Bill Proposes Barring H-1B and L-1 Visas for Certain Companies

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Arjun Mishra

US House Bill Proposes Barring Certain Companies from H-1B and L-1 Visas

A bipartisan bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives to bar certain companies from obtaining H-1B, L-1A, and L-1B visas for their employees. Those companies are those that employ over 50 employees and have over 50% of their US workforce on H-1B or L-1 visas. Democratic Congresspersons Bill Pascrell from New Jersey and Republican Dana Rohrabacher from California have joined for the H-1B and L Visas Reform Act of 2016. The Congresspersons will introduce this bill because they see foreign companies as insourcing and exploiting foreign workers to abuse visa programs and undercut the American workforce. An interesting side note is that New Jersey and California are two of the states that have the largest concentrations of Indians (both Indians and Indian-Americans) and immigrants in general.

Both Congresspersons introduced similar legislation in 2010 that failed to gain any traction. This legislation comes off the heels of instances of H-1B fraud and additional fees imposed on companies that have over 50 employees and over 50% on H-1B or L visas.

Certain websites have headlines, such as US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Prevent Indian Firms from Hiring on H-1B, L1 Visas. The headlines are not necessarily provocative as to point out blatant discrimination. The reason is that Indian IT firms are among the highest users of the H-1B and L visas. Their business model relies heavily on bringing foreign nationals to work in the US on H-1B and L visas. Indian nationals are the number one beneficiary of H-1B visas.

Demand to Speed Up U Visas

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Arjun Mishra

Organizations Demand U Visa Applications Speed Up

U Visa processing times have stalled for a year. Since June 2015, U visa applications have essentially not been adjudicated. Congress has mandated 10,000 U visas are available per year. That means once 10,000 U visas are granted, the other approvable U visas are waitlisted and backlogged. USCIS has a practice of placing U visa candidates on a wait list, so at least they can obtain an employment card while waiting for U visa approval.

The U visa is partly a humanitarian safe haven for immigration. It allows an applicant to overcome many grounds to inadmissibility, though a waiver can be required. The U visa is a grant of legal nonimmigrant status to someone who has been the victim of a qualifying crime. It requires certification from a government agency, such as the police department that handled the crime. The applicant must have also been willing to or actually have helped in the prosecution of the perpetrator. There is the potential for adjustment to Permanent Residence for U visa applicants and their derivative family members.

USCIS has had some dismal processing times recently affecting all swathes of the immigration spectrum. H-1B and L-1 processing times have been abnormally lengthy. This has caused issues for employees with driver’s licenses, college tuition, and travel. It has caused employers to pay the $1,225 premium processing fee for occasions that should not require it. U visa applications are at a standstill. Employment authorization applications are taking triple the amount of time that they mandated to take for first time asylum applications, and they are pushing against their regulatory period for all other types of applications. Green Card applications through employment-based petitions are beyond processing times. O and P visa petitions are 5xs beyond normal processing of two weeks. If you look at processing times for the service centers, you will see that they are well beyond their stated goals for processing times. USCIS has blamed the slow processing on a lack of resources, as evidenced in its proposed comment for increasing filing fees by 21%.

USCIS Proposed Fees for Employers

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Arjun Mishra

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.

H-1B and L-1 Visas at the DMV

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Arjun Mishra

DMV and Lengthy Adjudication Issues for H-1B and L-1 Nonimmigrants

The USCIS Ombudsman held a teleconference on DMV issues for H-1B and L-1 visa holders in the United States who are in their 240 days of automatic employment authorization extension. This extension goes into effect if an extension petition is timely filed by the beneficiary’s petitioner and the beneficiary’s original expiration date has been reached. If an H-1B’s petition end date is September 30, 2016, the automatic 240 days of employment authorization go into effect on October 1, 2016, so that the beneficiary maintains her lawful presence while the extension petition is pending.

There are DMV issues because states act differently when it comes to issuing driver’s licenses during that period of employment authorization. The 240-day extension provides for lawful presence, but it does NOT provide for lawful status. The law that governs driver’s licenses emphasizes lawful status, not presence. This has caused problems for multitudes of H-1B and L-1 nonimmigrants, especially in recent months. Both the California and Vermont Service Centers are taking an uncharacteristically long time to adjudicate H-1B and L-1 extension petitions. Both service centers have a track record of spending around 2 months on adjudication, which is their goal. They are still adjudicating petitions from the summer of 2015. This is incredibly problematic for H-1B and L-1 visa holders and their employers. The earliest an extension petition can be filed is 180 days in advance. USCIS is taking longer than 180 days to adjudicate regularly filed petitions, so the 240-day extension goes into effect and the beneficiary loses lawful status. That can have ramifications, such as the loss of a driver’s license. That affects the beneficiary’s ability to drive to work and live life normally, if the state is unwilling to extend the driver’s license. Some states have taken a hybrid approach, granting a temporary driver’s privilege card while the 240-day extension is in effect.

The Ombudsman concluded that it was monitoring the situation. It has been known for months that USCIS is taking an unusually long time on adjudicating these petitions, much to the detriment of employers and employees. AILA has published a scathing letter critiquing the delays and lack of remediation. The lengthy delays are constructively forcing employers to pay $1,225 for premium processing, on top of the other fees that those petitions entail.