America, a nation of immigrants. People like high-skilled immigrants, students and entrepreneurs come from all over the world to this land of opportunities. Their talent and hard work helped America in becoming a global leader. But, today America’s immigration system is broken. The president Obama is using his executive orders trying to fix this broken immigration system.
President Obama on Thursday announced his plan for executive action to fix broken immigration system. Here is the summary of executive actions that Obama is planning to Implement:
High skilled immigrants:
H-1B Visa:
- To make immigration process faster and easier for high-skilled immigrants, students and entrepreneurs so that they could stay here and contribute to America’s economy.
- Expanding work authorization for high skilled workers who are in line for green card.
- To eliminate the uncertainty of “same or similar job” in employment based visas. So that workers have the flexibility to change their employers or switch to other jobs.
H-4 Visa:
- Provide work authorization to certain H1b spouses who have an approved I-140.
F1 Visa:
- To expand the degree programs for OPT and to extend the OPT time period for foreign STEM students and graduates, so that America could get benefit from the talented STEM graduates.
L1 Visa:
- To issue a policy memorandum that provides a clear meaning of ” Specialized Knowledge” to bring clarity to the L1-B program.
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Undocumented Immigrants:
- Granting work permits to nearly 5 million undocumented workers who are currently residing in America Illegally, so that they can come out of shadows and contribute to America’s economy.
- Undocumented parents of US citizens, lawful residents who are residing in America for more than 5 years have to pass a background check and pay taxes to live in this country temporarily without a fear of deportation.
- Deporting the illegal immigrants who may pose a threat to the nation like criminals, gang members.
Border Security:
- To prevent the illegal immigrants crossing the borders by increasing the security at borders and by deploying additional resources at the borders.
- To deport the illegal immigrants who crossed the borders recently.
“The L-1B is much worse than the H-1B program in terms of its impacts on American workers and the American economy,” says Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies the immigration system. “There are no wage standards — foreign workers can be paid home country wages, which is $6,000 a year for an IT worker in India. American workers can be displaced by L-1B workers. There are no recruitment requirements and no educational requirements (the L-1B worker doesn’t even need a degree).”
Just last year, a Fremont, California tech company, Electronics for Imaging, Inc., was found by the Department of Labor to have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act for having grossly
underpaid a group of Indian nationals who the company had transferred onL-1 visas from its office in India to install a new computer system at the headquarters facility in Fremont. Specifically, the company flew eight L-1B workers from Bangalore, India to California and paid them only $1.21 per hour to work 120-hour weeks. The $1.21 hourly rate was equivalent to what the employees made in Indian rupees at their workplace in India. Importantly, though the company was found by the Department of Labor to have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act for paying the workers below [California’s] minimum wage, it did not apparently violate any of the terms or conditions of the visa program because there is no prevailing wage requirement.
Byron York Washington Examiner
This is terrible for America. Foreigners are the new slave labor for greedy corporations.
Will H1B cap increase????????????? that’s all what matters. Without it nobody can get anything whether u study in the us or abroad
Those jobs should be filled by American Citizens first. We don’t need anymore H1B visa workers while we have American citizens with degrees that are out of work. You are driving our wages into the dirt. Shame on you.
When is this law gonna come into action?
Its a good thing that he did not increase the H1b limit, but he should have prioritized people finishing education in US. I think he is going the OPT route, which i get it. He has never mentioned about clearing the backlog, but by offereing advance parole i guess, he is letting people off the leash from the employers. And people choosing to work just like PR/citizens.
When did he talk about h1 and h4.he was all talking about illegal immigrants
I think the scope of his executive action is greater than what he was able to cover in the 15min speech. Check out the White House website for more info. They got detailed “facts” sheets. Not much details out yet but it appears to be in the works (getting info from immigration legal community)
Is there any thing positive for people who got master’s degree from US?
Unfortunately none. He failed to address that niche of Advanced degree holders from US. No relief in terms of H1b or GC priority. In fact, except for liberalizing job movement in advanced GC application process, nothing much has changed – Master’s students will still need to wait in EB2 line for 10 years to get a GC. (Pri date – Feb 2005 as of now)
http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120_memo_business_actions.pdf
so nowhere it states that he is going to clear the backlog….huh
a person can change job probably and need not apply labor again if their I-140 is cleared. So the question is what happens to people with approved I-140, do they get AP and eventually green card or have to wait to become current and that will be 10 years according to your priority date??
Its all in the air….no one knows whats going to happen.
There should be only 1 department working on this, instead of State Dept to DHS, the DHS should be solely responsible to make a decision.
Jeh Johnson and John Kerry zindabaad.
A. Modernizing the Employment-Based Immigrant Visa System
As you know, our employment-based immigration system is afflicted with
extremely long waits for immigrant visas, or “green cards,” due to relatively low green
card numerical limits established by Congress 24 years ago in 1990. The effect ofthese
caps is further compounded by an immigration system that has often failed to issue all of
the immigrant visas authorized by Congress for a fiscal year. Hundreds ofthousands of
such visas have gone unissued in the past despite heavy demand for them.
The resulting backlogs for green cards prevent U.S. employers from attracting and
retaining highly skilled workers critical to their businesses. U.S. businesses have
historically relied on temporary visas- such as H-lB, 1
L-lB,2
or 0-13 visas-to retain
individuals with needed skills as they work their way through these backlogs. But as the
backlogs for green cards grow longer, it is increasingly the case that temporary visas fail
to fill the gap. As a result, the worker’s temporary status expires and his or her departure
is required. This makes little sense, particularly because the green card petition process
for certain categories requires the employer to test the labor market and show the
unavailability of other U.S. workers in that position.
To correct this problem, I hereby direct USCIS to take several steps to modernize
and improve the immigrant visa process. First, USCIS should continue and enhance its
work with the Department of State to ensure that all immigrant visas authorized by
Congress are issued to eligible individuals when there is sufficient demand for such
visas. Second, I ask that USCIS work with the Department of State to improve the
system for determining when immigrant visas are available to applicants during the fiscal
year. The Department of State has agreed to modify its visa bulletin system to more
simply and reliably make such determinations, and I expect USCIS to revise its current
regulations to reflect and complement these proposed modifications. Third, I direct that
USCIS carefully consider other regulatory or policy changes to better assist and provide
stability to the beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions.
Specifically, USCIS should consider amending its regulations to ensure that approved,
long-standing visa petitions remain valid in certain cases where they seek to change jobs
or employers.
AP advance parole, is what you are going to get if you have approved I-140
which you already have it by now since you applied in eb3 in 05.
I think whyus was just stating the current priority date under processing. He/she didn’t state what their date / category.
Can we expect the increment in the H1B capacity ?
I see 3 statements under the H1B , but whats the point just talking where is the law ? and what are the advantages ??
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