The Indian Panorama

Tag: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

  • Trump administration imposes new curbs on H-1B visas to protect US workers

    Trump administration imposes new curbs on H-1B visas to protect US workers

    Move likely to affect thousands of Indian IT professionals

    WASHINGTON (TIP): The Trump administration has announced new restrictions on H-1B nonimmigrant visa program which it said is aimed at protecting American workers, restoring integrity and to better guarantee that H-1B petitions are approved only for qualified beneficiaries and petitioners, a move which is likely to affect thousands of Indian IT professionals.

    The interim final rule announced by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, October 6, less than four weeks ahead of the US presidential election, will narrow the definition of “specialty occupation” as Congress intended by closing the overbroad definition that allowed companies to game the system.

    It will also require companies to make “real” offers to “real employees,” by closing loopholes and preventing the displacement of the American workers. And finally, the new rules would enhance the department’s ability to enforce compliance through worksite inspections and monitor compliance before, during and after an H1-B petition is approved.

    The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

    The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

    Such a decision by the Trump administration is likely to have an adverse impact on thousands of Indian IT professionals. Already a large number of Indians on the H-1B visas have lost their jobs and are headed back home during the coronavirus pandemic that has severely hit the US economy.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security, the interim final rule to be published in Federal Register will be effective in 60 days.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is forgoing the regular notice and comment period to immediately ensure that employing H-1B workers will not worsen the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and adversely affect wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers, it said.

    The pandemic’s economic impact is an “obvious and compelling fact” that justifies good cause to issue this interim final rule.

    “We have entered an era in which economic security is an integral part of homeland security. Put simply, economic security is homeland security. In response, we must do everything we can within the bounds of the law to make sure the American worker is put first,” said Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.

    US Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia said that these changes will strengthen foreign worker programs and secure American workers’ opportunities for stable, good-paying jobs.

    “The US Department of Labor is strengthening wage protections, addressing abuses in these visa programs and ensuring American workers are not undercut by cheaper foreign labor,” she said.

    In a conference call with reporters, Deputy Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella said that these changes were long overdue, and it had become imperative in light of the current conditions in the US labor market.

    “We’re making good on the president’s promise to protect Americans from those who seek to exploit the system for their gain,” he said, adding that the rule would “ensure that Americans are first in line for American jobs as we continue our recovery”.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security, the H-1B program was intended to allow employers to fill gaps in their workforce and remain competitive in the global economy, however, it has now expanded far beyond that, often to the detriment of US workers.

    Data shows that more than half-a-million H-1B nonimmigrants in the United States have been used to displace US workers, which has led to reduced wages in a number of industries in the US labor market and the stagnation of wages in certain occupations, said the Department of Homeland Security.

    “This is part of a larger Trump administration goal in coordination with the Department of Labor to protect American workers,” it said.

    The Department of Labor said that the prevailing wage rates in these programs play an integral role in protecting US workers from unfair competition posed by the entry of lower-cost foreign labor into the US labor market.

    It is essential that the methodology used by the Department in calculating the prevailing wage rates accurately reflect what US workers performing the same kinds of jobs and with similar qualifications make to ensure employers cannot use foreign workers in place of US workers, it said.

    The Interim Final rule, it said, will improve the accuracy of prevailing wages paid to foreign workers by bringing them in line with the wages paid to similarly employed US workers.

    This will ensure that the Department more effectively protects the job opportunities and wages of American workers by removing the economic incentive to hire foreign workers on a permanent or temporary basis in the US over American workers, it said.

    Trump, a Republican, is seeking another term in the White House. He is being challenged by former Vice President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party in the November 3 presidential election.

    In June, the Trump administration suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers.

    (Source: PTI)

  • USCIS took steps to prevent abuse, fraud in employment-based visa programs, Congressmen told

    USCIS took steps to prevent abuse, fraud in employment-based visa programs, Congressmen told

    WASHINGTON (TIP): The Trump administration has taken a series of steps to prevent abuse and fraud in the employment-based visa programs, including H-1B, a top official from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told lawmakers on Thursday.

    The USCIS has implemented rules, policy memoranda and operational changes that protect the economic interests of US workers and businesses and prevent abuse and fraud in employment-based visa programs, Joseph Edlow, Deputy Director of Policy, USCIS told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing.

    Prominent among these include ensuring the fees that certain H-1B petitioners must now pay ultimately help to train US workers, clarifying calculation guidelines for the one-year foreign employment requirement for L-1 petitions in order to “ensure consistent adjudication.

    Among other steps are changing the H-1B cap selection process in order to increase the chances of selection for beneficiaries who have earned a master’s degree or higher from a US institution and expanding collaboration with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to better detect and eliminate fraud by employers.

    The Trump administration has also created a USCIS H-1B and H-2B fraud reporting online tip form along with creating an H-1B Employer Data Hub to provide information to the public on employers petitioning for H-1B workers, Edlow said.

    H-2B visa is for short-term seasonal workers while L-1 is for internal company transfers.

    The USCIS has issued the first report of its kind estimating the number of H-1B non-immigrants authorized to work in the United States and has instituted electronic filing for multiple forms and, for the first time ever, using an electronic registration process for the purpose of H-1B cap selection, he told members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing Citizenship and Immigration.

    Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, Director of Government Relations, American Immigration Lawyers of America, told Congressmen that USCIS data reveals the percentage of completed cases with request for evidences (RFEs) increased from 22.3 in FY2015 to 40.2 in FY2019.

    “The RFE rate reached 60 per cent during the first quarter of FY2019 and was 47.2 per cent during the first quarter of FY2020. Frequently, RFEs and NOIDs are issued seeking evidence that has already been provided or that is unnecessary to establish eligibility or contrary to the plain language of the law,” she said.

    Even when the RFEs and NOIDs ultimately result in approvals, the unnecessary delay caused by their issuance effectively means that USCIS reviews each application or petition twice – once upon initial review and again in response to what is often a needless RFE or NOID – thus leading to twice the amount of resources actually needed to complete the adjudication, she said.

    According to Dalal-Dheini when these RFEs and NOIDs result in improper denials, US employers and individuals are forced to turn to the federal courts to seek relief.

    Frequently, when a legal challenge is brought, the agency is forced to reopen and approve the case because the decision is contrary to law.

    Most recently, litigation resulted in USCIS being forced to overturn H-1B policy memoranda that were deemed to contravene the Immigration and Nationality Act. Issuing improper denials, resulting in the time and money spent fending unlawful decisions unnecessarily, drain agency resources that could be better used in eliminating case backlogs.

    (Source: PTI)

  • New regulation can deny green cards for immigrants using public benefits

    New regulation can deny green cards for immigrants using public benefits

    WASHINGTON(TIP):  The Trump administration rolled out a key item in its hardline immigration agenda that had been months in the making, issuing a sweeping rule on Monday that targets legal immigrants who use welfare benefits like food stamps and government-subsidized housing.

    The new regulation — detailed in a more than 800-page document — would dramatically expand the government’s definition of the centuries-old term “public charge,” effectively making it more difficult for certain low-income immigrants to secure permanent residency or temporary visas. The final and enforceable version of the rule is scheduled to be officially published on the Federal Register Wednesday and slated to go into effect in October.

    The rule affects most aspects of life for immigrants — from medical care and English language proficiency, to food stamps and other welfare programs. Critics say discussion of the rule’s roll-out had already been having a “chilling effect” on many immigrant communities, including households and families who are not directly affected by it on paper.

    Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency which administers benefits for immigrants, touted the change as a way to promote “self-sufficiency” and “success” among immigrant communities.

    “Through the public charge rule, President Trump’s administration is re-enforcing the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility ensuring immigrants are able to support themselves and become successful here in America,” Cuccinelli told reporters at the White House on Monday.

    What is a public charge?

    The “public charge” standard was first codified into U.S. immigration law in 1882 — the same year the U.S. enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred the entry of Chinese laborers into America on the premise that immigration from China endangered “the good order of certain localities.” The term essentially means being a burden on society.

    It was also included in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which stipulated that those who were deemed a “public charge” would be subject to deportation or barred from entering the country.

    In the 1990s, the Clinton administration issued guidance effectively saying that only cash benefits — like the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program — could be considered when determining whether an immigrant was a “public charge.”

    What would the new regulation do?

    Immigration authorities currently ask green card applicants to prove they won’t be a burden on the country, but the new regulation, if enacted, would require caseworkers to consider the use of government housing, food and medical assistance such as the widely-used Section 8 housing vouchers and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

    The rule would subject immigrant households who fall below certain income thresholds to the “public charge” test — which would also consider how well applicants speak, read and write English. Under the proposed rule, any diagnosed medical condition that requires extensive medical treatment would also “weigh heavily” in evaluations by caseworkers.

    Asylum seekers and refugees would be exempt from this “public charge” test.

    What have researchers, doctors and lawmakers been saying?

    When the 60-day public comment window on the proposed rule closed last December, more than 260,000 comments — nearly all critical of it — were submitted.

    A study in May by the Urban Institute found that more than 13% of adults in immigrant families said they were not participating in public programs such as food stamps and subsidized housing due to concerns that the so-called “public charge” rule would hinder their ability to obtain green cards. The number of immigrants reporting this fear rose to 20.7% among low-income families.

    Although the proposed rule would affect immigrants in the U.S. who are not citizens or permanent residents — as well as people seeking to immigrate to the country from abroad — the report by the Urban Institute detailed a “spillover effect” in which both green card holders and U.S. citizens reported avoiding public benefits because of the proposal’s expected implementation.

    Nearly 15% of immigrants in families in which all members had green cards and 9.3% of adults in families comprised of naturalized U.S. citizens said they did not participate in government assistance programs within the past 12 months due to concerns about the proposed rule’s impact on their and their family members’ ability to qualify for permanent residency.

    Another study late last year by the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center predicts that as many as 6.8 million U.S. citizen children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) with parents who are non-citizens could be affected by the new regulation.

    Although the proposal does not include Medicaid and CHIP assistance in its “public charge” considerations, researchers at the Health Policy Center believe immigrant parents, particularly in Latino and Asian American communities, will drop these benefits due to concerns surrounding their immigration status and ability to remain in the U.S. legally with their children.

    The big picture:

    Advocates, doctors, civil servants and Democrats fear that the regulation will punish poor immigrants for using essential government benefits and prompt some parents to halt their children’s enrollment in nutritional and medical programs — even if the children are U.S. citizens in mixed-status households.

    Will the rule be challenged in court?

    As soon as the final rule was unveiled, several groups vowed to file lawsuits to try to block it.

    (Source: Agencies)