News Update - December 11, 2010DREAM Act Fate Tabled to the Week of December 12, 2010; January Visa Chart Shows Disappointing Family Based Numbers; H-1B Cap Remains Steady.The big news this week of course is that the DREAM Act passed the House of Representatives, and that the Senate in a procedural move has decided to adopt the House version and tabled the vote until this next week to drum up more support for passage. The President is expected to sign the legislation once passed. The January 2011 visa chart of the Department of State visa office showed tremendous retrogression in most family based cases and only slight movement in the employment based categories. The F-1 preference for unmarried sons and daughters over the age of 21 of U.S. fell back 13 1/2 months to January 1, 2005 for most of the world*; F-2A spouses and children of permanent residents fell 32 months to January 1, 2008; F-2B for unmarried sons and daughters over the age of 21 of permanent residents fell 25 1/2 months to April 15, 2003; and F-3 for married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens fell 17 months to January 1, 2001. Only the F-4 category for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens did not fall as it remained at the same date, January 1, 2002. The only guidance from the Department of State was that the recent rapid advances resulted in dramatic increases in the level of applicant demand and that "Further retrogression cannot be ruled out should demand continue at the current levels." The latest H-1B count on December 3, 2010 shows 69,900 cap numbers having been utilized of which 51,200 count against the general cap and 18,700 against the U.S. Masters and higher degree cap. There are now approximately 15,100 numbers left. With the economy failing to pick up and with recent dismal job unemployment numbers nationwide, companies are not expected to do much hiring in the near future and the H-1B cap is thus not expected to fill up at anytime soon. * Dates announced for preferences F-2A to F-4 also cover most of the world, but not Mexico and the Philippines.
† The author is a 30+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. ‡ This article © 2010 Alan Lee, Esq.
|
Copyright © 2003-2010 Alan Lee,
Esq. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|