Newsletter November 2011 – Employment-based Green Cards: Trends in this Economic Environment

IN THIS ISSUE
Something Still Smells Rotten in Alabama and Now We Know Why
The 2013 Green Card Lottery Has Ended
Some Quick Holiday Travel Tips
President Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving Day
The Faces of US Immigrants: Andrew Carnegie
Recipes From The Melting Pot: Thanksgiving Turkey, An American Tradition
Quote of the Month

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Employment-based Green Cards: Trends in this Economic Environment

Recently, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas joined the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Pittsburgh to announce “Entrepreneurs in Residence.” This initiative will ensure that industry expertise will be used to strengthen USCIS policies and practices surrounding immigrant investors, entrepreneurs and workers with specialized skills, knowledge, or abilities.

Some of the areas this new initiative will look into are the following:

• Clarifying our policies to reflect the availability of the H-1B visa and National Interest Waiver under the EB-2 immigrant visa category to foreign-born entrepreneurs, and providing the corresponding training. The EB-2 (Employment-based Preference 2) visa is for individuals holding advanced degrees or are persons of exceptional ability;

• Making significant changes in the way in which we adjudicate cases in the immigrant investor, or EB-5, program – a program designed to create jobs in America. The EB-5 (Employment-based Preference 5) visa is reserved for investors who are interested in creating jobs in the United States;

• Expanding accelerated, or premium processing to immigrant petitions for certain multinational executives and managers;

In addition to the above visas, there also exists the EB-1, (Employment-based Preference 1) visa that is reserved for Priority Workers (including people of extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and professors, and multinational executives and managers).

Trends in EB-1, EB-2 and EB-5 I-485 applications from 2000 to 2011 can be seen below:

Modifications in the employment-based green card process have to be strategically modified in order for the United States to keep talented foreign nationals, some whom have trained here, in the country. They are and will be a part of individuals who have the potential of creating many needed jobs and we cannot afford to lose them.