Visa Lawyer Blog

According to NPR, it’s not likely, and if nothing else that’s because of the economy. Labor economist Vernon Briggs of Cornell University says it’s harder to argue for legalizing millions of low-skilled immigrants when many more low-skilled Americans are likely to find themselves out of work.

“The unemployment rates for unskilled workers without high school diplomas, or only a high school diploma, are the highest in the United States,” says Briggs. “There’s no indication that our labor force is in desperate need of unskilled, poorly educated, non-English speaking workers.”

Supporters of legalization see it differently, arguing that the best way to make sure immigrants do not pose an unfair threat to American workers is to make the immigrants legal. But even ardent immigrant advocates admit the economic collapse does change something else.

It may become even harder to travel to the US if you are from a visa waiver country. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that beginning Jan. 12, 2009, eligible citizens or nationals from all Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries must obtain approval through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) prior to traveling to the United States under the VWP. DHS formally announced the addition of seven allies to the list of countries authorized to participate in the VWP. The seven countries are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the Republic of Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia.

DHS state that required authorization through ESTA will substantially strengthen the security of the VWP by providing the department with the capability to conduct advance screening of VWP travelers. I feel that this will cause substantial delays and complications for travelers from such countries.

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The San Diego Union Tribune reports that San Diego County is set to participate in a new federal initiative that gives local law enforcement the ability to use fingerprints to check the immigration history and status of people who land in county jails. This is clearly a shift in the understanding that police officer are not immigration agents. But this will may well start to change.

The federally funded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program was announced this week by agency officials during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference at the San Diego Convention Center.

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According to the San Diego Union Tribune, although economic concerns reduced immigration to nearly a nonissue by the time the presidential campaign drew to a close, political experts believe it was largely responsible for the record turnout of Latino voters Tuesday, 66 percent of whom supported Barack Obama.

According to national exit poll results analyzed by the Pew Hispanic Center, only 32 percent of Latinos voted for Republican candidate John McCain, in spite of the Arizona senator’s track record as a proponent of immigrant-friendly reforms. That total represents a significant drop from what George W. Bush amassed in 2004. Bush received between 40 percent and 44 percent of the Latino vote that year and 35 percent in 2000.

But the heated immigration debate that dominated headlines two years ago, when hundreds of thousands marched in San Diego and other cities demanding reforms, may have been the catalyst that sent Latinos to the polls.

An excellent article by Patrick Thibodeau from ComputerWorld, touches the issue of possible H1B visa Green Card increase by President Obama. While his position on immigration is not entirely clear, Obama is smart enough to link the US prosperity with a major Immigration reform.

President-Elect Barack Obama has supported the H-1B visa program and wants to make changes to green cards that would help tech firms. There wasn’t much said about this issue during the presidential campaign, especially after Wall Street collapsed. It also never came up in the debates between Obama and Republican John McCain. Now we’re in a recession and unemployment is rising. Can Obama push ahead on tech-related immigration issues at this time? He might, and in this FAQ, here’s an explanation of how that might happen.

Some tech lobbyists believe that increases in H-1B visas and green cards won’t happen as long as U.S. companies are cutting jobs. But that will mean the debate will shift as well. “What do we need to do to ensure that we can grow our way out of this [downturn], innovate our way out this? You can’t have that discussion without talking about immigration,” said Robert Hoffman, vice president of congressional and legislative affairs at Oracle Corp., and co-chairman of Compete America, a lobbying group that supports raising the H-1B visa cap.

This is a very important update for all our I- 601 waiver clients and readers of this Blog that follow this area of law. As noted in other postings regarding the move of the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez to its new facility this month, the USCIS overseas office in Juarez will also be moving.

The USCIS office will be located in the consular compound, rather than in an off-site location. Thus, November 5, 2008, is the last fully operational day for the office before the move. The office will be closed November 6 through November 11. There will be no communication via telephone, e-mail, or fax during the relocation from November 6 through November 12, and the office will be providing only emergency services.

The USCIS office will start accepting a limited number of 601 waiver applications again on November 12, 2008, as the consulate reopens. The schedule is to start with approximately 20 waiver cases on November 12, and then ramp up to the normal 100 per day on November 17.