Month: April 2008

The USCIS has posted a new I-765 – Application for Employment Authorization Form on its website.  After May 8, 2008, applicants will be required to use the new form.

This evening I was watching CNN’s Lou Dobbs and saw an interview with correspondent Bill Tucker where both Dobbs and Tucker referred to the H-1B as being for low-skilled workers.  The exact quote from Bill Tucker (thanks to my handy DVR) was “H-1Bs go to low-skilled workers.”  For a show that spews anti-immigrant rhetoric day in and day out, this demonstrates a lack of research or basic understanding of the H-1B visa from both the show’s correspondent and host.  BTW, Dobbs always says that he only opposes ILLEGAL immigration, however this piece directly criticized the legal temporary H-1B program and those who support expanding it.

H-1B, in short,  is a nonimmigrant classification used for an alien who is/will be employed temporarily in a specialty occupation.   The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor.  How is this for “low skilled workers”? 

The H-1B visa is not for “low-skilled workers” as Dobbs’ show purports it to be.  It is one thing to poison the immigration debate day in and day out with opinions that are anti-immigrant, it is another to misstate the facts and allow the misstated facts to stand as news on a reputable network such as CNN.    

According to a USCIS Update:  “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today conducted the computer-generated random selection processes on H-1B petitions, to select which H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2009 (FY 2009) would continue to full adjudication.  If approved these H-1B petitions will be eligible to receive an H-1B visa number.”

Goodnight and good luck! 

The US DOS has released the Visa Bulletin for May 2008.

According to a USCIS Press Release:  “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a preliminary number of nearly 163,000 H-1B petitions received during the filing period ending on April 7, 2008.  More than 31,200 of those petitions were for the advanced degree category.”

Looks like a lot of Master Cap cases will be rejected this year.  This means that we essentially train foreign students to a Master level, US employers want to hire them for at least the prevailing wage, and these individuals will have to either find an alternative visa category or accept a job in another country that welcomes the best and bightest from around the world.  Seems like a lose/lose situation. 

A Department of Homeland Security Press Release discusses remarks made by Secretary Chertoff at a roundtable with bloggers.

I received an e-mail about the winners of a Movement Vision Lab Video Contest on Community Values and Immigration.  Both the winner and the runner-up were fantastic videos that are definitely worth watching, each is about three minutes long.

According to a USCIS Press Release:  “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it will not reject an H-1B petition that is subject to the fiscal year 2009 cap solely on the grounds that it was received at the wrong service center (e.g., the petition may have been inadvertently mailed to the California Service Center instead of the Vermont Service Center or vice versa).”

USCIS has released a Questions and Answers regarding its new rule allowing the extension of the Optional Practical Training Program for qualified students.

This is a limited benefit because in order to qualify, the employer must participate in E-Verify and the beneficiary must have a bachelor, master or doctorate degree in a STEM field.  Nevertheless, it’s certainly better than nothing.

I have been out of town and therefore have not contributing to the blog as much as I would have liked over the past couple of days.  Immigration news continues to happen, so here’s the latest update. 

On Tuesday, April 1st, FedEx reported a national servce disruption day.  As you know, April 1st is the first day for filing H-1B petitions for the fiscal year that starts on October 1st.  Our office, as well as many, many others, uses FedEx to deliver important documents.  Fortunately, any delays that may have occurred because of the service disruption are not of consequence this year as the USCIS announced that it would be accepting petitions for several days and including them all in the random selection process.  So even if a petition was delivered on April 2nd, it has an equal chance of being accepted for processing by the USCIS.  Close call though. 

A USCIS Press Release states that the USCIS and the FBI announced a joint plan to eliminate the backlog of name checks pending with the FBI. 

According to a related Update:  “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it will finish more than one million naturalization cases during fiscal year 2008 – far exceeding the number of cases completed last year.   This update comes following a thorough analysis of the work completed during the last six months.”