USCIS Publishes New Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent this bulletin at 11/02/2012 10:20 AM EDT
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent this bulletin at 11/02/2012 10:20 AM EDT
On Thursday, August 30, 2012, Roberta Freedman, AILA Students & Scholars Committee member, and Mike Nowlan, Chair of the AILA Business Committee, discussed the Visa Bulletin, visa demand in the employment preference categories, and predictions for FY2012 and FY2013 with Charlie Oppenheim of the Department of State’s Visa Office. These are only discussions of what could happen and are not assurances or guarantees by the Visa Office, as changes in visa usage result in changes in the Visa Bulletin.
In the January visa bulletin, wait times for EB-2 (employment based) visas for India and China move forward by (by nine and a half months) and there is a continued forward movement in the FB1 (family based) categories.
In a move that would benefit highly skilled workers from countries like India and China seeking to stay in the US, the House of Representatives has voted to end per-country caps on employment based green cards.
The bill (HR 3012) passed by the the House of Representatives by both Democrat and Republicans, completely eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas and raises the per-country cap from seven per cent to 15 per cent for family-based visas.
The current Immigration and Nationality Act generally provides that the total number of employment-based immigrant visas made available to natives of any single foreign country in a year cannot exceed seven per cent of the total number of such visas made available in that year. This would make visas immediately available to countries with a high number of skilled immigrant applicants such as China and India thereby effectively removing the decade-long visa back-log for theseworkers. This bill will also increase the number of family based visas granted each year thereby assisting countries with a high number of family based immigrant applicants such as Mexico and Philippines.
The Most Common Green cards issued to South Africans