It’s “Family-Based” immigration, not “Chain Migration” / January 26, 2018 by Timothy Bakken

Trump and anti-immigrant zealots in the GOP love to confuse the immigration debate by labelling lawful family-based immigration laws and procedures with the ominous-sounding pejorative of “chain migration”. Don’t fall for it! The bottom line is that the law allows certain, not all, individuals who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to petition for family members in the name of family reunification. This is a good thing. Read The New York Times' take here.

Timothy R. Bakken
Founder

Immigrants Are a Gift, not a Burden / January 3, 2018 by Timothy Bakken

This short letter to the editor in the Des Moines Register says it all. Let’s start the new year by remembering that America would not be the wonderful country it is without immigrants and by fighting back against those who try to divide our country by scapegoating immigrants.

Timothy R. Bakken
Founder

2018 Employment-Based Immigration Overview and Likely Impacts on U.S. Businesses / December 20, 2017 by Timothy Bakken

A series of articles nicely describes the current state of the employment-based immigration environment in the U.S., the outlook for 2018, and responses from U.S. high tech businesses and employees.

First, requests for additional evidence and denials of H-1B Petition are at an all-time high. In fact, the CIS denied more than twice as many H-1B petitions in November 2017 compared to the same time last year. Second, Bloomberg summarizes expected trends in employment-based immigration in 2018, including increased enforcement and increased scrutiny of all immigrant and nonimmigrant petitions filed by U.S. employers. Finally, U.S. tech companies are increasingly looking to Canada as a base of operations due to Canada’s more welcoming and more easily navigable employment-based immigration system.

Timothy R. Bakken
Founder

Inefficient and Wrong-Headed Work Visa Crackdown / December 12, 2017 by Timothy Bakken

This article describes what I am seeing in my direct experience in the world of U.S. business immigration. The CIS is issuing excessive requests for additional evidence even where an applicant is seeking an extension of an existing status with no changes in the underlying job duties, job location, or conditions of employment. Granted, the law properly requires petitioning companies and applicants to establish eligibility for the requested status. But, the current administration has issued guidelines that encourage CIS officers to demand more and more evidence of obvious facts (and give more leeway to deny petitions). One particularly egregious and comical example from my own practice: The CIS asked my client, a huge, well-known airline, to prove it was an existing business as part of its H-1B petition for a financial analyst. The petition was approved but only after unnecessary expense and time spent proving facts that are common knowledge to any living, breathing person. These new interpretations of existing law and regulations are inefficient and wasteful and contradict any professed goal of streamlining government bureaucracy. And, to be clear, I wholeheartedly support a crackdown on unscrupulous companies that abuse the H-1B program or any visa program. The current administration’s new rules and unreasonable interpretations of existing laws and regulations do not effectively address visa fraud because they treat law-abiding companies with long histories of closely following immigration law the same as companies that abuse the system.

Timothy R. Bakken
Founder

Thought's From Tucson's Police Chief / December 8, 2017 by Timothy Bakken

President Trump's distaste for immigrants is no secret, and he only continues to become harsher with the help of Senator Jeff Sessions. While he argues that immigrants are dangerous and causing crime, Tucson's police chief has quite a different opinion. Because of the great amount of anti-immigrant sentiment that is plaguing the United States currently, immigrants feel less and less safe and trusting of the government and law enforcement, causing them to become more secretive for fear of deportation. We need to build trust and positive rhetoric with immigrants rather than alienating them and treated them as outsiders, because they are not. Read the police chief's piece here.