Every fiscal year — from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 — the United States government says it makes available to qualified applicants roughly 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas in efforts to bring much-needed, highly skilled labor and foreign investment dollars to America.
It’s a critical process that the nonpartisan Pew Research Center says is supported by the majority of Americans, with roughly eight-in-10 U.S. adults (78 percent) supporting the encouragement of highly skilled people to immigrate and work in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center’s 2018 survey of 12 countries and subsequent report released in January.
There are several ways for immigrants to enter the United States, such as employment-based immigrant visas, which are divided into five preference categories: Employment First Preference (EB-1) for priority workers; Employment Second Preference (EB-2) for professionals holding advanced degrees and those having exceptional ability; Employment Third Preference (EB-3) for skilled workers, professionals and other workers; Employment Fourth Preference (EB-4) for certain special immigrants; and Employment Fifth Preference (EB-5) for immigrant investors.
Immigrants also may enter the country via the federal government’s Optional Practical Training program and H-1B visas — what Pew researchers call the two largest sources of temporary, highly educated immigrant workers.
Additionally, immigrants may enter or stay in the U.S. as lawful permanent residents, or immigrants with green cards, some of whom entered through family reunification visas, according to Pew Research Center report authors Phillip Connor, senior researcher, and Neil Ruiz, associate director of Global Migration and Demography research.
“These programs are successful because they are structured around the needs of the United States and create incentives for talented immigrants to focus their intellect and achievement in a way that directly meets those needs,” Sandra Feist, attorney at the Minneapolis-based law firm of Grell Feist PLC, told Homeland Preparedness News.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives want to ensure such programs remain successful.
For example, House lawmakers on July 10 passed bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.) that would strengthen the American workforce by reducing the wait time for those impacted most by the decades-long backlog of immigrant visas.
The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, H.R. 1044, would achieve this by eliminating the per-country limits on employment-based visas and implementing what the members called a fairer and more equitable “first-come, first-served” system.
H.R. 1044 also would increase the per-country limit on family-based visas to 15 percent from 7 percent.
“In order for American industries to remain competitive and create more jobs, they must be able to recruit and retain the best talent in the world,” said Rep. Lofgren, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship. “This becomes increasingly difficult when workers from high-population countries must compete for the same limited number of visas as workers from low-population countries.”
Rep. Lofgren said the bill would phase-in a visa system whereby “the applicant’s nationality is irrelevant, providing relief to individuals who have waited for a green card for years, if not decades, while they continue to work and contribute to our economy.”
The proposed bill also would remove an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China and would establish transition rules for employment-based visas from fiscal year 2020 to FY 2022 by reserving a percentage of EB-2, EB-3, and EB-5 visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas. Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85 percent would be allotted to immigrants from any single country.
“It’s time to ease the backlogs and leverage the talent and expertise of our high-skilled immigrants who help strengthen the U.S. economy and fill knowledge gaps in certain fields,” said Rep. Buck, the subcommittee’s ranking member. “These are people who have helped America grow and thrive as a nation of immigrants and we need to make sure our system continues to value those who are following our laws and doing the right thing.”
Feist, in fact, said she personally prefers handling National Interest Waiver green card cases, which fall into the EB-2 category.
“These are cases for exceptional individuals whose work is directly tied to the U.S. national interest and who contribute in a unique way to that interest,” she explained, noting case examples she’s handled in the fields of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery; credit card security technology; statistical analysis of STEM education in U.S. high schools; infectious diseases research for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state departments of health; and a broad array of biomedical research specializations.
“These cases directly infuse the United States with exceptionally talented, dedicated professionals whose work must be directly tied to the U.S. national interest in order to be approved,” Feist said.
One particular National Interest Waiver case Feist said she handled involved a self-employed businessman. The case is notable, she said, because the company he founded was the basis for his green card approval and it has since grown to employ more than 100 professionals.
Another example is the Conrad 30 Waiver Program, which Feist said also feeds into the Physicians National Interest Waiver green card category.
“These immigration procedures facilitate the transfer of highly educated medical specialists into Health Professional Shortage Areas/Medically Underserved Areas, and VA hospitals for an extended period of time as part of their journey to permanent residence,” she said. “This is why rural areas often have foreign physicians who completed residencies at top U.S. hospitals before relocating. This is an extraordinarily successful program that utilizes immigration to directly address unmet needs of American citizens.”
Feist also pointed to the H-1B Program and the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) Training Fee that accompanies each sponsorship. It is $750 for companies with one to 25 full-time staff or $1,500 for companies with 26 or more full-time staff.
The ACWIA Training Fee has collectively resulted in nearly 90,000 college scholarships for U.S. workers, and raised nearly $5 billion toward funding and training for Americans in STEM fields, Feist said.
And according to an April policy brief published by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), immigrants have started more than half of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more and are key members of management or product development teams in more than 80 percent of these companies.
“Employers have paid nearly $5 billion in mandated H-1B fees (currently $1,500 per a new or extended H-1B petition) that primarily fund scholarships for U.S. students and training for U.S. workers, a figure that rises to over $7 billion if one includes $1.6 billion in mandated anti-fraud fees and other government fees,” according to NFAP’s policy brief.
The foundation goes on to say that “although critics have argued H1B visa holders represent “cheap labor,” employers pay government-imposed fees and attorney costs of up to $16,560 for an initial H-1B petition and $28,620 for the combined cost of an initial H-1B petition and an extension. In addition, immigration law requires that H-1B visa holders must be paid salaries commensurate with similar U.S. workers.”
Generally, when asked if any of the aforementioned programs should be expanded and/or improved, Feist said she’d like to see “an entire immigration system that has room to breathe.”
For instance, Feist suggested that instead of creating specific quotas and limits on the types and categories of visas and green cards, the United States would create a system whereby the agencies would periodically recalibrate U.S. immigration numbers based on outside indicators set by Congress through an immigration statute, such as GDP, unemployment rates, unmet healthcare needs, specific growing or shrinking sectors of the economy, homeland security needs, etc.
“By doing this, we can periodically expand and contract and adjust immigration strategies and levels to address the ever-evolving realities of our nation,” said Feist. “If we can create a flexible, adjustable system based on objective metrics, we will not have to wait another 30 years for Congress to agree on a comprehensive immigration bill that will once again become obsolete.”