Visa Lawyer Blog

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Our Blog readers and Facebook fans often inquire about other temporary work visa options other than the H-1B Visa. This article was prepared by Attorney Yingfei Zhou from our office.

For individuals who possesses extraordinary ability in the field of sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements, we will recommend the O-1 visa.

A job offer from a U.S. employer is a basic requirement for the O-1 visa. The O-1 visa is filed by the employer, along with the evidence of the individual’s extraordinary ability. Different from the H-1B visa, there is no annual limit on the number of people, who can receive O-1 visas, there is no limit on the time we can file the application, and you can work for multiple employers at the same time.

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Beginning today, March 4, certain immigrant visa applicants who are the spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens (immediate relatives), and have been unlawfully present in the United States, can start applying for provisional unlawful presence waivers through a new process.

The new provisional unlawful presence waiver process is for certain individuals who seek a waiver of inadmissibility only for unlawful presence. They can now apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver while in the United States and before departing for their immigrant visa interview at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad.

Under the current process, which continues to remain in effect, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who are not eligible to adjust status in the United States have to travel abroad and be found inadmissible at their immigrant visa interview before they can apply for an inadmissibility waiver.

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Written by Ekaterina Powell

Our office has extensive experience working on EB-2 National Interest Waiver petitions for scientists and researchers in a variety of academic fields. Many clients come to us after their NIW petitions have already been denied as a result of their first attempts to file the petitions without qualified attorney guidance.

Unfortunately, often times after careful review of the petitions it becomes clear that the scientist is qualified for NIW but the petition was done in such a way that it did not properly highlight the scientist’s accomplishments and did not articulate how the scientist meets the criteria for NIW petition.

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There is real optimism that in 2013 immigration reform may become a reality. But until the United States Congress finally acts, and the President signs that bill into law, no one is sure exactly what form this new legislation will take.

While there is hope for comprehensive changes to U.S. immigration law, there is uncertainty about the details, including the all-important “path to citizenship” for undocumented or illegal immigrants already living in the U.S.

If you are one of the approximately 11 million people who may be affected by immigration reform, you are likely curious and anxious about what the future will bring for you. It may be many months before we know which proposed changes will be part of the final legislative package, but there are certain actions you can and should take immediately to give you the best chance of taking advantage of it.

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AILA recently shared an internal email communication between ICE and other agencies. The title of the attachment in the email is: “Prospective Criminal Apprehension Initiative”. The focus of course is on criminals, but more so, the need to meet certain numbers.

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See the complete email report here: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/603861-ice-documents.html

Deportation numbers show that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is making good on its promise to focus on the more serious offenders in the undocumented immigrant population.

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Our Blog readers often inquire regarding visa wait times and priority dates. This article will answer the top three frequent asked questions by previous clients, which are “What is the visa waiting list?”, “Why there is a preference category?” and “What is the current cut-off date for my visa category in my country?”

I. What is the visa waiting list?

The visa waiting list refers to those cases where the petition from the U.S. sponsor has been approved, but they still cannot proceed with processing because of statutory limits on the total number of visas and the per-country limits. According to the U.S. Department of State, the annual family sponsored preference categories are limited to 226,000 (Note: this excludes spouses, parents, and minor children of U.S. Citizens, who are the highest priority for immigration and are exempt from immigration caps). It is required by the Immigration and Naturalization Act that family sponsored visas be granted in the order that the eligible potential immigrants applied.

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What a great speech tonight at the State of the Union Address. The president continued his push for Congress to act on politically volatile issues such as immigration reform.

He said:

Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants. And right now, leaders from the business, labor, law enforcement, faith communities, they all agree that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Now’s the time to do it.

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Many immigrants have different skills from the native-born population, and complement the skills of the U.S. labor force. Immigrants make the economy more efficient by reducing bottlenecks caused by labor shortages, both in the high-skill and low-skill area.

That’s because the educational backgrounds of immigrants and native-born Americans are different. Statistically, the average skills of native-born American workers are distributed in a bell-shaped curve. Many Americans have high school diplomas and some college education, but relatively few adults lack high school diplomas and even fewer have Ph.D.s in math and science.

In contrast, immigrants’ skills are distributed in a U-shaped curve, with disproportionate shares of adults without high school diplomas who seek manual work and others with Ph.D.s in math and science. Among native-born Americans, 91% have a high school diploma or higher, whereas only 62% of noncitizens do. Foreign-born workers are about 16% of the labor force, according to the Labor Department, yet represent 49% of the labor force without a high school diploma, 25% of all doctorates, and 35% of doctorates in science, math, computer science and engineering.

Since immigrants have a smaller share of high school diplomas and B.A.s, which is where native workers tend to be concentrated, they do not compete directly with most native-born workers. Now think about the arguments some politicians are making about how immigrants take away jobs from Americans during this economy. If the distribution of labor shows that immigrants are entering areas of the labor force that native-born Americans choose not to work in, then those immigrants are filling a vital role in the economy.

Immigrants choose different jobs from native-born Americans. Low-skilled immigrants are disproportionately represented in the service, construction, and agricultural sectors, with occupations such as janitors, landscapers, tailors, plasterers, stucco masons, and farmworkers.

They come to be fruit pickers, as well as janitors and housekeepers, jobs native-born Americans typically do not choose as careers. However, immigrants are not found as crossing guards and funeral service workers, low-skill jobs preferred by Americans. Government, education, health, and social services, are sectors that employ few immigrants. Just looking at the fields of work that immigrants enter into compared to native-Americans, the fields that native-Americans enter compared to immigrants vary quite substantially in terms of how many occupy a given field.

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My office received a few concerned calls from family members of Aristotle University Students. The University is in a center of a heated media investigation into the legitimacy of this Institution to provide education and issue student visas.

Questions have been raised by students for some time about this school. They say the school’s academic program and its operators seem more concerned about collecting fees than providing education.

Many students unconvinced the school is providing the kind of instruction and course work it advertised on its website. That website was taken down last week as questions about the school began to mount.

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After the November 2012 presidential election in the United States, lawmakers from both political parties have shown interest in making changes to U.S. immigration laws and started taking action.

Best Chance In Many Years for Immigration Overhaul

Democratic President Barack Obama campaigned on immigration reform. Democrats in the U.S. Congress have long favored immigration reform that would help the approximately 11 million undocumented persons already living in the U.S.

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