I140 EAD AP - Public Comments - Sample Comments Template
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I140 EAD AP - Public Comments - Sample Comments Template
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I140 EAD AP - Public Comments - Sample Comments Template
- 1. To, Date: Laura Dawkins, Chief, Regulatory Coordination Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, 20 Massachusetts Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20529 Subject: Comments on Retention of EB–1, EB–2, and EB–3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers. Rule Making of RIN 1615AC05, DHS Docket No. USCIS20150008 Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to comment and highlight my concerns with the proposed rule meant to to provide relief to skilled legal immigrants who are waiting for green cards with approved LPR petitions. Our excitement when President Obama announced the EO on Nov 20th, 2014 was short lived. I would like to register my strong opposition to the rule in its current form as it fails to address the problems of the skilled immigrants stuck in GC backlog while they continue to face insecurity along with career stagnation while waiting to file Adjustment of Status. This proposed rule does very little to address these issues What are the issues with the current legal immigration system? The current highskilled nonimmigrant and immigrant system is outdated and broken and has failed to change with the changing times. The broken employmentbased legal immigration system is designed to make sure that Americans can be discriminated in the job marketplace by making employees from certain countries more attractive to employers. The whole system ensures that highskilled workers from certain countries are unable to change jobs for long periods of time while waiting for green cards. And as direct consequence of having to wait for many years (rather many decades in vast majority of cases), it is a fact the immigration regulations (not laws) are artificially designed in a manner to artificially restrict immigrant employees from being able to change employer for many years (often decades). This type of employeeemployer relationship gives absolute control to employers, whereby making immigrant workers more attractive over American workers.
- 2. What was documented in the Executive Order? The specific sections of the Executive Action are: "Providing portable work authorization for highskilled workers awaiting LPR status and their spouses. Under the current system, employees with approved LPR applications often wait many years for their visa to become available. DHS will make regulatory changes to allow these workers to move or change jobs more easily. DHS is finalizing new rules to give certain H1B spouses employment authorization as long as the H1B spouse has an approved LPR application. Ensuring that individuals with lawful status can travel to their countries of origin. DHS will clarify its guidance to provide greater assurance to individuals with a pending LPR application or certain temporary status permission to travel abroad with advance permission ("parole")." The fact sheet published by the White House acknowledges that current artificial regulations and green card backlogs unfairly prevent highskilled workers with approved immigrant petition to change employer and jobs. The White House fact sheet also recognizes that DHS has the authority to change these artificial regulations such that highskilled immigrants with approved LPR application will be granted portable work authorization to move or change jobs. Additionally it also states DHS’s ability to clarify guidance so that individuals with pending LPR application to be granted Advance Parole to travel abroad. What are the issues with the proposed rule? This proposed rule does not make an attempt to change this situation in spite of what was proposed in the President’s Executive Action as well as Secretary Jeh Johnson’s letter to USCIS. This rule strongly favors the employers and their lawyers rather than the employee. An applicant can qualify for EAD under 2 circumstances: 1. An applicant needs to have “compelling circumstance” to qualify for EAD. The compelling circumstances are provided in the proposed rule. The proposed “Compelling Circumstance” required to be eligible to qualify for EAD is too strict and it is presumed that very few will qualify for these. USCIS also reserves the right to adjudicate a “compelling circumstance” making the process more confusing for the applicant. 2. Even if an applicant qualifies for an EAD under “compelling circumstance”, in order to qualify for an extension, the applicant will need another “compelling circumstance” or must be within 1 year of his Priority Date being current in the Visa Bulletin. Any high skilled immigrant stuck in Green Card backlog as well as USCIS themselves know how unpredictable the cutoff date movement in the Visa Bulletin is. (See the enclosure 1). It is impossible for an applicant to predict that when it will be time for him to renew his EAD if his PD will be 1 year from cutoff date in the Visa Bulletin. Even USCIS themselves cannot predict where the cutoff dates themselves will be 1 year from now as it is dependent on a lot of other factors. This will further discourage an applicant to apply for EAD.
- 3. 3. In this proposed rule, USCIS has said that they expect around 155,000 will qualify for EAD, yet have failed to provide any methodology as to how they arrived at this projection. I think this number is grossly overestimated to show a false benefit of this rule to the high skilled immigrant. Here are the changes that this rule needs to stay true to the EO's original intent: 1. Provide immediate Employment Authorization (EAD) and Advance Parole (AP) to everyone who has an approved I140 for more than 180 days and eliminate the “compelling circumstance” to qualify for EAD. Someone who is not born in one of the backlogged countries can avail this and this should be provided to all skilled workers irrespective of country of birth. When someone has an approved PERM and an approved I140 (Immigrant Petition), it has been proven that the company requires that person’s skills and hence, have applied for his/her Permanent Residency. So, why should someone’s country of birth be a barrier in that? If someone from Pakistan or Iran can get EAD/AP with an approved I140 and can change jobs or take a promotion after 180 days, why can’t a skilled worker born in China or India? . These backlogs are unjustly hurt people from a few countries only (China, India, Philippines, Mexico) and individuals from these countries are stuck in the same jobs without an ability to change employers, start their own business or even take promotions within the same company severely harming their career growth. This also makes the employee more attractive to the employer than a US citizen with the same skills as he/she is unlikely to leave the company once the Green Card is in process which could be more than a decade’s wait. 2. Eliminate the need to reapply for PERM and I140 if someone takes another job with an approved I140 as long as the job is “same or similar”. This is one of the prime reasons for skilled workers not taking better job offers. They have to start their GC process all over again. Eliminating this process helps the workers and well as help US maintain the competitive edge. USCIS/ DHS should realize that it is incredibly shortsighted to infer that an ability to take a new job due to a (visa transfer) + (refile of PERM) + (refile of I140) + (same or similar clarification) is not the same as having an Employment Authorization. In fact equating the two just indicates that people who drafted this rule are either incredibly naive or really sinister in their intentions. Asking prospective employers for visa transfers and restarting the immigration process instantly puts a lot of job opportunities out of the reach of candidates while having an EAD creates minimal burden on both the new employer and the employee and thereby makes the candidate more desirable. Forcing legal immigrants to go through the process again just creates an endless stream of revenue for the legal firms and most importantly suppresses wages and hurts the American workers because immigrants continue to be exploited like slaves with no freedom. I do support some of the regulations clarifications in this proposed rule: I140 ownership by the immigrant, 60 day grace period in case of job loss, I140 portability even in case of withdrawal) but I would like to state these there are current practices that are just being formally codified. So in that sense, these are nothing new These were long overdue codifications of the processes that USCIS already practiced and hopefully they will eliminate any inconsistencies in the future.
- 4. I would like to add that since they already have PERM and an I140 approved proving that they get the market wages, no Americans were displaced by their hiring and that their skills are required by the sponsoring company. The only reason these people are waiting patiently in line is because of the broken and outdated immigration laws which judges skilled workers based on their country of birth. By providing them EAD and AP, USCIS will grant them the same status as other skilled workers get who are not born in a backlogged country. Finally, why do undocumented individuals get Employment Authorization cards (a case that the Government and Agency hopes to defend successfully in the Supreme Court) while legal immigrants have to continue to file and refile their papers while getting stuck in a nonimmigrant visa without any Employment Authorization. It is absolutely corrupt and outrageous to ask legal immigrants for "Compelling Circumstances" while the bar is set different for undocumented individuals. By the same yardstick, legal Immigrants should simply be granted their EAD. I am hoping that the administration looks at the comments and makes appropriate fixes to this rule asap. It is still not late to do the right thing! Sincerely, Name: City, State: Enclosure 1: A medium article on how broken the immigration system is Enclosure 2: European Union’s Blue Card programme to attract highly skilled immigrants Like the Green cards that are issued to foreign workers in the United States, the EU Blue cards are common sense work authorization which would bring workers to the European Union. The plan calls for admission of an additional 20 million Asian, African and Latin American workers in the next two decades. EU hopes that the proposal would divert the flow of skilled migrants from developing countries who have been choosing the United States over Europe. It is irony that while the rest of the developed countries are proposing ways to modernize the immigration system to attract highly talented, US skilled immigration system continues to be broken and skewed towards benefitting employers and displacing american born workers. Tieing employees to employers for decades, absolute ‘Indentured servitude’ nature of H1B are so outdated and doesn’t do good for the economy. The proposed rule RIN 1615AC05 simply benefits corporates and lawyers by preferring H1B immigrant over american born worker by depressing wages, and control over H1B worker. You must refer to the ‘Bluecard’ policies to see how the common sense immigration system should be structured. http://www.bluecardeu.de/eubluecardgermany/
- 5. This Is What Waiting for an Employment-Based Green Card Looks Like August 2015 marked the start of my nineteenth year as a legal resident in the United States. I went to school for six of those years and have worked legally in the country for more than twelve years. I’ve helped build a company that has improved access to high quality, affordable healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Americans. I’ve helped create jobs on U.S. soil. I’ve helped modernize inpatient care for a health system that is world-renowned for its quality of care. Now, I lead pioneering work that enables healthcare providers to deliver care that focuses on prevention — something the U.S. healthcare system needs to reduce costs. But I’m still waiting for freedom — the freedom that only a green card can provide. When people ask me how much longer I have to wait for a green card, I have this graphic ready to show them. This is what the “line” in the employment- based legal immigration system looks like. Depending on the month, my expected wait time for a green card could be two months — or six years. Enclosure 1
- 6. As an analogy, imagine sitting at the DMV, waiting for your number to show up on the monitor. Let’s say your number is 100. The monitor shows 99, but then jumps back to 10. That would be frustrating right? That’s how the employment-based immigration “line” behaves. I guarantee you that if the line at the DMV worked the same way, people would be driving around without licenses, not driving, or riding around on bicycles with a megaphone telling others that the system is broken. I would likely be in the third category. But the “line” above doesn’t tell my whole story. I started the employment-based permanent residency process in 2006 while working for a top-tier management consulting firm. Strangely, their immigration counsel did not get me a number to wait in line during my tenure at that firm. While working for that firm, a client offered me to work directly for them. Had I accepted that offer in 2006 instead of sticking around, I would likely be a U.S. citizen by now. Friends that worked at other companies who started their process in 2006 became permanent residents in 2010 and 2011 and are U.S. citizens now. So it isn’t just a dysfunctional and outdated system that I’ve faced: questionable handling of my permanent residency application while working for a large multinational corporation set my freedom in this country back by several years as well. The story of my expected wait in the employment-based Green Card “line”
- 7. Why is the wait so long? After going to school here and contributing to the U.S. economy for over a decade, I’m still subjected to huge amounts of paperwork to stay in the country legally and still face the risk of self-deportation without ever having an opportunity to return to work here. Traveling overseas to visit family comes with the risk of not being able to return. The travel restrictions while I’ve been in the process have forced me to spend unreasonably long periods of time away from immediate family. For instance, I’ve gone almost two years without seeing my parents and almost three years without seeing my younger brother. My most recent trip to India was a striking example of what I have to go through when visiting immediate family. Having spent almost 17 years without celebrating Diwali, a religious festival, with my family, I decided to break that trend and make an annual effort to visit them during the festival. This year, to make sure I could return to the United States, I had to make an appointment at the U.S. consulate in Chennai, India to attend an interview and get a visa stamp in my passport. That stamp would allow me to re-enter the United States to continue working. To get that stamp, I had to spend two days of my short visit to India in Chennai — a city where I have no friends or relatives. On the first day, I provided electronic fingerprints and got a photo taken. On the second day, I attended an interview carrying a pile of paperwork documenting my history in the United States. During the interview, the consular officer, who acted very professionally and had a kind demeanor, grimaced when he heard I was still waiting for my green card. Coincidentally, this was the same consulate where I attended an interview more than 18 years ago to get my student visa. Back then, I was excited to begin my journey. Never did I imagine that my legal pathway to citizenship would last more than 18 years and counting and that I’d be back at the same consulate renewing a work visa to extend my legal stay from 18 to 21 years. Me in my favorite city
- 8. Waiting in line also comes with incredible professional constraints, such as the inability to easily accept promotions and change jobs. I cannot easily start a company. There have been years I’ve spent in underemployment because I could not change employers without having to restart key parts of the green card process from scratch. Why is this wait so long? At this point, there’s one and only one reason why I’m still waiting and subjected to these constraints: because of where I was born. I cannot control where I was born any more than the color of my skin. Because the system judges me on country of birth and outdated merit-based criteria, coming from a populous country I’ve had to wait in line much, much longer than someone that was born in a less populous country like, say, Pakistan. In fact, had I been born in Pakistan, I would have been a permanent resident at least five years ago, and a citizen by now. President Obama is AWESOME for issuing executive orders to bring relief On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced executive orders that would modernize and streamline the legal immigration system. Those executive actions will provide more freedom to those like me caught in this archaic system; basic freedoms such as the ability to more easily change employers and accept promotions, allowing for greater contributions to the U.S. economy. While my turn to claim those freedoms has not arrived, the first batch of employment-based immigrants waiting in line were able to file for those freedoms on October 1, 2015. But there’s more that can be done to make the system work better for the U.S. economy — and only Congress can do it America is at its best when individuals are at their best, and we need an immigration system that allows that. An immigration system that stimulates entrepreneurship and innovation — not one that facilitates indentured servitude and puts an immigrant at the mercy of questionable immigration counsel retained by a large corporation. A system that rewards immigrants for job creation through successful startups on U.S. soil — not just one that rewards immigrants at multinational corporations for creating jobs overseas. A system that retains the best and brightest graduating from U.S. universities — not one that increasingly drives them away to other countries that compete against us. And a system that strengthens the bond of family — not one that weakens it through unreasonable periods of forced separation.
- 9. The last major change to the high-skilled employment-based immigration system occurred in 1990; it is obsolete and does not meet the needs of U.S. employers nor the economy; and because it’s not a smart system, imposes injustice on certain skilled immigrants. It is time to update this archaic system. And that doesn’t necessarily mean letting in more high-skilled immigrants every year. The bar to qualify for a green card can be raised and the system can be made smarter without adding a single immigrant to the annual high-skilled employment-based green card quota. There’s more that can be done to make the system work better for the U.S. economy and only Congress can do it. Go to my story on FWD.us to find out how you can push Congress to act. This essay is part of the My Time in Line series, in which immigrants are sharing their experiences of what it’s really like to get legal status.
- 11. 1/16/2016 Eu Blue Card http://www.bluecardeu.de/eubluecardgermany/ 2/2 Owners of the EU blue card have the right, after having stayed in Germany for 18 months, to move to another country of the EU. Will the duration of stay in another state of the EU be considered concerning the permanent right of residence? If the foreigner has already stayed in another EUmember state with the EU blue card, this will be considered concerning the permanent right of residence in Germany. Is it necessary to carry out a visa procedure to move around in the EU? If the foreigner wants to move on in the EU, he / she can be sure that in almost all EU member states a visa is not necessary. The application can be made at home. In Germany the application must be made within one month after entering Germany. Is a priority check carried out? Are members of the German job market treated better? Check of priority means that a check will be done to see whether German employees are potential candidates for the job. Such a check is done within the salary borders. But there will be a check of the working conditions. If a salary of at least € 37.752 will be paid there will be a priority check for non shortage occupations, so the EU blue card can be given. Can relatives of the EU blue card owners work without limits in Germany? Relatives of the owners of the EU blue card can work without delay and without limits in Germany. Do spouses need to have proof of German language knowledge? The spouse is not required to have proof of German language knowledge. Even simple knowledge of the German language is not necessary for marriage partners. Immigration to Germany For more information about the topic immigration to Germany have a look at this site: immigration to germany. There you can read in detail which visa is necessary for entering Germany, you can inform yourself about the different kinds of residence permit and about the subsequent family immigration. © Verein Für soziales Leben e.V. Impressum Layout based on YAML Facebook Google Plus eu-blue-card + 130 Follow +1 Am 1. August 2012 werden die neuen Regelungen im AufenthG zur Blue Card wirksam. 18 Jul 2012 Der Bundestag hat die Einführung der EU Blue Card in Deutschland gebilligt. Die Regelungen finden sich... Be the first of your friends to like this EUBlueCard 1,645 likes Like Page Share
- 12. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Take print out of this file 2. Write date on top right corner and sign the letter 3. Write your name, City & state at the bottom 4. Cut out the addresses provided below 5. If you have more than one person your household, please repeat the same. Send one letter for each person in your house, like spouse, father, mother, kids etc. 6. Ask at least five (5) of your friends to send these letters. Laura Dawkins, Chief, Regulatory Coordination Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ref: DHS Docket No. USCIS20150008 Department of Homeland Security, 20 Massachusetts Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20529 Important Note: Please write your FROM address in the envelope. Apparently the envelopes without from address go through severe screening process because of Anthrax threats. Due to this addition security clearance process the mails take as much as 2 weeks to reach the destination. This was brought to our attention by our members.