(Inter)National Basketball

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Arjun Mishra

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is paying homage to its Latin players and fans with its ninth annual Latin Nights program. The celebration is a league-wide event, best displayed by certain teams that change their jerseys into semi-Spanish. For example, Los Lakers, Los Spurs, Los Suns, El Heart, Los Bulls (though you wonder why they are not Los Toros and the Suns are not Los Soles). Special uniforms are made for the games in which those jerseys are used and they are popular sellers. The teams are specifically chosen for cities with large Spanish-speaking populations, such as Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Miami, and Phoenix.

Cultivation of A Tradition

This is a tremendous tradition that the NBA has cultivated and a true acknowledgment to basketball’s global power and the NBA’s attraction to immigrant players. At the beginning of the 2014-2015 season, the league boasted a record 101 international players from 37 different countries. The NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs have nine international players by themselves and have embodied the spirit of teamwork that basketball promotes through their unselfish play. There were only 45 international players just fifteen years ago in 2000 and 21 in 1990.

Two reasons for the increase in international players is the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the success of the USA Men’s “Dream Team” in 1992 as American Ambassadors. Soccer may be the global game, but basketball is not far behind it, as the NBA is available to watch all over the world and international players have increased the attention that international fans pay to the game. Even in the United States, the fact that the NBA visibly celebrates its Latino fans with jerseys and some Spanish through special Latin Nights is a testament to the NBA’s loyal immigrant fan-base and Latin heritage.

I Squared: More H-1B Visas

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Arjun Mishra

The Immigration Innovation (I Squared) Act of 2015 is a bipartisan proposal by the US Senate to encourage the influx and retention of “high-skilled” talent and labor in the United States. The focus of the bill is the H-1B visa, which is for foreigners with a job opportunity, in a specialty profession that requires a bachelor’s degree. The other requirements are that the employer will pay the foreign employee at the prevailing wage or actual wage and that the hiring of the employee will not adversely affect the working conditions for US workers. To obtain an H-1B visa is an entire process for the employer (labor condition agreement, attestations, expenses), and although some employers fall into H-1B dependency, some of the most powerful and wealthy companies (also, small and medium-sized businesses) have clamored for H-1B visa reform for years and years as part of necessary immigration reform to keep American globally competitive. The H-1B visa can be used for a variety of professions – medicine, accountant, engineer – but it seems that its preponderance is located in computer-based professions.

I Squared has specific proposals that please the advocates of H-1B reforms. They are (not exclusively):

Increasing the cap of visas from 65,000 to 115,000;
Eliminating the 20,000 Master’s Degree or higher exempt visas;
Employment Authorization for H-4 spouse visa holders (H-4 visas are for dependents and the recent executive actions intimate at work authorization for H-4 holders);
Exempting dependents of employment-based immigrant visa recipients, U.S. STEM advanced degree holders, persons with extraordinary ability, and outstanding professors and researchers from the employment-based green card cap;
Removing the annual per-country limits for employment-based visas;
Instituting a grant program to promote STEM education and US worker retraining

An important aspect of increasing the visa cap to 115,000 is that number represents the floor on the number of visas to be issued for the fiscal year. That number can elevate to 195,000 depending on demand for that particular year.

Even if this bill were to become a law in short order, its provisions would not apply to the current round of H-1B applications. H-1B applications need to be sent out by March 31 for the April 1 filing date to be considered for October 1, when the fiscal year begins. As the cap is usually reached that first week in October, timing is crucial. The consistent and excessive demand for H-1B visas proves that reform in this category is necessary. Although it seems to have the appearance of bipartisan support, the legislative and political process will still have their say. Senator Orrin Hatch proposed a similar bill in 2013 (with the possibility of a 300,000 visa cap) that did not flourish into a bill. Regardless, we remain hopeful that the H-1B visa system and employment-based immigration will be improved in short order.

H-1B Visa 2015 Statistics

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Andrew Wood

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification released statistics for the first quarter of the 2015 Fiscal Year (starting October 1) on the whole range of employment based certification for foreign workers. A function of the Department of Labor, the FLC is tasked with certifying the H-1B visa labor conditions and permanent employment labor certifications.

The statistics for the first three months of the fiscal year reveal that over 80,000 H-1B applications were received, the overwhelming majority of which are in the computers realm – Computer Systems Analysts, Software Developers, Programmers, and other Computer Occupations dominate the list of certified positions. There is also nothing surprising about the states leading the way in H-1B applications: California, Texas, and New York are the top three states. Pennsylvania is eighth. Also revealing is that 176,259 positions were requested for certification and over 95% of those requests were certified. H1-B season picks up in full force over the next few months, as applications received on April 1 can be processed for October 1 starting dates (new fiscal year, when the cap of 65,000 + 20,000 starts fresh).

The Department of Labor is involved in the immigration and visitation of foreign workers for two important reasons. The first is to protect qualified American workers from losing jobs to foreign workers. The second is to ensure that the foreign workers are paid at the prevailing or actual wage, to guard against wage depression for American workers and protect foreign workers from being underpaid. The employer must make a prevailing wage determination and attest to paying the foreign worker at or above that wage in the labor condition agreement, which must be certified by the Department of Labor before the H-1B visa petition can be filed.

Immigration in State of the Union

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Andrew Wood

State of the Union

“Yes, passions still fly on immigration, but surely we can all see something of ourselves in the striving young student, and agree that no one benefits when a hardworking mom is taken from her child, and that it’s possible to shape a law that upholds our tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.” – Barack Obama, January 20, 2015

The word ‘immigration’ was only uttered twice Tuesday night in President Barack Obama’s seventh State of the Union speech, but the immigration motif was prevalent throughout the address.

The president made quick mention of the inherent unfairness of breaking apart families to remove a low-enforcement priority mother from her US citizen children. That is the basis of DAPA (Deferred Action for Parental Arrivals). The guiding light of American immigration policy is family reunification. Dismantling families would run contrary to that. DAPA is receiving most of the attention from Obama’s November 20, 2014 Immigration speech, in which he announced a series of executive orders to make incremental improvements to the immigration system in the face of congressional paralysis, especially in 2007 and 2013-2014. The “hardworking mom” mentioned during the speech would be someone that DAPA would protect temporarily, for the sake of keeping families intact.

The president dedicated much of his speech to trumpeting the job creation, research & development, innovation, and overall economic improvement of the United States in recent years. Underlying these important markers is immigration. American businesses rely on non-immigrant and immigrant visas to succeed. There are currently 140,000 Emplyoment-Based visas available per year and the H-1B visa system has been criticized for years by American businesses, some politicians, and immigration advocates as being damagingly low. The president has vowed to make improvements throughout the immigration architecture. He has declared his intention to modernize the employment process for immigration. We eagerly anticipate these reforms, as they will be in the best interests of our country, our fellow citizens, and immigrants.