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
Wishing everyone a great holiday season.
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
According to the latest reports, Trump is planning to eliminate the option for work authorization for spouses of H-1B nonimmigrants. President Obama implemented this spousal work permission option almost 3 years ago in the interests of family unity, economic opportunity, and strengthening of America’s place in the high tech, global economy. Without the rule, U.S. companies could very well lose crucial employees who will leave their existing jobs in the U.S. or refuse to take jobs in the U.S. Trump’s continued attacks on U.S. employers using the H-1B program does not make good economic sense. The reports also mention Trump’s professed desire to reevaluate the H-1B program and limit eligibility in order to “increase focus on truly obtaining the best and brightest foreign nationals”. Speaking from my own experience as an attorney practicing U.S. immigration law for more than 25 years, I can say without reservation that the companies I have represented are always looking for the best and the brightest and if they cannot find qualified U.S. workers they will use lawful avenues to hire foreign nationals such as the H-1B program. When U.S. employers hire foreign nationals through the H-1B program, the individuals they hire include highly trained, educated, and experienced professionals often with multiple degrees and advanced degrees in engineering, computer science, biology, chemistry, economics, accounting, finance, mathematics, and the list goes on and on. These people have often already contributed to the U.S. by attending U.S. colleges and universities and when they work with permission based on H-1B status, they contribute on a daily basis to their U.S. employers, their communities, their particular industries, and the entire country. They pay taxes, send their children to American schools, volunteer in their communities, and live the same kinds of lives as we all do. More often than not, they go on to become lawful permanent residents and eventually U.S. citizens.
Timothy R. Bakken
Founder
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
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.
