News Update - July 5, 2011EB-5 Immigrant Investor Statistics; Labor Certification Processing Times; H-1B Cap Count; and Notice of CSPA Teleconference By U.S.C.I.S.U.S.C.I.S. released statistics concerning its final actions on EB-5 green card investor cases for the first two quarters of fiscal year 2011 (10/1/10 - 3/31/11). The approval rate of I-526 petitions was 81% with 407 approvals and 96 denials. On I-829 petitions, U.S.C.I.S. approved 86% with 166 approvals and 26 denials. The current time to reach I-526 petitions for processing was listed at 5.5 months and I-829's 5 months. U.S.C.I.S. provided a preliminary estimate that 2,129 EB-5 visas were issued in the first two quarters of FY-2011. The EB-5 category has become more popular in recent years to Chinese nationals due to long backlogs of other visa categories and the rising prosperity of China. As of May 31, 2011, the Office of Foreign Labor Certifications of the Department of Labor stated that PERM labor certifications which were filed in April 2011 were being reached for first review ; audited cases were being worked on which were filed in September 2010; standard appeals were only being processed for those who had first filed PERM applications in November 2008; and government error appeals involving clear error by the government were current. The H-1B count as of July 1, 2011, showed that only 30,300 H-1B cap petitions had been filed out of a total cap of 85,000. 18,400 were filed under the H-1B regular cap and 11,900 under the H-1B U.S. Masters or higher degree cap. There appears to be much room under the cap. Temporarily gone are the days when the 85,000 numbers would be claimed as soon as the cap quota opened in April. Current H-1B usage is consistent with the U.S. economy and latest government statistics of July 8, 2011, showing a rise in the unemployment rate from 9.1% in May to 9.2% in June. U.S.C.I.S. Service Operations Directorate is holding its next monthly stakeholder teleconference for July 26, 2011, on the topic of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) and the grandfather clause as related to preserving priority dates. This promises to be an unfruitful meeting in light of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' June 30, 2011, decision in Feimei Li & Duo Cen v. Renaud refusing to assign the parent's priority date from when the parent was petitioned by a relative to a new petition filed by the parent for the aged-out child.
† 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 © 2011 Alan Lee, Esq.
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Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee,
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