Immigration Blog

January 2014 Visa Bulletin shows limited progress for green card applications

By |December 12, 2013|

The U.S. State Department just released the January 2014 visa bulletin and there is minor advancement in most categories. Fortunately, this month’s edition does not indicate major retrogression like the December 2013 visa bulletin.

The F2A family visa category is still stalled: back in August, the category for spouses and minor children of green card holders became current. That quickly changed, and now F2A category green card applications will advance at a very slow pace for the foreseeable future.

January 2014 Visa Bulletin

Examining the visa bulletin by country of origin, family-based green cards for Mexico and work-based green cards for India have completely stalled. The Philippines has relatively little advancement in family visas as well.

The visa bulletin’s slow advancement highlights one of the major problems that must be addressed in immigration reform: immigrants who comply with proper immigration procedure outlined by the U.S. government are waiting more than 5, 10, or 20 years for their green cards. Even worse, some that applied as young children become disqualified from their green card category because the U.S. government takes so long to process their visa. Every month the visa bulletin dates stay the same or retrogress, that line for obtaining a green card gets much, much longer. The 2013 Senate-passed immigration bill addresses this issue by clearing out the visa backlog as the first order of business. We will see if 2014 will be the year it finally happens.

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U.S. Supreme Court hears landmark immigration case for family visas today

By |December 10, 2013|

us-supreme-courtThis afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of thousands of potential young immigrants and their U.S. family members in the class action lawsuit Mayorkas v. Cuellar de Osorio. The Supreme Court will then determine the true interpretation of The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) and whether or not it should accommodate young immigrants who age out of the U.S. visa process because of the broken U.S. immigration system and its ridiculously long visa backlog.

What happens when a child waiting for a family-based visa “ages out?”

The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) was passed in 2002 to deal with growing complications in processing family-based visas. As the U.S. visa backlog grew worse and wait times turned into decades for some visa categories, the federal government needed to address the fact that some child applicants weren’t going to be eligible to get their visa until well into adulthood.

Rosalina Cuellar de Osorio (the plaintiff whose name is on the lawsuit) applied for a visa in 1998 so that she could join her mother in the United States. At the time, Rosalina’s son was a young teenager, so she filed a petition for him to join her in the U.S. as her dependent. When Rosalina was finally granted her visa in 2005, her son had already passed the 21 year age limit for child dependents and he could not get a visa to join his mother.

For U.S. immigration purposes, you are a “child” until you are married or until you turn 21, whichever comes first. Once you turn 21, you no longer qualify for several family-sponsored visas. This includes children who are applying as dependents of other visa applicants. Previously, once these children hit 21, they would lose their place in the (very long) visa line and start to wait all over again in their new, adult category. CSPA was intended to take care of these child applicants by letting them keep their place in line while automatically transferring them to their adult category when they turned 21. However, it did not account for the delays caused by the massive visa backlog, so therefore it is still possible to “age out” of the immigration process.

Possible outcomes of the Mayorkas v. Cuellar de Osorio case

Since the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, U.S. immigration policy focuses on family unity, ensuring a support system for U.S. immigrants who make the decision to move here permanently. CSPA has not managed to accomplish this goal, nor does it take care of child applicants from before 2002.

Like many other immigration laws passed in the last few decades, CSPA is basically a band-aid that doesn’t fully address the issue of qualified child applicants being left behind while their parent or sponsor was allowed to immigrate. The Senate-passed immigration reform bill already has a provision in it that would take care of the CSPA issue once and for all, but with just a few days left for Congress in 2013, it doesn’t look like that bill is turning into law anytime soon.

Especially with immigration reform stalled, this could be a huge win for U.S. immigrants and an important step forward in U.S. immigration policy We’re hopeful that the Supreme Court ruling will be in the favor of uniting families who have taken the time to complete the family-based visa process and are waiting for the U.S. government to deliver what it has promised.

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All about the F Visa: F-1 student visas, F-2 visas, and F-3 commuter visas

By |December 9, 2013|

The United States is experiencing a record number of international students enrolling in its educational institutions, During the 2012 – 2013 school year, there were over 800,000 foreign nationals studying in American universities alone. And every single one of them had to go through the U.S. immigration process in order to get a student visa – in most cases, they apply for an F-1 visa, the most common type of U.S. student visa.

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More F visas are issued than any other type of U.S. student visa. If you are a foreign citizen seeking a U.S. degree in an academic setting, you are almost certainly going to need an F-1 visa, even if you hail from a country in the Visa Waiver Program or if you are already here on a different type of non-immigrant visa, such as a B visa.

Your course of study and the type of school you plan to attend determine whether you need an F visa or a different type of visa. Vocational programs, short term cultural exchanges, and non-academic programs are more likely to require a J-1 or M-1 visa than an F-1 visa. The student visa process is a little more complex than most other non-immigrant visas, so it’s important to seek the advice of a knowledgeable immigration attorney if you are not sure which one you qualify for.

Applying for the F-1 Student Visa

Prospective students of a U.S. university, college, high school, private elementary school, seminary, conservatory, or language program generally need to apply for an F-1 student visa. Before you can apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate for an F-1 student visa, you must already be accepted by a SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Program) approved school.  Once you are accepted as an incoming student, you will be enrolled in SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) for a fee. After this step, the U.S. school will provide you with a Form I-20, which you will present at your consular interview for the F visa.

Upon first issuance of your F-1 student visa, you cannot enter the U.S. more than 30 days before your educational program’s start date. Students with F visas can renew their visa as long as they maintain their student status (enrolled full-time.) Continuing students can enter the U.S. at any time before their classes start.

A few important rules about F-1 student visas:

  • F-1 visa holders must be able to pay the full cost of education for their program; they do not qualify for government subsidies or in-state tuition.
  • F-1 visa holders cannot attend public elementary schools or publicly funded adult education classes.
  • F-1 student visa holders must be enrolled full-time in their educational program to keep their status valid.
  • If the F-1 visa holder is a high school student, he or she is only allowed to study in the U.S. for 12 months.
  • The ability to work with an F-1 visa is extremely limited and can depend on where and what the job is for.

Who applies for F-2 and F-3 student visas?

Spouses and minor children of F-1 student visa holders need to apply for the F-2 visa. F-3 visas, also known as the border commuter student visas account for less than 1% of all F visas. F-3 visas are only available to citizens in the border areas of Canada and Mexico who wish to commute to a U.S. school for either full- or part-time study.

Working in the U.S. with an F-1 visa

F-1 students can work on their school campus for 20 hours a week or less. They cannot work off campus in their first year of study, but after that first year some can apply for Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or Optional Practical Training (OPT). F-2 visa holders cannot work at all, and F-3 visa holders are only eligible for Curricular Practical Training (CPT) after graduation and are not eligible for on-campus work.

Each week, we look at a different non-immigrant visa by letter, starting with “A” visas. Our intention is to not only help people understand the depth and complexity of U.S. immigration, but also to bring awareness to the enormously diverse pool of immigrants that enter our country every year.

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U.S. government considers Temporary Protected Status for the Philippines

By |December 6, 2013|

Temporary Protected Status for the PhilippinesSince super typhoon Haiyan touched down in the Philippines a month ago, millions of Filipinos have been displaced from their homes, including tens of thousands now living temporarily in Manila with no physical homes to return to. The unprecedented damage to infrastructure and serious loss of life has caused some U.S. lawmakers to take up the cause of providing Temporary Protected Status to Filipino nationals living the U.S. who may otherwise be forced to return home.

Twenty U.S. Senators, Asian American advocacy groups, and other immigration advocates are asking the Department of Homeland Security to consider Temporary Protected Status for the Philippines as a compassionate and practical gesture to aid in relief efforts. Filipino groups are also petitioning President Benigno Aquino III to formally request TPS status for his citizens. Press conferences were held Wednesday to draw attention to their efforts.

What is Temporary Protected Status?

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a short-term protected stay for foreign nationals who hail from a country suffering an extreme natural disaster, an armed conflict, or other extraordinary circumstances. The status does not need congressional approval and only applies to foreign nationals already living in the U.S. at the time TPS is offered. TPS does not lead to a green card, though it does provide a temporary work permit and relief from deportation.

TPS cannot be implemented until the affected nation specifically requests it from the United States – in this case, the Philippines has still not yet requested TPS for its citizens living in the U.S. Other countries that currently qualify for TPS are

  • El Salvador
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • Nicaragua
  • Somalia
  • Sudan
  • Syria

Immigrants who apply for TPS must pass a criminal background check to prove they are not inadmissible for entry to the U.S., and they must meet a few other requirements. The length of time that each applicant’s TPS is valid is subject to the discretion of the U.S. government. Once Temporary Status has been revoked by the government, the individual will revert back to whatever immigration status they had previously.

Why do U.S. Filipinos need Temporary Protected Status?

There are about 4 million Filipino immigrants living in the U.S. today. More than half a million of them –authorized and unauthorized– could benefit from Temporary Protected Status if the U.S. government decides to move forward with it. You might be wondering how this helps Filipino nationals in their own country. There are quite a few benefits to granting TPS in this situation:

  • With the number of displaced Filipinos in their own country, it would be a huge burden on relief efforts if undocumented or out of status Filipinos were sent home right now. There is literally not enough infrastructure to support them.
  • If U.S. Filipino immigrants have a residence and work permit in the U.S., the can contribute to relief efforts by sending home remittances (already a huge part of the Filipino economy.) If these remittances were to stop, it would have devastating effects for many survivors of the typhoon.
  • TPS would also allow out of status Filipinos to leave and re-enter the U.S. as needed so they could visit family or assist in relief efforts if needed. This is most important for undocumented Filipinos, who would be barred from re-entry into the U.S. if they left right now.

Of course, the TPS idea has its detractors, especially those who feel that TPS only encourages unauthorized immigrants to stay in the U.S. even when their status has ended. To be certain, it’s another stopgap measure that doesn’t fully address the bigger problem of 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. and millions more who are currently documented but can’t find a reasonable way to stay in the U.S. permanently.

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Boehner has a New Hire for Immigration Reform While Kennedy Joins the Fast for Families

By |December 3, 2013|

With the legislative calendar days in the single digits for 2013, activists and politicians are positioning themselves for getting immigration done in 2014.

On Tuesday, Speaker Boehner’s office. announced that Rebecca Tallent would be joining the Speaker’s staff.

Until this week, Tallent has been the immigration policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That position was a culmination of a long history of working behind the scenes on important immigration issues, including as Chief of Staff for Senator John McCain (R.-AZ).

Many speculate that the hiring of Rebecca Tallent signals that Speaker Boehner would like to see immigration reform passed in 2014.

This announcement was not the only news headline bringing attention to immigration reform.

Also on Tuesday, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) announced he would be fasting alongside other immigration activists during the nationwide “Fast for Families” event.

Rep. Kennedy’s uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, was a vocal proponent for immigration reform and was instrumental in passing several of the most important U.S. immigration laws over the past fifty years. Interestingly enough, the famously liberal Kennedy, who passed away in 2009, often worked with McCain, a Republican, on immigration. They both introduced “Secure American and Orderly Immigration Act” in 2005 – a bill that none other than Rebacca Tallent helped draft.

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What is the Working Holiday Visa program, and who can apply?

By |December 2, 2013|

Heading Out at CurrumbinThe holiday travel season is here, and that means thousands of students and young people will be spending school breaks and vacation time in international destinations. Tourist destinations such as Australia, Japan, Ireland, France, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom offer a working holiday visa to allow tourists to work while traveling to pay for their tourism expenses.

Working holiday visa programs allow young adults to experience a new culture while bringing in big economic benefits for tourism industries. A recent Australian study shows that Working Holiday Visa (WHV) holders in Australia spend over AUS$13,000 in the country during their stay, and for every 100 visitors, six Australian jobs are created.

Australia was one of the first countries to implement a working travel visa program in the 1970s. The working holiday visa program originally began as an exchange between Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom to facilitate the process of young people coming to study or visit temporarily without having to go through lots of immigration-related red tape.

What are the requirements for a working holiday visa?

Requirements vary from country to country, and you can find a comprehensive list of nations that offer working holiday programs here. Across the board, these types of working holiday programs are geared towards tourists who satisfy the following:

  • Travelers must be young adults between ages 18-30
  • Travelers have limits on the length time they can study or remain employed, usually 4-6 months
  • Travelers must prove they have funds to sustain themselves while they seek employment
  • Travelers must demonstrate they are in good health and don’t have serious criminal issues
  • Travelers must validate they have reached a certain education level

Another common restriction for working holiday visa holders is to only have one employer the entire time they are visiting. They must also demonstrate their primary purpose for travel is tourism. These visas are generally valid for 6-12 months depending on the host country, and in many cases they are only issued once in a lifetime.

What are the benefits of offering a working holiday visa?

As mentioned above, a working holiday program can bring great financial benefits to a host nation’s tourism industry, especially if the host country usually has many immigration barriers in place for tourists and temporary workers. Not surprisingly, many native citizens of countries dealing with youth unemployment (such as in Australia) are fighting to repeal their WHV programs. It’s a similar argument to what we hear from anti-immigrant groups in the U.S.: there are only a finite number of jobs available in failing economy, so a job for an immigrant must mean one less job for a U.S. citizen. It’s faulty logic and the recent study out Australia disproves it.

Why doesn’t the United States offer a Working Holiday Visa?

When looking through the list of countries that have working holiday visa programs, you’ll notice one nation glaringly absent from the long list of offerings: the United States. Why does the “nation of immigrants” reject the idea of a working travel/tourist visa? There are several reasons, with one major cause being reciprocity: most of the working holiday visa hosts have worked out a mutual arrangement that allows for exchange. With one exception, the U.S. does not offer a WHV program to any country, so it is often left off the list of other countries’ approved visitors.

Another reason there the U.S. doesn’t start a working holiday visa program is its extremely complicated immigration system, which has not been tampered with for years due to government gridlock. As we’ve seen with the push for immigration reform in 2013, changing any immigration policy or opening more doors to more immigrants still causes many U.S. citizens (and House Republicans) to be up in arms, fearing immigrants will ruin the country and “take our jobs.” The fact that the U.S. already has to deal with 11 million undocumented workers within its borders leaves most lawmakers with little energy to address an entirely new worker program.

In 2008, the U.S. opened up a small WHV-like program to citizens of Ireland, and Ireland reciprocated the gesture that same year with a working tourist program for U.S. citizens. American citizens can currently participate in working tourist programs in Australia, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea.

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The E Visa for Investors, Traders, and Professionals of Treaty Countries

By |November 29, 2013|

This week we look at the E Visa, a temporary work visa for foreign nationals of certain “treaty” countries that have struck up immigration deals with the United States. You can find the full list of treaty countries on the U.S. State Department website (there are around 50 of them.)

e-visaE visas are a popular alternative to H-1B visas and they share a few important features: they are temporary high-skill work permits that allow you to bring dependents to the U.S., and they are renewable. However, the E visas have more restrictions on who can apply based on country, employer, and investment. E visa holders also have a great deal of freedom to travel in and out of the United States during their stay in the U.S. Unlike H-1Bs, E visa spouses can obtain a U.S. work permit.

E-1 Visas

E-1 visas, also known as Treaty Trader Visas, are designated for executives, managers, or specialists of an international company based in a treaty nation. The purpose of the E-1 visa is to allow these foreign workers to coordinate trade between their treaty country and the U.S. Immediate family members of E-1 visa holders also qualify for the E-1 visa.

E-2 Visas

The E-2 visa is also known as the Treaty Investor Visa, and like its name suggests, it requires a large financial commitment from the visa applicant. E-2 visas are sometimes confused with the EB-5 investor visa, but unlike the EB-5 visa, E-2 visas are restricted to citizens of the treaty countries, they do not lead to a green card, and they don’t require as large of an investment. Generally, USCIS will not consider anything under $25,000 for an E-2 investment, even though there are no specific minimums for the E-2. The EB-5 has a minimum investment of either 500,000 or $1,000,000 depending on the location of the business investment, and there is a great deal more paperwork required.

The E-2 visa holder must invest a substantial amount of capital in a U.S. enterprise (at least 50%), and their purpose for entering and working in the U.S. must be to direct and develop this business.

E-3 Visas

E-3 Visas were created in 2005 and they are only available to citizens of Australia. E-3 visas are a popular alternative to the H-1B for Australian nationals because they aren’t subject to the H-1B cap and they are processed much more quickly, while still offering many of the benefits of the H-1B. Like the other E visas, the E-3 is renewable in two year increments.

Each week, we look at a different non-immigrant visa by letter, starting with “A” visas. Our intention is to not only help people understand the depth and complexity of U.S. immigration, but also to bring awareness to the enormously diverse pool of immigrants that enter our country every year.

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Immigration Reform Crucial to Agriculture (and to every American)

By |November 25, 2013|

IMG_6704ellenm1 on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0

In the last few months immigration reform has been championed by a large coalition consisting of evangelicals, business leaders, activists, agricultural organizations, and others.

Each one of these groups recognizes that their specific sector of society would greatly benefit from passing immigration reform. At the same time, they all seem to recognize that the benefit to their sector would greatly benefit others.

While it is abundantly clear that the United States needs immigration reform, the need cannot be more clearly displayed than in the agricultural industry.  We can look no further than the state of Michigan to see why that is the case.

Like any other industry, agriculture runs best when there is a degree of stability in the environment. As of now farmers cannot accurately predict how many workers they will have any given year.

While farmers in Michigan make an effort to hire domestic workers, they are unable to find potential employees to fill the open positions. Many of the potential employees would rather take lower paying jobs in more metropolitan areas. This happens despite the fact that the Michigan minimum wage has been set at $7.40 an hour and some farmers pay $12 to $15 an hour.

Ryan Findlay of the Michigan Farm Bureau says that “farmers tells us that Michigan has the capacity for 49,000 seasonal migrant workers. As of today we estimate less than 300 of them being documented workers with an H2-A visa. “

According to the Michigan Farm Bureau many farmers have found the current H-2A process complicated, expensive, and unresponsive to their time-sensitive needs; not to mention the fact that dairy is Michigan’s #1 agricultural industry, and currently there are no visa programs to allow dairy farmers to hire legally sourced foreign workers.

Due to the inaction by congress on immigration reform many farmers all over Michigan were unable to harvest their crops due to lack of labor.

Findlay puts it simply by saying, “an apple is either going to fall to the ground or be harvested.”

If there is nobody to harvest the crop it will go to waste. If it goes to waste there is less food going to market. If there is less food going to market there will be a rise in the overall cost of food.

It will cost more for every American to put food on the table.

The simple fact is that immigration reform will benefit everybody.

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If my green card application is pending, how can I use the I-131 and I-765 so I can still work and travel?

By |November 22, 2013|

If your Adjustment of Status (I-485) green card application is pending, you may want to consider filing an I-765, Application for Employment Authorization Document (EAD), and/or an I-131, Application for Advance Parole Document.

An EAD will allow certain foreign nationals to lawfully work for any U.S. employer and can be renewed until the I-485 is approved. This will also allow you to obtain a Social Security Number. You can find more information on the EAD here (http://www.uscis.gov/i-765).

An I-131 will allow certain foreign nationals to travel outside of the U.S. while the I-485 is being processed. Many foreign nationals choose to go this route, since the government can consider the I-485 as abandoned if you travel outside of the U.S. while the I-485 is pending.  You can find more information on Advance Parole here (http://www.uscis.gov/i-131).

If you would like to see how VISANOW can improve your family- or employment-based green card application process, please contact us (/contact-us/).

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Obama gains appetite for immigration piecemeal

By |November 19, 2013|

With the clock ticking on the legislative year the chance for comprehensive immigration reform to be passed looks dim.

Yet, the conversation still is a daily fixture in the news cycle.

Today is no exception.

The Senate passed a bill back in June, but the gridlock remains in the US House of Representatives. Just last week Speaker Boehner made it clear that he would not be going to conference with the Senate bill.

Still, some have suggested the idea of passing immigration in a piecemeal approach, passing the various components of the comprehensive immigration reform in fragments.

Today, President Obama said that he doesn’t necessarily disagree with that approach. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal forum The President said, “If they want to chop that thing up in five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don’t care what it looks like.”

This of course is a different opinion than the President had back in October, when it was made known that he would veto such a measure.

When the Republican leadership first floated the notion that they would take a piecemeal approach White House spokesperson, Amy Brundage said, “these piecemeal efforts are not serious, and they are no way to run a government.”

Yet, in the immediate aftermath Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D.–IL) tweeted a statement in support of the President’s comments.

The Congressman endorsed the notion of the piecemeal approach saying, “Think of it as a multiple courses that make up a dinner. A salad and side dish are not enough to call it a full meal. But if we get several different dishes together and they make up, as a group, serious immigration reform, then we can work with Republicans, provided none of the individual dishes make us so sick to our stomachs that we much leave the table.”

Perhaps this change of tune is meant to bring the House GOP back to the bargaining table.

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