The Raids Are Back
Reuters is reporting that US immigration officials are planning for sweeping deportation raids in May and June. The target is Central America mothers and children who unlawfully crossed the border and have an order of removal against them. Their planned raids are expected to be more comprehensive than their raids in January, which received attention.
Amazing Immigration Graphics: Immigration to the United States 1820-1913
Immigration in the United States can be broken into historical periods. The country was founded upon immigration from Western European countries. Mid 19th century immigration included Southern and Eastern Europeans and some Asian countries. Early in the 20th century, on the strength of the eugenics movements, restrictions were placed on African immigration and Asian immigration was banned.
Here is a link containing an amazing video of the source of immigration to the United States from 1820-1913. There are also two graphs with bright colors to demonstrate the flow and percentage by country.
“Max Galka of the Metrocosm blog took all the data from 1820 to 2013 and created this animated graphic, using different colors for each country as well as brightness to illustrate the total migration at any given time. The brighter the color, the more immigrants.”
Visa Bulletin – June 2016: Severe Retrogression for EB-2 and EB-3 India and China
The June 2016 Visa Bulletin has been released by the Department of State. USCIS has not yet said whether the filing dates can be relied upon for employment-based and family-based adjustment of status. It should announce that within the week.
Some categories of note:
The F-2A category, spouses and children of permanent residents, is about 18 months behind current for all chargeabilities. The filing dates are about 7 months behind.
EB-2 India is at July 1, 2009. EB-3 India is July 1, 2005. Both of those dates are for filing dates. The final action dates for both India and China EB-2 suffered severe retrogression. EB-2 India rolled back all of the way to October 1, 2004. EB-2 China reverted back to January 1, 2010. For India, that represents a setback of nearly 4 years and it is nearly 2 years for China. EB-3 China suffered a setback of over 3 years. The predictions for the remainder of the Fiscal Year (which does not begin anew until October 1) are dire for those two categories, as well. China is not expected to see movement through EB-2 or EB-3 for the remainder of the fiscal year. EB-2 and EB-3 India are expected to progress slowly for the remainder of the fiscal year.
In about two weeks, there will be a check in with the State Department’s Charlie Oppenheimer, where he will make predictions about the Visa Bulletin for July 2016.
How the Proposed Fee Increase Hurts Employers
If you are an employer that files immigration petitions, especially H-1B and L-1 petitions, you might have noticed that there was an additional fee levied upon certain employers on file H-1B and L-1 petitions. That was in December. DHS is proposing to increase its filing fees for all of its petitions by a weighted average of 21%. These are what the proposed fees are likely to look like:
E, H, L, O, P, Q, R Petitions – $325 becomes $460
Immigration Petition Fee – $580 becomes $700
Premium Processing Fee – $1225 still, but USCIS would like an increase
USCIS has maintained its fees since 2010. The primary reason for increasing the fees, DHS claims, is that current fees are not generating enough revenue to fund their operations.
The timing of the fee increase seems particularly unfortunate. USCIS is well-behind their stated goals in adjudicating many of the aforementioned petitions. Change and extension of status petitions are taking over 6 months for H and L petitions. O and P petitions are usually adjudicated within two weeks. They are currently approaching three months. Because the timing of adjudication is lengthy, it is causing problems for many employers and employees. Premium processing requests are being foisted because of issues with driver’s licenses, among others. A 240 day extension for employment authorization goes into effect once the employee hits her final day of work authorization on her visa. The extension only goes into effect if the extension is timely filed. The lengthy adjudications have been problematic for months.
The Administrative Procedures Act gives 60 days for comments. July 5, 2016 is the final day to comment. The link to comment is here.
Get Out Your Checkbooks: USCIS to Increase Filing Fees by An Average of 21%
DHS is proposing to increase USCIS filing fees by a weighted average of 21%. USCIS receives congressionally appropriated funds, but they are insufficient to cover the costs of its operations. Most applications that you file with USCIS require a filing fee that must be paid in whole. For example, if you are filing an employment-based petition for an employee, you are subject to a $325 filing fee. An application for citizenship bears a $680 filing fee currently. Premium processing, which is available for select employment-based petitions, is currently $1,225.
DHS is publishing a proposed a rule and is soliciting comments about the proposed adjusted fees. If you are going to be affected by these price increases, you can follow the links to explain why or why not you agree with the proposed changes. As per the rules, DHS is required to consider each comment before it publishes its final rule.
Here are some reasons pulled out of the proposed rule for why DHS needs this increase in filing fees:
USCIS completed a biennial fee review for FY 2016/2017 in 2015. The results indicate that current fee levels are insufficient to recover the full cost of activities funded by the IEFA. USCIS calculates its fees to recover the full cost of USCIS operations, which do not include the limited appropriated funds provided by Congress. USCIS anticipates if it continues to operate at current fee levels, it will experience an average annual shortfall of $560 million between IEFA revenues and costs. This projected shortfall poses a risk of degrading USCIS operations funded by IEFA revenue. The proposed rule would eliminate this risk by ensuring full cost recovery. DHS proposes to adjust fees by a weighted average increase of 21 percent. The weighted average increase is the percentage difference between the current and proposed fees by immigration benefit type.
In addition to ensuring that fees for each specific benefit type are adequate to cover the USCIS costs associated with administering the benefit, the weighted average increase of 21 percent also accounts for USCIS costs for services that are not directly fee funded. For instance, DHS proposes certain changes to how USCIS funds the costs for fee-exempt benefit types through IEFA fee collections received from other fee-paying individuals seeking immigration benefits.6 DHS also proposes to fund the costs of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program (to the extent not recovered from users),7 and the Office of Citizenship8 through the use of fees. The proposed fee schedule also accounts for increased costs to administer refugee processing. Revenues under the proposed rule would accommodate an anticipated increase in the refugee admissions ceiling to 100,000 for FY 2017. This is an increase of 30,000, or 43 percent, over the FY 2015 refugee admissions ceiling.