has to do with immigration to US? Well, it only means that the purchasing power of the dollar is decreasing as each month goes by while the salaries are staying the same (actually going down considering inflation). So, consider this when you make the financial decision to relocate to a new job here.

Bills introduced to replace lottery visas with advanced degree visas

Senator Judd Gregg (NH) introduced a bill "to replace the diversity visa lottery program with a program that issues visas to aliens with an advanced degree." This bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN). Sen. Elizabeth Dole (NC), Sen. John Sununu (NH), Sen. John Cornyn (TX), and Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT). These Senators are proposing to expand the immigration opportunities for Advanced Degree holder foreign workers in STEM or related fields without increasing the total annual number of immigrant visa under the current immigration system. Interesting legislative bill.

Some PR from the Senator who introduced this bill:

Sen. Gregg stated, "Talent is a nation’s most important resource in today’s information age, and our nation’s immigration policies need to catch up to this economic reality. In addition to increasing the number of H-1B visas and employment-based visas for highly skilled workers, I believe that Congress should realign our immigration programs so they better meet our economic needs, including the well-documented shortage of workers with advanced degrees in the math and sciences. By converting a lottery visa program that has marginal skills requirements into one that is focused on the best and the brightest, we strengthen our competitive advantage, spur economic and job growth here in the United States, and deter employers from sending work overseas where highly skilled talent is located. Our visa lottery programs should not just benefit those who are selected, but should have significant positive ramifications for our nation as a whole. I look forward to working with my colleges on this measure and other immigration proposal to keep America competitive."

New bills introduced to address employment based immigration issues

There's new action appearing in the high skilled immigration circles. Some new bills have been introduced in Congress to deal with the employment(skill) based immigration issues. One bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D. CA) seeks to eliminate the per country limits on the immigration numbers and to end the spill-over of unused immigrant visa numbers between employment-based and family-sponsored categories. Finally, someone is trying to differentiate between skills and diversity.

Another bill brought on by the powerful healthcare lobby and introduced by Rep. Robert Waxler seeks to reserve 20,000 visa numbers out of the annual total for exclusive use by Nurses and Physical Therapists in the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. The healthcare lobby always tries to be non-controversial to mainstream America by demanding new visa numbers but at the same time not increasing the total numbers. This at a time when there's almost 6 years worth of applicants in the queue. Not to mention the fact that each year, there are a lot of visa numbers wasted due to inefficiency in communication between the agencies.

Economy, jobs and year 2008

The housing correction is causing companies across the entire economy to reconsider projections for the next year. If indeed the economy goes into recession or at least slows down as it has already done this quarter, the possibility of wage appreciation is zero. The entire argument that foreign labor depresses wages becomes irrelevant if the economy falters, as there will be mass layoffs and possible wage decreases for newly hired positions even without any immigration. The effect of immigration numbers on wages is really minuscule compared to the overall health of the economy, assuming we believe that such a thing does happen. Far more consequential is what would happen to competitiveness, productivity, innovation and jobs if protectionist laws are implemented during times of economic slowdown. Next year will be interesting.

USCIS As a Business Entity in EAD and Advance Parole Policy

From Mathew Oh:

• The legacy INS and the USCIS had worked on a plan for a number of years to issue a multi-year EAD. It even conceived a plan to abandon a separate Advance Parole document and turn the EAD to function as the employment authorization document as well as overseas travel document for I-485 applicants. Indeed, the USCIS even enacted and released a regulation to issue an EAD card that can extend over a period in excess of one year. However, this regulation has never been implemented because of the alleged internal disagreement within the DHS leadership. Guess what! The sources of disagreement were reportedly "money, money, money!" By issuing such new multi-year EAD, the DHS was destined to lose a huge loss in the revenue of EAD card selling business.
• Now what? Under the new filing fee schedule which took effect after July 29, 2007, issuance of EAD and Advance Parole for the post August 27, 2007 is "free, free, free" for the I-485 filers. Allegedly, the cost is incorporated in the I-485 filing fee of $1,020. The new regulation uses the term of "fee waiver" for EAD and Advance Parole for these I-485 filers. Now, you guessed it! Lo and Behold, the business calculation on EAD and Advance Parole has reversed. The DHS will lose a huge money by issuing single-year EAD and a separate Advance Prole document on a yearly basis over and over since they are free and they will have to keep producing it at no charge every year, which creates a huge workloads consuming its huge human resources and other production costs. This is particularly unacceptable to the agency under the predicted State Department Visa Bulletin for FY 2008 and in the future. Now, from the business standpoint, the DHS may make a huge money by issuing a multi-year EAD which will also function as a travel document. Ahah! No wonder why they are finally coming forward revealing their hidden agenda behind the new fee rule-making and EAD/Advance Parole reform business. Reportedly, Mr. Aytes of USCIS disclosed in a New York AILA conference that the USCIS was currently working on a single multi-year EAD card that will also replace the Advance Parole document. What a smart calculation it was in the new fee rule-making action.
• It turns out that such single card acting serving as EAD as well as travel document for multiple years will serve the mutual interests of both the immigrants and other immigration stakeholders AND the USCIS. One interesting question is whether the DHS/USCIS will go all the way acting purely on business calculation or may extend some generosity and compassion for some I-485 filers as well. The answer to this question will also involve the timing of the change and the card policy. The fee waiver for EAD and Advance Parole applies only to the post July-2007 VB fiasco I-485 filers. Accordingly, the agency will make money from the post VB fiasco 485 filers and lose money from the pre VB fiasco 485 filers if the agency issues a new multi-year EAD card accross the board coving both groups. Even though the post VB fiasco I-485 applicants may outnumber the pre VB fiasco filers, the agency must be using calculators day and night to determine the answer for the agency's maximum benefits in terms of cost saving from the new policy. One option could be that they come forward with a new regulation that such multi-year EAD card will apply only to the post VB fiasco I-485 filers. The other option could be for the agency to set timing of the new policy such that a substantial number of pre-VB fiasco I-485 applicants leave the pipeline of green card process. The bad news for the second option for the agency is the State Department's Visa Bulletin predictions for FY 2008. It thus apepars that they will determine the break-even point or overriding cost saving point considering the pouring-in new I-485 applications in the future and the number of pre VB fiasco filers in its total pool of I-485 applications. The agency is likely to determine the timing of new card policy after a careful calculation of these factors. It will be considered a shameless act, should the agency adopt the first option, which will definitely face a legal challenge in courts from the standpoint of unlawful creation of classes in violation of the nation's Constitution and unequal treatment of the classes as well as a lack of fair play and fairness in administration of justice and government process.
• Please watch carefully the upcoming move of the agency and how the business calculated new policy will unfold "how" and "when."

'Blue Card' Visa Program

European Union recognizing their industry needs is gearing up to create a competing visa system for high skilled workers. This is in direct competition to the H1B visa in the US and work permits in Canada. Individual European nations do have some sort of immigration laws prior to this but the biggest advantage of the new system, one that is key to the foreign workers is the ability to work anywhere within the EU with one single visa. Here's the BusinessWeek article.

Meanwhile, US Senator Grassley is fighting to increase the H1B fees to almost $6000 per applicant to further restrict the use of H1B visas. Here's the new fee structure

• $1,500 American Worker Training Fee ($750 if employs 25 or less employees)
• $3,500 Supplemental Fee ($1,750 if employ 25 or less employees)
• $500 Fraud and Abuse Prevention Fee
• $320 H-1B Petition Fee
• TOTAL=$5,820

That's progressive thinking from Sen Grassley and other LDAs (Lou Dobbs & Associates).

How about other nations impose similar trade restrictions on US goods and services. Here are few suggestions:

1. Impose 500% surcharge on Pepsi and Coke products for a cola worker training fee so they can learn to make good cola without having to import the technology from US.
2. Add $400 to every box of Microsoft Windows imported for a local software development fund. Use the money collected to build software indigenously without having to import US software.

If you think these sound ridiculous, that's exactly how Sen Grassley's proposed fees sound too.

Lou Dobbs and Associates fuming over Immigrants' success

With the limited success the legal immigrant group has had by getting the USCIS and DOS to honor the original visa bulletin, and the media coverage this relatively small group has had, it seems now Lou Dobbs & Associates (loose term for Lou Dobbs and like minded extremists) are venting their frustration on the legal immigrants. It just solidifies the point that these people are pure restrictionists. Have a look at the responses to this article from BusinessWeek has had.

Bruce
Jul 20, 2007 8:40 PM GMT
No one is against REASONABLE number of LEGAL immigrants but the H-1B visa program is essentially a scam. It's simply a way for firms to reduce their labor costs by increasing the number of available candidates for employment. Truth be known, Indians are famous for taking advantage of the H-1B program, for cheating it by not exiting the USA when their visa expires which they are supposed to do according to the law. It's all a scam - just like the now defunct immigration "reform" bill in the Senate last month. Foreign lobby groups pay off US politicians to allow more of their people into our nation. Time for this corrupt practice to wind down.

RG
Jul 20, 2007 8:23 PM GMT
In case you "immigrants" fail to read your H-1B visa, it is called a NON-IMMIGRANT VISA. That means you are supposed to leave the USA when the visa expires. Understand? Not bring a dozen of your relatives here to live with you forever. Why don't more Americans go into such "great" fields as IT? Young Americans now know that that once good field has been so diluted with foreigners, and salaries have come down due to an excess of labor. IT is no longer a desired occupation.

These are examples of hate-radio listeners who are getting so emotional over something that hardly affects their lives. 140,000 immigrants per year in a nation of 302,000,000 people is not even 0.05 percent of the population. Are we supposed to believe that the tiny fraction of the Americans who are against this represent the 300 million Americans? It's a democracy and its the majority opinion that counts and majority of Americans want high skilled legal immigration, period. Amen!

The Gandhi Protests Pay Off

Facing political pressure and legal action, the U.S. government may speed up green-card processing and make more slots available

Read the complete article at BusinessWeek