Bad News for Some H-1B Applicants
On July 10, USCIS Service Center Operations (SCOPS) informed AILA that it has
finalized the letter notifying those cap-subject H-1B petitioners whose cases
were received on May 26 that they were not selected in the “random selection”
lottery. USCIS stated that letters will be mailed out in the next few days. The
letter will inform petitioners that fees are being refunded, but that petitions
and exhibits will be retained by USCIS for consideration at the end of the
fiscal year in the event it is determined that there has been underutilization.
SCOPS has also informed AILA liaison that three cap-subject H-1B cases that
were not selected in the “random selection” lottery conducted on May 26 were
approved in error. USCIS will be moving to reopen the approvals on service
motion for the purpose of revocation within the next few days and parties will
be notified accordingly.
On a related note: SCOPS has confirmed to AILA liaison that about 5,000 H-1B
cap cases have been moved from VSC to TSC and about 22,000 I-130s from VSC to
CSC to assist VSC move the heavy volume of H-1Bs that came in during the first
two months of the filing season. A public information notice is planned.
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption Cap Count as of 07/11/2006
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption
|
Cap |
Beneficiaries Approved |
Beneficiaries Pending |
Beneficiary Target 1 |
Total |
Date of Last Count |
|
|
H-1B |
58,200 2 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
5/26/2006 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption |
20,000 |
5,295 |
10,326 |
21,000 |
15,208 |
7/11/20063 |
|
H-1B (FY 06) |
58,200 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
8/10/2005 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption (FY 06) |
20,000 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
1/17/2006 |
1
Refers to the estimated numbers of beneficiary applications needed to
reach the cap, with an allowance for denials and revocations. Each
target is subject to revision later in the cap cycle as more petitions
are processed.
2 6,800
visas are set aside during the fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under
the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and
U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool can
be made available for H-1B use with start dates beginning on October 1,
2006, the start of FY 2007. USCIS has added the projected number of
unused H-1B1 Chile/Singapore visas to the FY 2007 H-1B cap as announced
in the H-1B Press Release, dated June 1, 2006.
3
The numbers on the table for H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption include
only receipted petitions. As of July 11, 2006, an estimated 800 I-129
H-1B petitions seeking the Advanced Degree exemption had yet to be
receipted. Several hundred of these petitions were received prior to
July 11, 2006.
Chairman of Joint Chiefs gives emotional testimony on immigration
July 10, 2006
Via CNN.com
Gen. Peter Pace credits his immigrant father for his success
MIAMI (AP) — The nation’s top general testified emotionally Monday about the importance of immigrants in the military, recalling his father’s struggles as an Italian immigrant and his own service in Vietnam.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace paused several times as he spoke at a Senate committee hearing on immigration and appeared choked up as he discussed his parents’ hardships and his siblings’ success now.
“My dad came here, sometimes worked three jobs, but the jobs were there for him and the opportunities were there for him,” Pace, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said at a field hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There is no other country on the planet that affords that opportunity to those who come.”
Pace also discussed serving in Vietnam next to immigrant soldiers, including the first Marine that Pace said he lost in combat. He said he was “still on active duty today for one primary reason, and that is I still owe those who served with me in Vietnam.”
The hearings are part of the national debate on the current state of U.S. immigration law and how any changes would affect the military.
The Senate has approved a bill that would allow a majority of the estimated 12 million foreigners living in the country illegally to eventually become legal permanent residents and citizens, and that would approve a guest worker program. A bill approved by the House would make illegal immigrants felons with no provision for future guest workers. House and Senate negotiators have not worked out a compromise.
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Human rights groups to investigate gay immigration to USA
July 10, 2006
Via pinknews.co.uk
Amid
widespread national coverage of protests over United States immigration
policy, two human rights organizations are turning a spotlight on the
plight of bi-national gay and lesbian couples who are treated as “legal
strangers” by US immigration.
Last May, Human Rights Watch and
Immigration Equality released the report “Family, Unvalued:
Discrimination, Denial, and the Fate of Bi-national Same-Sex Couples
Under United States Law,” based on research conducted between 2003 and
2006.
“Our immigration laws are undermining the traditional
American values of fairness and family,” said Rachel Tiven, executive
director of Immigration Equality in a media statement. “United States
immigration policy is designed to keep families together. But the
current law targets an entire class of American families and tears them
apart.”
The report notes that any LGBT partnership in which one
of the partners is a foreign national is denied the opportunity to
obtain the lawful permanent resident status that could be granted if he
or she were heterosexual. These same-sex couples often live with the
fear that at least one of the partners and/or their children could be
deported.
The report offers detailed explanations of the effects
that current immigration laws have on many bi-national same-sex couples
in the United States, including:
“The fact that many families
have been separated, such as in cases where one parent and the couple’s
children are forced to live on different continents.”
“The
federal government’s discriminatory anti-gay marriage law takes a
severe financial and emotional toll on bi-national LGBT families. If
the foreign national member of an LGBT couple is unable to legally
obtain citizenship status, that person has to endure the stress of
maintaining work visas or student visas in order to stay in the
country. Also, many families living on separate continents incur severe
debt due to the cost of travel and legal fees.”
“HIV-positive
foreign nationals are denied entrance into the US without a special
waiver. This includes HIV-positive LGBT people. The United States ban
on HIV-positive foreign nationals prevents LGBT people who find out
they are HIV-positive once living in the United States from
successfully applying for permanent residency. Human Rights Watch notes
that the Hagel-Martinez immigration compromise proposal would extend
this ban.”
Scott Long, co-author of the report said:
“Discriminatory United States immigration laws turn the American dream
into a heartless nightmare for countless United States citizens and
their foreign partners. As Congress debates immigration reforms, it
should end discrimination against lesbian and gay immigrants as well as
their United States partners.”
Gay and Lesbians Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD) also commented on the report in a media statement
issued this week. “As immigration reform becomes a focal point in our
national debate, it’s vital for the media to share stories of those
impacted by discriminatory immigration laws that threaten the safety
and stability of bi-national LGBT families,” said their spokesperson
Mónica Taher.
Labour shortage leaves Florida’s oranges to rot
Via The Guardian Unlimited
July 10, 2006
Millions of oranges will rot on the trees of Florida this year because
a shortage of fruitpickers has been aggravated by fears about more
stringent US immigration laws, local media reported yesterday.
“There’s
very little doubt we’ll leave a significant amount of fruit on the
tree,” Mike Carlton, the director of production and labour affairs at
Florida Citrus Mutual, told the newspaper The Ledger. “Whether that’s
3m boxes or 6m boxes, nobody can say.”
Growers have reported difficulty finding
enough workers. Industry officials say labour problems got worse in the
middle of May, when a large segment of the Hispanic labour force seemed
to leave the state.
They
said reports of an immigration crackdown made it difficult to find
Hispanic workers, who make up much of Florida’s farm workforce.
“Really,
the labour shortage is what held us up this year,” said Dave Crumbly,
the vice-president of fruit control at Florida’s Natural Growers in
Lake Wales, the nation’s third-largest citrus processor. He said word
had spread through the Hispanic community that they should return home
if they wanted jobs in the US in future. The workers were told they
could get deported if they remained in the country, he said. But if
they returned home, they would become eligible for a guest-worker
programme that is part of the immigration reform bill.
“In
reality, the current guest-worker programme bars anybody who has been
in this country illegally,” Mr Carlton said. There are still tens of
millions of oranges on Florida’s trees, according to the US department
of agriculture, one of the highest totals on record, he added.
Clinton Praises Bush on Immigration Reform
Via Washingtonpost.com
LOS ANGELES — Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush
on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal
immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being
fomented by Republicans who want to divide America.
“I’m proud of
him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it,” he said of Bush
during a “Cafe con Clinton” breakfast speech to the annual conference
of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil
rights advocacy group.
U.S. Immigration extends contract with Nortel
July 10, 2006
Via The Ottawa Business Journal
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service
has extended a contract with Canadian firm Nortel Government Solutions for program
management, acquisition and administrative services.
More than just Latinos illegally call U.S. home
July 10, 2006
Via SignonSanDiego.com
Nearly one-quarter are from other nations
Driving around San Diego, an undocumented nanny nervously checks her
rear-view mirror, hoping she isn’t about to get pulled over. She has no
driver’s license, but she needs to get to and from work and to shuttle
around the children she cares for. So she drives anyway, always looking
over her shoulder.
In a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, an
undocumented bartender wonders when he will see his family again. He
has made a few visits home in the seven years he’s lived here
illegally, always managing to sneak back into the country. But security
has grown tighter. If there is a family emergency and he has to go
home, he’s not sure he can return.
Home isn’t Mexico, though. The bartender is Irish.
So is the nanny.
They are among the estimated 2.5 million
undocumented immigrants in the United States who are not from Latin
America but from Asia, Europe, Canada, Africa, the Middle East and
elsewhere. They make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented
population, yet in the current immigration debate, they have been all
but invisible.
In Congress, the focus has been on stopping
illegal immigration at the southern border, where most illegal entrants
are from Latin America. In the anti-illegal immigration lobby, most of
the ire has been directed at Latinos, primarily Mexicans, with activist
groups scouting the Mexican border and some recently picketing the
local Mexican consulate.
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption Cap Count as of 07/06/2006
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption
|
Cap |
Beneficiaries Approved |
Beneficiaries Pending |
Beneficiary Target 1 |
Total |
Date of Last Count |
|
|
H-1B |
58,200 2 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
5/26/2006 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption |
20,000 |
4,881 |
9,368 |
21,000 |
14,249 |
7/6/20063 |
|
H-1B (FY 06) |
58,200 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
8/10/2005 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption (FY 06) |
20,000 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
1/17/2006 |
1
Refers to the estimated numbers of beneficiary applications needed to
reach the cap, with an allowance for denials and revocations. Each
target is subject to revision later in the cap cycle as more petitions
are processed.
2 6,800
visas are set aside during the fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under
the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and
U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool can
be made available for H-1B use with start dates beginning on October 1,
2006, the start of FY 2007. USCIS has added the projected number of
unused H-1B1 Chile/Singapore visas to the FY 2007 H-1B cap as announced
in the H-1B Press Release, dated June 1, 2006.
3
The numbers on the table for H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption include
only receipted petitions. As of July 6, 2006, an estimated 700 I-129
H-1B petitions seeking the Advanced Degree exemption had yet to be
receipted. Several hundred of these petitions were received prior to
July 6, 2006.
DHS/DOD WELCOME AMERICA’S NEWEST CITIZENS; OVERSEAS
Ceremony Held In Balad, Iraq
WASHINGTON, DC ─ Sixty-nine (69) active-duty service members took the Oath of Allegiance and became America’s newest citizens during a special overseas military naturalization ceremony today at the Logistic Support Area Anaconda, Balad, Iraq. Joining the new citizens to celebrate their accomplishment were U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Rome District Director Jack Bulger and Colonel Mark W. Hampton, 35th Area Support Group Commander. Today’s ceremony is part of the larger USCIS commemoration of the United States’ 230th birthday. In all, USCIS is hosting more than 150 special July 4th ceremonies for 18,000 men, women and children in the United States and members of the military serving in overseas locations.
“Thousands of immigrant troops are making extraordinary sacrifices for America,” said Bulger. “These men and women have pledged to defend with their lives liberties they have yet to secure for themselves. There is no more fitting way for a grateful Nation to show its appreciation than through granting qualified military service members U.S. citizenship as quickly as possible.”
Because of recent changes to the law governing U.S. citizenship, USCIS can now conduct naturalization interviews and hold naturalizations ceremonies overseas for U.S. military service members. Last year, USCIS personnel naturalized 1,006 Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines during ceremonies in Afghanistan, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Spain, the United Kingdom and in the Pacific aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.
Each year, USCIS welcomes nearly 500,000 citizens during naturalization ceremonies across the United States. That number includes nearly 7,000 members of the armed forces who naturalize both in the U.S. and abroad through an expedited process stemming from their military service.
This is the fifth trip USCIS personnel have made to Iraq to naturalize military service members serving in theater.
For more information regarding immigration services, please call 1-800-375-5283 or visit http://www.uscis.gov.
– USCIS –
In March 1, 2003, USCIS became one of three legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service components to join the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. USCIS is charged with fundamentally transforming and improving the delivery of immigration and citizenship services, while enhancing our nation’s security.
Splits Over Immigration Reform On Display From Coast to Coast
Via The Washington Post
PHILADELPHIA, July 5 — House and Senate Republicans sparred over
immigration in hearings on opposite coasts Wednesday, holding firm to
their starkly different viewpoints on what has become one of the most
intractable and divisive issues to confront the GOP in years.
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The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 
US Senate Examines Economics of Immigration
Via VOANews.com
07/12/2006
The Bush administration – pressing Congress to complete immigration reform legislation, is highlighting the contributions immigrants make to the U.S. economy.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez appeared
before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday to discuss the impact
immigrants have on the U.S. economy.
There may be no better spokesman on the issue than Gutierrez.
The 53-year-old Commerce Secretary was born in Havana, Cuba, and
fled to the United States with his family when he was six. He learned
English, became a U.S. citizen, and later studied business
administration. He took an entry-level sales job at the cereal
manufacturing company Kellogg’s, where he rose through the ranks to
become Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer before
President Bush nominated him to his current post.
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