Visa Lawyer Blog

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Clients and Blog readers are often asking about the Conditional Green Card, what conditions? Very Confusing subject. In this Blog Article, Marie Puertollano from our office covers this issue.

An immigrant can obtain a Permanent Resident Card, also called “green card,” through marriage to a US citizen. The green card is conditional if the marriage was less than two years old on the day the applicant (the immigrant) was given permanent residence.

The conditional green card is valid for two years only. The applicant must file an I-751 application before the green card expires. Never count on the USCIS to remind you of the two year deadline.

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A recent decision by the Immigration Administrative Appeals Office overturned an L-1 denial on the grounds that the Immigration Service Director erred in denying the case on the grounds that there was not a qualifying relationship between the parent company and the U.S. subsidiary. The main concern the Director had was that the transfer of ownership did not make sense given that the purchase price was too low in light of the company’s revenues.

In order for a qualifying relationship to exist, the qualifying organization must meet one of the following definitions: “It meets exactly one of the qualifying relationships specified in the definitions of a parent, branch, affiliate or subsidiary…is or will be doing business (engaging in international trade is not required) as an employer in the United States and in at least one other country directly or through a parent, branch, affiliate or subsidiary for the duration of the alien’s stay in the United States as an intracompany transferee.” A “subsidiary” for these purposes means a firm, corporation, or other legal entity of which a parent owns, directly or indirectly, more than half of the entity and controls the entity; or owns, directly or indirectly, half of the entity and controls the entity.

When the case came on appeal, the company showed that the foreign employer acquired 51 percent ownership interest in the U.S. company and submitted evidence to verify the ownership interest. In addition, in the request for evidence, the foreign company showed that the foreign entity agreement to purchase 51 membership units from the existing member also noted the net liabilities by which the foreign entity was willing to accept and was willing to accept those liabilities.

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We had a lot of interest in the past few weeks from our Blog readers as well as the Facebookpage (facebook.com/myimmigrationlawyer), about the future of Entrepreneurs in this country. There are many concerns that our current immigration system is driving talented people away.

I wanted to share this great article by Stuart Anderson about the American Dream.

Immigrant entrepreneurs capture the imagination and provide economic benefits to the United States. Nothing more symbolizes the American Dream than the “rags to riches” stories of immigrants who came to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs and started a successful business. Immigrants like Ovidiu Colea.

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The federal government will formally instruct immigration agents to consider same-sex relationships the same way as heterosexual relationships in deciding whether a person should be deported.

The announcement by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano comes as welcome news to some Democrats in Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who had voiced concerns already that informal instructions to do so could be ignored by immigration agents.

Napolitano said on Thursday she would issue the instruction in writing to immigration agents. The administration had only informally indicated same-sex relationships would be taken into account when making deportation decisions.

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This post was provided by AILA today before the debate, wanted to share with our readers. Who do you think did better this evening?

Questions for Mitt Romney on immigration for the first debate:

1. You’ve stated that within two years of taking office “we will have the full immigration reform plan” you’ve proposed in place. To date you have stated that you would veto the DREAM Act, that you are in favor of self-deportation, and that you support visas for graduates with advance degrees. Can you detail for us the main components of your immigration reform package? Specifically, how you will resolve the issue of the 11 million aspiring citizens who don’t have legal status?
2. Do you feel that you will have to prioritize immigration reform over other key domestic policy goals in order to ensure that it is put in place within your first two years of office?
3. What will happen to those “DREAMers” who have received work permits if you are not successful?

Questions for Barack Obama on immigration for the first debate:

1. You’ve said that you’re “biggest failure” was not getting comprehensive immigration reform done and that you are going to “try to do it in the first year” of your second term. How exactly will you accomplish this while facing, most likely, a divided Congress? Why will your second term efforts be more successful than the first?
2. What other key domestic priorities are you willing to sacrifice in order to get immigration reform done?
3. Your opponent claims that the temporary reprieve you offered “DREAMers” is just a “temporary measure that…will be just enough to get [you] through the election.” Why is he wrong? What specific efforts will you make to pass the DREAM Act in a 2nd term?

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Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law that will allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and vetoed another that would have restricted sheriffs from helping federal authorities detain undocumented Californians for potential deportation.

The driver’s license measure will allow illegal immigrants to drive legally in California if they qualify for a new federal work permit program. The Obama administration’s executive order known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) allows illegal immigrants who came to the United States before they were 16, and who are now 30 or younger and meet certain other criteria, to obtain work permits.

“Gov. Brown believes the federal government should pursue comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship,” said Brown spokesman Gil Duran. “President Obama has recognized the unique status of these students, and making them eligible to apply for driver’s licenses is an obvious next step.”

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The Center for American Progress and the Partnership for a New American Economy released a joint study which found that up to 223,000 of the 2.1 million young illegal immigrants eligible for the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act would have an easier time enrolling, paying for and finishing college, which would lead to the increased economic gains. The report concludes that If illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children were given legal status, their improved access to college and better jobs would add $329 billion and 1.4 million jobs to the nation’s economy over two decades, according to a report set for release today.

“This report proves a fundamental truth about the contributions of immigrants to the American economy: we absolutely need them to continue our economic growth,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

The report provides an argument in favor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal residency to illegal immigrants brought to the country as children and have completed some college or served in the military. When the DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001, it was a bipartisan effort sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. It has since become more partisan. The House of Representatives passed it in 2010 with minimal GOP support, and it failed in the Senate when only three Republicans voted for it.

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Get ready DV players! The 2014 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2014) will commence at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012, and will close at noon, EDT, Saturday, November 3rd, 2012. Applicants must submit entries electronically during this registration period using the electronic DV entry form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EDT, on November 3rd, 2012.

Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 and provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants.” Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of 55,000 Diversity Visas each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Fifty-five thousand immigrant visas are set aside for DV immigrants.

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random drawing chooses selectees for Diversity Visas. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. No single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

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The numbers through the third quarter of 2012 for H-1B petitions is in. Through a FOIA request made by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the number of H-1B petitions that have been submitted, approved, denied, and withdrawn have been released. So far this year, 128,893 petitions have been submitted to USCIS. Of those petitions, 75,706 petitions have been approved, 20,717 have been denied, and 1,820 have been withdrawn.

This means there are still 30,650 petitions that are being decided by USCIS. Looking at the approval and denial rates, it appears that the approval rating is around 80% for H-1B petitions for 2012. While this may seem like a low number for employers to accept, it is a higher approval rate than in prior years. In addition, the denial number is the second lowest for denials since 2008, and taking the amount of petitions filed and still pending into consideration, the ratio for approvals to denials appear better than they were 5 years ago.

It is good to see that petition numbers and approvals have increased when comparing them to 2008-2011, but even despite these numbers, one would think the approval rate should be much higher. With all the political rhetoric going on around finding a way to keep those individuals educated in the U.S. in the STEM fields, the H-1B has always been the visa many of those individuals to utilize for working and staying in the U.S. Whether the denials come from a policy within USCIS or not, if we want to keep those educated in the U.S. from leaving, the H-1B visa needs to be utilized more in order to keep them here longer.

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As per the recent updates from White House last week Mexico, China and Brazil, along with other countries, are contributing more to the US tourism industry thanks to a streamlined visa process and reduced wait time. The White House released a progress report saying the Departments of State and Homeland Security were surpassing the goals set by President Barack Obama in January in terms of visa interview time and visa processing capacity to boost the tourism industry in the country.

The report said 88 percent of non-immigrant visa applicants worldwide are interviewed within three weeks of submitting their applications, as against the goal of 80 percent envisioned by President Obama. In key markets such as China, consular officers are keeping interview wait times to an average of five days in 2012 while managing a year-on-year 37 percent increase in visa demand. It also says that Mexico and Brazil, China has passed the 1-million-visa milestone.

As of June, the US mission in Brazil has boosted processing capacity by 40 percent as directed by Obama, while the goal will be met in China by December, the US State Department said. The agency said it will open a new consulate building in China’s Guangzhou in the 2013 fiscal year and a consular section in Wuhan in the 2014 fiscal year, as part of the ongoing efforts to upgrade and expand its existing consular facilities and build new consulates.

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