Immigrants Are Making Ohio Great

20 years ago, Springfield, Ohio, had a problem. Like many communities in the Rust Belt, it seemed like good times were a thing of the past. Once a manufacturing hub, the city had been losing population for decades, with rising unemployment and falling incomes. City leaders set about turning things around, developing a strategy to lure businesses of all kinds to the city. By all accounts, this strategy has been a success. In 2008, a major new hospital was built in the city, bringing in 1,800 new jobs. In 2011, a local university, Clark State, built a large new conference center. Millions of dollars were then poured into revitalizing the downtown, tech companies moved into the region and opened new manufacturing plants, and in recent years, local retail shops in the downtown have begun to thrive. But with success came new challenges; with new businesses pouring into town, the demand for labor increased significantly, and the local labor supply wasn’t enough.

Enter immigrants. Around 2013 to 2014, Haitian immigrants began arriving in the town to fill open job postings. They found a community with a low cost of living, a high number of jobs, and a good quality of life. Those who initially settled in the town then told people back home about Springfield. Over the next decade, more and more Haitian immigrants made their way to the town, due to individual decisions and not government action, filling job openings and working hard in their new community. This organic process sped up in recent years, not only as the situation in Haiti grew more dire and the Biden administration created new legal pathways for Haitians to flee a collapsing country, but also as demand for labor in Springfield continued to rise. As of today, Springfield officials say there are anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants living in the area, near all of whom have some form of lawful status.

More information https://inmigracionyvisas.com/a6126-Immigrants-Are-Making-Ohio-Great.html

Hispanic americans are helping put the Rio Grande Valley on the map

Located on the U.S.-Mexico border at the southern tip of Texas lies the Rio Grande Valley, or as Texans call it “the Valley” or “RGV.” While the RGV–made up of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy counties–most recently made national news during Texas Governor Abbott’s anti-immigrant blockade , there is so much more to the region.

The RGV is home to the Pharr Bridge, the busiest land crossing for produce in the country, moving more than $60 million worth of goods daily. Elon Musk’s famous SpaceX South Texas launch site, Starbase, is also in the Valley. But it’s more than just a commercial powerhouse; the RGV is also harnessing people power.

Continúe leyendo https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5463-Hispanic-americans-are-helping-put-the-rio-grande-valley.html

Class Action Settlement Gives Second Chance to Qualifying US Employers for H-1B Petition Approval

 

By: Leslie Dellon www.immigrationimpact.com/

A recent class action settlement is expected to result in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approving more market research analyst H-1B petitions.

The lawsuit was filed by four U.S. employers whose H-1B petitions had been denied when USCIS determined that market research analysts were not a “specialty occupation” as required for an H-1B visa classification. Jobs in the H-1B category require a worker to possess highly specialized knowledge acquired through a bachelor’s or higher degree in a “specific specialty” or equivalent at the entry level. USCIS based its determination on a flawed interpretation of the market research analyst entry in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, a Department of Labor publication that includes information about how to enter an occupation.

The plaintiffs requested relief for themselves and other U.S. employers like them whose petitions USCIS would have approved if the agency had not made this decision about the OOH market research analyst entry.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5283-Class-Action-Settlement-Gives-Second-Chance-to-Qualifying-US-Employers.html

Your COVID-19 Vaccine Was Likely Made by an Immigrant

 By: Walter Ewing, www.immigrationimpact.com/

The development of a COVID-19 vaccine is a global endeavor. The scientists and entrepreneurs creating the vaccine are of many nationalities and immigration statuses—as are the millions of people impacted by the pandemic who are anxiously awaiting a vaccine.

The three pharmaceutical companies with vaccines near-ready for distribution—BioNTech, Pfizer, and Moderna—were all founded by immigrants.

Consider the partnership between the German company BioNTech SE and the American company Pfizer Inc., which has now completed a working vaccine.

BioNTech was founded by a husband-wife team of Turkish origin—Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci—one of whom was brought to Germany from Turkey as a child, while the other was born in Germany to a Turkish father.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5015-COVID-19-Vaccine-Was-Likely-Made-by-an-Immigrant.html

US Visa Policies Prevent Tech Startups From Hiring Foreign Workers

By Walter Ewing www.immigrationimpact.com

Tech startups are engines of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Yet U.S. visa policies may be preventing startups from hiring the highly skilled foreign professionals they need to succeed.

A new study looks at foreign and U.S.-born workers who recently graduated from American universities. Researchers specifically wanted to see where foreign workers with a PhD in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) got their first jobs after graduating.

Foreign workers are just as likely to apply for and receive job offers from startups as U.S. citizens, the study found. Yet foreign workers are 56% less likely to work for a tech startup once they’ve completed their degree.

This disparity is significant. Roughly half of all doctorate holders in computer science and engineering are strong>foreign-born—meaning that startups are missing out on a large share of the high-skilled workforce.

Cutting out a significant piece of tech startups’ potential labor force hurts the companies (which may struggle to stay afloat with a reduced pool of candidates). But it also means the United States is losing the innovation and job creation that these U.S.-educated foreign workers could bring.

Foreign workers also face difficulties because they may have to depart the United States if they cannot transition from post-graduate training as a student to H-1B status due to the annual limit exceeding the demand—even if a startup is willing to sponsor them for temporary employment. Even when sponsored for permanent employment, foreign nationals face lengthy waits for many employment-based categories, particularly if they were born in China or India.

Many startups are unable to effectively tap into this reservoir of talent because they do not have the resources to complete the laborious process of sponsoring potential foreign workers so they can apply for green cards.

To sponsor a worker, the report estimates that a startup would need to spend between $5,000 to $10,000 in filing and attorney fees complying with the requirements of federal agencies and wait months, if not years, to complete the various stages of the green card process. This is beyond the reach of many small startups that lack dedicated human resources departments.

This means foreign workers just entering the labor force have a better chance of getting a green card if they work for a larger, established company than for a small startup.

After they receive their green card, however, they have much more freedom of movement. The study finds that foreign-born PhDs who get their green cards while working at a larger company are more likely to move on to a startup than to another large company.

Foreign-born PhDs in this country know that startups are where the action is in the high-tech economy. But, in considering their futures, they also need to take into account which companies are best equipped to invest the time and money that is needed to help them secure green cards. Without green cards, they might be unable to work in the United States at all and be obligated to return to their home countries.

Unfortunately, this system leaves startups at a disadvantage—unable to hire a great many talented professionals just as they are graduating from U.S. universities with their STEM doctorates in hand.

Both startups and the U.S. economy would benefit from a green-card application process that is simpler and less expensive than the current process. For example, what if foreign nationals with a U.S. STEM PhD degree could apply for a green card after graduation without being subject to the annual numerical limitations? Doing so would foster innovation, growth, and job creation.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4483-US-Visa-Policies-Prevent-Tech-Hiring-Workers.html

USCIS Hits H-1B Cap Within Days, Showing America Needs Foreign Workers

Written by Walter Ewing

As another H-1B season comes to an end, one thing is clear: the demand for educated foreign workers is as high as ever. The annual H-1B cap was reached within a mere 5 business days. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting petitions for Fiscal Year 2020 on April 1. On April 12, the agency announced it’s received more petitions than the entire yearly cap allows.

There is a limit of 65,000 regular visas available each fiscal year for new hires. Another 20,000 visas are for foreign professionals who graduate with a master’s degree or Ph.D. from a U.S. university. In recent years, demand for H-1B visa numbers has far outpaced the supply. In fact, this is the seventh consecutive year that the regular H-1B visa cap was hit within a week.


USCIS issues H-1B policy changes

Beyond the inadequate number of visas, employers faced last-minute USCIS policy changes three years in a row. These policy announcements affected H-1B petitions submitted close to the first day of the filing season. 

USCIS announced a change in how petitions are processed only two short weeks before the start of this year’s filing deadline. Employers said it threw the whole program “into chaos.” 

The agency made another change in January 2019. USCIS reversed the order petitions are selected in. In the past, USCIS selected petitions for the 20,000 “master’s exemption” first. Now, the agency will first conduct a lottery using all H-1B petitions. After that lottery is complete, it will run a second lottery with all remaining “master’s exempt” petitions. 


How this may affect H-1B petition selection

This change will likely result in USCIS selecting more petitions for workers with U.S. master’s degrees or Ph.Ds. But that change doesn’t necessarily represent the best choice for every available position. 

Under the new system, some workers may slip through the cracks. 

For instance, a foreign national with a master’s degree from a U.S. university might have a better chance of getting an H-1B visa number than a scientist with a Ph.D. from a foreign university. 


H-1B workers will still be in high demand

Though these new policies may alter the H-1B selection process, the workers will continue to be in high demand. The inadequacy of the H-1B cap is one sign. But the fact that unemployment rates are low in occupations that use large numbers of workers with H-1B visas is another sign. 

For example, jobs in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) field have low unemployment rates compared to the national average. H-1B workers are most commonly employed in STEM jobs. These low unemployment rates signal a demand for labor that exceeds supply. This means H-1B workers are not displacing native-born workers. 

H-1B workers also tend to earn higher wages than comparable U.S.-born workers, even after accounting for differences in age and occupation. This holds true across fields like information technology, engineering, healthcare, and post-secondary education. Employers aren’t saving money by hiring H-1B workers. This suggests these workers have skills which are in high demand. 

The arbitrary numerical cap on the number of new H-1B visas does not serve the interests of U.S. workers or the U.S. economy. Rather, the cap starves the labor force of talented foreign professionals who fuel economic growth and innovation. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4109-America-Needs-Foreign-Workers.html

Taking H-4 Spouses Out Of The US Workforce Would Hurt Women The Most

Written by Walter Ewing

The Trump administration is set to issue a proposed rule that would prevent the spouses of certain high-skilled temporary foreign workers from getting jobs while they are in the United States. The rule—which would bar employment for those in H-4 status—would waste economic potential and have a disproportionate impact on women. 

This new rule derives from President Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, which incorrectly assumes that fewer jobs for foreigners automatically translates into more jobs for natives. But barring an entire group of skilled workers from the labor force would at most have no impact on employment opportunities for native-born Americans. At worst, it may actually decrease the number of jobs available to natives. 

The foreign nationals with H-4 status who could lose their work authorization are the spouses of high-skilled foreign temporary workers in H-1B status. Roughly 90 percent are women. Since 2015, these H-4s have been allowed to apply for work authorization in the United States if their H-1B spouses meet certain requirements on the path to permanent residence. 

While the Trump administration believes that native-born workers can simply move into the jobs vacated by H-4s, the economics of job creation does not work that way. According to an analysis by the Cato Institute, pulling the spouses of H-1B workers out of the labor force would result in significant economic losses—including the possible loss of jobs among the native-born. 

As Cato notes, the spouses of H-1B workers tend to be highly educated and, when given a chance, economically productive: 

• Nearly 60 percent have a graduate degree.
• About three-quarters (around 91,000 people, primarily women) are employed.
• Two-thirds of employed H-4s work in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), much like their H-1B spouses
• About 7 percent are self-employed; meaning that some also employ other workers.

Given their high earnings, this group adds around $5.5 billion to the U.S. economy. This contribution would stop if the labor force loses them. It would reduce federal tax revenue by $1.9 billion and state and local tax revenue by $530 million. 

The impact on employment is harder to quantify. While pulling all H-4s out of the labor force might open up a few thousand jobs for the native-born, this would be cancelled out by the loss of jobs when self-employed H-4s are forced to close their businesses and let go of their native-born employees. 

On top of that, the presence of foreign workers in the labor force—H-4s included—boosts both job opportunities and earnings for the native-born. 

Foreign and native workers have skill sets which complement each other. Employing foreign workers enhances natives’ productivity and, in turn, their wages. Foreign workers also create jobs by spending their earnings in the U.S. economy and paying U.S. taxes. Eliminating them from the labor force would cause both jobs and earnings to drop, hurting native workers. 

Contrary to the claims of the Trump administration, there is no economic gain from keeping H-4 spouses unemployed. They add to the U.S. economy, create jobs and businesses, generate tax revenue, and raise wages for native-born Americans. There’s no down side to this arrangement in economic terms. 

It’s clear the administration’s proposed rule will do more harm than good. It also amounts to a needlessly punitive action against high-skilled foreign spouses—particularly women—who are already putting their talents to use in the U.S. economy. 

Fuente: https://immigrationimpact.com/

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4072-United-State-forbid-work-to-spouse-h4.html

With Comment Period Expired, Uncertainty Remains About H-1B Registration Process

Written by Walter Ewing

January 2 marked the final day for comments on a proposed rule by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that would implement a new registration requirement for H-1B visas for well-educated foreign professionals. This proposal would require employers looking to hire H-1B workers to first register electronically with the agency during a specified registration period.

Hasty implementation of the proposal in 2019 could disrupt the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 H-1B petition process and impose significant costs on employers. The proposed rule would also change how H-1B visa petitions are counted, likely restricting the ability of businesses to get the most qualified workers. 

The most obvious problem with the proposed registration system is that it is not yet functional, yet USCIS is counting on it being in place by April 1—which seems unlikely. Even if the system is up and running in time and performs as expected, it would still wreak havoc on the H-1B petition process. 

Companies have already devoted resources to petitioning for H-1B workers under the current system. Having to then switch to a new system at the last minute would be costly, not to mention disruptive to businesses trying to hire the workers they need in a timely fashion. This would be particularly harmful to smaller businesses, which have fewer resources to switch gears in the middle of the petition process. But even big businesses could suffer from a crushing workload in a short span of time if they suddenly have to file multiple petitions under a new system only weeks before the FY 2020 H-1B season begins. 

As for the proposed change in the way petitions for H-1Bs are counted, the harm to employers is less obvious yet costly all the same. Currently, there are two pools of H-1B workers—one in which USCIS selects 20,000 petitions filed for graduates of certain U.S. master’s degree programs (or higher) that are exempt from the annual cap of 65,000; and another pool of applicants who fall under the cap. 

Since demand usually exceeds supply for H-1B visa numbers, USCIS set up a lottery for each of these two pools. The 20,000 U.S. master’s degree petitions are the first selected by lottery. Then, all remaining petitions are eligible for another lottery. 

Under the new proposed rules, however, USCIS would reverse the process. It would first conduct the lottery using all H-1B petitions. Then, after that lottery is complete, USCIS would run a second lottery restricted to all remaining “master’s exempt” petitions. The net result of this change would be an increase in the number of petitions selected for workers with U.S. master’s or higher degrees. Consequently, a foreign national who recently graduated with a master’s degree from a U.S. university might have a significantly better chance of getting an H-1B visa number than a much better-qualified worker who has years of professional experience and a Ph.D. from a foreign university. 

Employer and industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have urged USCIS to delay implementation of the new registration system until after the FY 2020 petition season, giving businesses more time to adjust before the next round of H-1B “cap subject” petitions. They are also urging USCIS to reconsider changing the order of the H-1B lotteries so that employers have maximum flexibility to hire those workers best suited to particular jobs. 

As it now stands, a great deal of uncertainty surrounds the H-1B petition process this year. Reflecting the anxiety this has created among employers, more than 750 comments to the proposed rule have been filed. USCIS should take this feedback seriously—and think twice about hurriedly implementing an unfinished system that changes the way H-1B petitions are filed.

 

Source: http://immigrationimpact.com/ 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3985-Uncertainty-Remains-About-H1B-Registration-Process.html

USCIS Proposed H1-B Registration Rule Creates More Uncertainty for Employers

 

Written by Leslie Dellon

Just months short of the normal starting date for the annual H-1B petition process, USCIS has proposed major changes. U.S. employers who rely on this visa category, which is for jobs that require a bachelor’s or higher degree in a “specific specialty” or equivalent at the entry-level, are now in limbo, unsure whether these changes will be implemented before the normal petition-submission date. 

Just last week, USCIS issued a proposal to change the current system for H-1B “cap-subject” petitions. The proposal has two components: requiring employers to register online in advance to be eligible to submit an H-1B petition and reversing the order in which petitions are selected. 

Currently, USCIS selects petitions for the 20,000 “master’s exemption” first (for workers with a master’s or higher degree from U.S. colleges or universities that meet certain requirements). Any of these not selected are included when USCIS selects petitions for the 65,000 “cap.” (Selection is only the first step: USCIS has to accept a selected petition for filing, and then decide whether to approve.) 

USCIS has provided a 30-day comment period, ending January 2, 2019. It appears that USCIS wants to proceed with the change in the selection process for April 2019, even if—as is likely—the registration system is not ready. 

As proposed, USCIS would provide at least 30 days’ advance notice, through its website, of the registration start date. The registration period would run for at least 14 days, beginning at least 14 days before the first business day in April on which H-1B petitions could be filed. 

When registering, the employer would have to identify the foreign national it intends to hire. As a result, the employer would have less time to consider hiring foreign nationals who need an H-1B classification. 

When the initial registration period ends, if USCIS has more registrations than required for visa number allocation, the agency will hold a “lottery,” but keep the unselected registrations “on reserve” for that fiscal year. If there are less registrations than needed, then USCIS will open another registration period. 

For any registrations selected, USCIS will notify employers and provide at least 60 days within which to file. USCIS anticipates that it will stagger the filings to help the agency manage its workflow. 

The proposal increases uncertainty because employers will need to proceed as if they will be required to register but also will need to prepare their H-1B petitions since registration is unlikely—and they will not know if their petitions are less likely to be selected than before if the petition does not fall within the “master’s exemption.” 

The registration process also injects even greater uncertainty than currently exists as to when USCIS may make a decision on a petition—because USCIS will control how long the registration period lasts and the time period during which a selected registrant may file an H-1B petition. 

USCIS describes the proposal as a “merit-based” rule in support of President Trump’s Buy American and Hire American Executive Order to “suggest reforms to help ensure that H-1B visas are awarded to the most-skilled or highest-paid petition beneficiaries.” Since current law does not have a “most-skilled” or “highest-paid” hierarchy for H-1B eligibility, it is questionable whether USCIS could accomplish this through regulation. But even apart from its legality, it remains to be seen whether the proposal would favor those with master’s degrees from U.S. schools that meet the “master’s exemption” requirements. 

USCIS assumes that “master’s exemption” petitions would be for jobs requiring more skills and at a higher salary. But the “master’s exemption” is determined by the degree the beneficiary holds. 

The job offered to the beneficiary may or may not require a master’s degree. Also, the salary an employer offers depends on several factors, such as the type of job, the geographic location, and whether prior work experience is required. 

With these variables, there are many situations in which a job requiring a bachelor’s degree and work experience would be the “most-skilled” and “highest paid.” 

Also, what makes a U.S. master’s degree from a low-ranking U.S. university more meritorious than, say, a Ph.D. from Oxford. 

It also is possible that the proposed new selection order will harm a particular industry, or a particular region, which could reduce the income and opportunities for U.S. workers. 

The agency acknowledges that it “has not been able to determine how this may impact particular industries currently submitting H-1B cap petitions for individuals without master’s degrees … and how this may impact particular types of workers” and “welcomes input.” Comments should be submitted to furnish the critical data that USCIS lacks.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3962-Proposed-H1B-Registration-Rule-Creates-More-Uncertainty-for-Employers.html

The United States Must Embrace Global Talent, As High-Skilled Foreign Workers Go Elsewhere

 

Written by Walter Ewing

If the U.S. government closes the door to highly skilled foreign workers, other countries stand ready to embrace their contributions. For instance, while the Trump administration contemplates an overhaul of the H-1B temporary employment visa, a process that would make it more difficult to obtain them, the Canadian government is offering the opposite. Canada is promising a two-week turn-around time on work permits for skilled foreign workers who are in the United States, but who might like to try Canada instead.

The U.S. government and employers must create a welcoming environment that attracts skilled people from around the world, because the United States is no longer the default choice for foreign workers looking for new opportunities. 

This is one of the central conclusions of a new book, “The Gift of Global Talent, ” by Harvard Business School professor William Kerr. 

The book synthesizes much of the existing research on high-skilled immigration and reaches a number of important conclusions. Paramount among these is that “talent is the world’s most precious resource.” The accuracy of this statement becomes apparent if you consider that computers, cars, and factories would not exist if not for the creativity of engineers and other high-tech professionals. 

Moreover, talent is highly mobile. Talented workers can readily travel to any corner of the globe where opportunity beckons to them—meaning that forward-looking nations must actively compete for these workers and not take them for granted. 

“The Gift of Global Talent” argues that one unique feature of talented individuals is that they tend to congregate in a relatively small number of places—like Silicon Valley, or equivalent locations in Canada, Europe, and Asia. 

Contrary to conventional economic thinking, this tendency to collect in one city doesn’t drive down wages or produce a surplus of workers. Rather, it makes the place even more attractive to other talented professionals. In Kerr’s terminology, this process gives birth to “talent clusters”—and it is the talent clusters that fuel innovation. 

As the author notes, the degree to which foreign-born workers contribute to the growth of these clusters is readily apparent in a couple of statistics. Immigrants account for one-quarter of all U.S. patents filed. And more than half of all U.S. workers with doctorates in science and engineering fields are immigrants. 

The talent clusters that have taken root in the United States would not exist in their present form without immigration. Likewise, these immigrants would not have been able to come without visas specifically designed for highly skilled professionals, such as the H-1B. 

To succeed in such a global labor market, businesses must be nimble; quick to follow new ideas and attract the workers needed to develop those new ideas. For this reason, many businesses very deliberately set up shop in the middle of a talent cluster so that they will have ready access to whatever sort of talented workers are needed as the business moves forward. 

The primary obstacle to getting the workers they need rests in the inefficiencies of the U.S. employment visa system (particularly flaws in the H-1B, such as the fact that the visa is tied to a single employer and is not “portable” if the worker wants to get a different job in a different company). These obstacles would only increase with changes to the visa’s availability being contemplated by the Trump administration. 

At a broader level, the administration’s anti-immigrant policies have already caused the United States to lose some of its luster as a home for global talent. This is an economically self-destructive course of action that must be reversed. Workers who possess knowledge and ingenuity transcend borders. Rational immigration policies would recognize this basic fact. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3922-United-States-must-support-foreign-workers.html

Written by Leslie Dellon

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a revised, final policy memorandum on August 9, 2018 that radically changes how the agency will determine when a foreign student or exchange visitor is “unlawfully present” in the United States. “Unlawful presence” is a legal term used to describe any time spent in the United States after a foreign national’s period of authorized stay has ended. 

Most foreign nationals who are inspected and admitted in nonimmigrant status are authorized to remain in the United States until a specific date. However, academic program students and exchange visitors frequently are authorized to remain in the United States for what is known as “duration of status” because a date certain cannot account for the many variables that affect their length of stay, such as when they will complete a program or project. 

Under USCIS’ new policy, effective August 9, the day after an event that the agency considers a status violation, in most cases, will be the starting date for calculating unlawful presence for students and exchange visitors . Many will accumulate unlawful presence sooner than under the prior policy. Often, they will not know that they have fallen out of status and will not know that they are accumulating unlawful presence. The change is significant because generally a nonimmigrant who leaves the United States after being unlawfully present for more than 180 days but less than 1 year is barred from returning for three years; after one year or more of unlawful presence, the bar is ten years. 

USCIS’ policy change also affects the spouses and 18-or-older children whose status was based on the student or exchange visitor’s status, since they will accrue unlawful presence based on an event later found to be a status violation by the student or exchange visitor. 

USCIS released its initial version of this policy in May 2018, and provided 30 days for the public to comment. Despite the many objections commenters raised, USCIS made few changes. The only changes USCIS made in calculating when unlawful presence begins involve “reinstatement of status.” If a student files a reinstatement application within five months of being out of status, unlawful presence will begin only if USCIS denies the application. Although initially provided only for academic program students, USCIS now provides that if any student or exchange visitor is reinstated, regardless of when requested, the student or exchange visitor generally will not accrue unlawful presence during the time the request was pending. 

These changes are of limited utility because they do not address the fundamental “gotcha” problem with the new policy: People who only find out years later that USCIS now considers them to have been out of status and accruing unlawful presence. 

In its attempt to justify this radical change, USCIS manipulated data on students and exchange visitors who remained beyond their period of authorized stay, often referred to as “overstays.” USCIS claims that the total overstay rate was “significantly higher” in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and FY 2017 for the student and exchange visitor categories than for other nonimmigrants. However, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports from which USCIS takes these numbers also reveals their flaws. DHS includes in these totals departure dates recorded after the authorized period of stay expired (“out-of-country overstays”). These could include people who stayed only a day longer because their flight was canceled, or they became ill. Indeed, Table 7 of DHS’ FY2017 report shows that 49% of “out-of-country overstays” of 60 days or fewer were 10 days or fewer. The other overstay category DHS includes is people for whom no departure record was recorded (“suspected in-country overstays”). But a departure may not be recorded because a person lawfully extended or changed nonimmigrant status or became a lawful permanent resident (a “green card holder”). Also, DHS admits that “determining lawful status requires more than solely matching exit and entry data” and that the agency established artificial “cutoff dates” of departures “expected to occur.” 

DHS also reports, based on more recent data, a compliance rate of nearly 100% of all nonimmigrants scheduled to depart in FY2017 by air and sea ports of entry, and of nearly 99% in FY2016. Looking at just the “suspected in-country overstays” in Table 8 of DHS’ FY2017 report, even with the inflation due to including people who are not overstays at all, as of May 1, 2018, the FY2017 overstay rate for student and exchange visitor nonimmigrants is only 1.43 percent. 

This unwarranted, punitive policy will only serve to drive students, and physicians, trainees, interns and other exchange visitors, toward opportunities in other countries. Foreign nationals are already growing increasingly wary of pursuing higher education in the United States, as evidenced by declining enrollment . This policy will only deepen their anxiety. 

 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com  

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3877-Students-and-Exchange-Visitors-at-Risk-in-United-States.html

 

 

Immigrants Create Jobs for American Workers, Boosting the U.S. Employment Rate

Written by Walter Ewing 

When immigrants bring their skills to the U.S. labor market, everyone—immigrants and native-born workers alike—benefit from their company. Research has repeatedly shown that native-born workers are advantaged by the presence of immigrant workers in the labor market. 

A new report from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) adds to this growing body of research. Specifically, the report finds that immigrants have no negative effect on the unemployment rate or labor force participation rate of native-born Americans. 

The presence of more immigrants in the labor force is associated with a small but undeniable increase in the labor force participation rate of natives, NFAP concludes. Likewise, more immigrant workers correspond with a small decline in the unemployment rate of the native-born. 

Even less-educated native-born workers are not harmed by immigration, while the labor force participation rate of more-educated native-born workers increases as immigration rises. 

These outcomes are sometimes lost in the midst of structural changes in the U.S. economy which are brought about by many factors—of which immigration is but one. 

For instance, unemployment skyrocketed during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and bounced back slowly. Meanwhile, labor force participation has been declining for years—a trend that accelerated with the recession and has yet to reverse. 

These trends are often analyzed in a vacuum, as if immigration was the only relevant variable affecting complex economic phenomena. But the U.S. economy isn’t that simple. 

In addition to quantifying the beneficial impact of immigration on natives, NFAP presents additional reasons why the outcomes of immigration are positive for most American workers. 

Immigrants generally do not compete directly with U.S. natives for jobs to begin with, because they work in different sectors of the economy and live in different parts of the country. Even if they do find themselves in the same place and the same industry, they are likely to perform different kinds of tasks. For instance, natives—for whom English is the native language—get more of the “communications-intensive” jobs, while immigrants who are not native speakers of English are more likely to work in jobs that require physical strength or exertion. 

It is important to keep in mind that the impact of immigrants on the U.S. economy in general and native-born workers in particular goes far beyond employment and wages. Immigrant-led households across the United States contribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local taxes each year. Residents of immigrant-led households wield nearly a trillion dollars in collective spending power (after-tax income). And millions of immigrant business owners account for one-in-five of all self-employed U.S. residents and generate tens of billions of dollars in business income each year. 

Taken as a group, immigrants don’t consume jobs; they generate them.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com
http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3807-Immigrants-Create-Jobs-for-American-Workers.html