Tag: immigration policy

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Another reason why the US needs to review the H-1B visa policy

Another reason why the US needs to review the H-1B visa policy
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A new study has been released pointing to the benefits of expanding the United States’ H-1B visa policy.

Let’s first discuss the H-1B: The H-1B is a visa in the US that allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. 

An H-1B worker’s spouse and children can accompany the worker to the US by obtaining H-4 visas, which are not visas that allow them to work in the US.

The study found, however, that most H-1B visa holders are married to skilled workers. The problem is that most of them only have H-4 visas.

To be allowed to work, these spouses need to wait for their H-1B spouses being on queue for a permanent visa, which would then allow them to apply for employment authorization. This can be a wait that takes years.

In the study of the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), the US H-1B rules were compared to equivalent rules in Canada, and found that it could lead to a brain drain for the US.

This is because under Canada rules, all spouses of skilled workers are also granted work authorization.

A change in policy to allow spouses to work, according to the study, would mean economic benefits for American businesses. 

“Research has shown that the H-1B visa category boosts US economic growth, creates jobs for American workers, and slows offshoring of high-paid jobs. Extending work eligibility to the spouses of H-1B visa holders would help the United States garner more of the economic benefits that skilled foreign workers create,” the study said.

For advice on H-1B visas and work authorizations, consult a trusted immigration lawyer.

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New CDC Policy: Covid-19 Vaccine Required for Green Card Applicants

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Starting October 1, 2021, applicants for immigrant visas or green cards whose applications are pending before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and or the U.S. Embassies are required to show proof that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

This new policy was released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will be applicable to applicants who complete their Medical Examination or their Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record on or after October 1, 2021.  If the medical examination or I-693 was completed before October 1, 2021, and remains valid, proof of COVID-19 vaccination will not be required.

Applicants for green cards who refuse the vaccine and do not qualify for any of the CDCs limited exemptions will be deemed inadmissible and be denied their visas.

Vaccinations that are recognized as valid are the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine.  If none of these vaccinations are available in the country of origin of the applicant, CDC will accept different-COVID-19 vaccines as recommended by its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

There are waivers and exemptions from the vaccine requirement that may be applied.  CDC will waive COVID-19 vaccine requirement for individuals who are too young to safely receive vaccines and for people with contraindications, i.e., health conditions that indicate that s/he is likely to have a severe adverse reaction to the vaccine. It can also be waived for individuals from countries with no or limited COVID-19 vaccine supplies.

Exemptions of this requirement may be applied for visa applicants who refuse the vaccine based on religious or moral grounds. However, no exemption will be provided to those who claim that they contracted COVID-19 and are still immune to the virus.

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7 Immigration Policy Changes Important to Filipinos

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On his first day in office, President Joe Biden will introduce hundreds of pages of immigration executive orders that will cover most of the policies he pledged to change. With several provisions that are proposed, the more than 4 million Filipinos residing in the United States and their relatives still waiting to migrate are looking forward to major change in policies. Below are 7 immigration related agenda that may have the most impact for Filipinos.

1. The DACA Program

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are immigrants who arrived in the United States at a very young age. After several attempts to pass legislation to confer legal status to this category of immigrants and the failure of Congress to pass law, former President Obama issued an Executive Order giving these young immigrants protection from deportation and issuing them employment authorization. When President Trump came into office in 2017, one of his first executive actions was to rescind the DACA program. More than 800,000 DACA recipients were affected by Trump’s rescission of the program. Court litigation ensued and the Supreme Court affirmed the legality of the DACA program. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services started implementing the DACA protections to initial applicants, it did so only a few months ago leaving thousands of DACA recipients still in limbo about their status.

During this pandemic crisis, more than 200,000 DACA recipients are considered essential workers. Thus, in the Biden proposal, green cards or permanent immigrant visas will be granted to DACA recipients with a pathway to U.S. citizenship in three (3) years.

2. FWVP Program

More than 200,000 Filipinos were conscripted to join the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II (WWII)when the Philippines was still a territory of the United States. Under the War Powers Act, those who fought under the American flag may be entitled to apply for U.S. citizenship. All 66 allied countries nationals who fought side by side with the Americans during WWII were able to obtain U.S. citizenship but not the Filipino Veterans. A 1946 Rescission Act was enacted declassifying their services during WWII as not considered services for purposes of the veteran benefits. Hundreds of thousands of veterans lost their opportunities to apply for U.S. citizenship until 1990, when the Immigration and Nationality Act was enacted allowing belatedly the then 70 and 80 year old veterans to apply for U.S. citizenship.

As soon as they became U.S. citizens, they started filing petitions for their children. As the system in place takes more than 20 years to be current due to the severe backlog, most of the veterans who came in 1990s have already passed away. In the last 5 years, approximately 8,000 veterans are still alive but they have been slowly reducing in numbers. The Obama Administration proposed a Parole program specifically for the families of the veterans to enter the United States and be reunited with their veteran parents who are now of advanced age and sickly. This parole program is the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program. This Program only has a 5 year validity until 2021. Last December 2020, the Trump administration issued a notice to rescind the FWVP after 60 days of comment period. President Biden should consider supporting legislation that will give immediate green card status to families of the veterans; or, if not, extend the FWVP program.

3. Family Reunification

Family unity is very important to immigrants, and this applies most specially to Filipino immigrants. Petitioning immediate relatives by U.S. citizens is faster than petitioning adult children and siblings. For those being Petitioned from the Philippines the waiting period for visas to become available for adult married children and siblings of U.S. citizens takes approximately 20 years. And for those who are unmarried adult children, the waiting period is approximately 10 years.

With the pandemic crisis, even those whose visas are available who waited more than 20 years are not being processed at the U.S. Embassy because of the Trump Presidential Orders banning certain immigrants from entering the United States. Visa applications of parents and fiances of U.S. citizens are also put on hold at the U.S. Embassy. President Biden should reform the immigration system by adding more visas to the Family based category to reduce the backlog and make it faster for U.S. citizens or green card holders to petition their family members. Trump’s Presidential Proclamations 10014 and 10052 banning the entry of immigrants and processing of their visas at the U.S. Embassy must be revisited and rescinded.

4. Pathway to Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants

About 2% of the 11 million undocumented immigrants are unauthorized Filipino immigrants. These are mostly those who fell into the cracks because of the broken immigration system leaving them no option to legalize their status. These unauthorized immigrants are with their family members in the U.S., are hardworking and regularly pay taxes. It is just an opportune time to provide them a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

The Biden administration is introducing the immigration reform bill that will allow unauthorized immigrants an 8 years pathway to citizenship by granting them green cards after 5 five years and allowing them to obtain U.S. citizenship in 3 years. This proposal is the centerfold of the immigration bill introduced by Biden and needs to be passed by Congress to become effective.

5. Public Charge Rule

One of the salient feature of the Trump legacy on immigration is not just curbing illegal immigration but also legal immigration. Deeply disguised as promoting national interest, the public charge rule also known as the wealth test prohibits the grant of immigrant visa if the petitioner or the beneficiary does not have enough financial resources to show that the beneficiary will not rely on public assistance for their subsistence. Restrictive rules were issued making it difficult for US citizens with meager income to be reunited with their families. There is also the 2019 Trump “uninsured ban” rule where those coming to the United States must be able to show proof within 30 days of arrival that they have health care insurance coverage. All these restrictive rules have become barriers to lawful immigration and it is cloaked in a way that benefits the U.S. when in fact it is based on the Trump administration’s assumption that immigrants are a drain to the nation’s resources. This has to change. Most of Filipino immigrant families are educated and bring their skills and knowledge to flourish and succeed in this country. President Biden should rescind the restrictive changes made by the Trump administration related to the public charge rule.

6. Healthcare Workers

During this global pandemic, the Filipino immigrants who are admired most as heroes are our health care workers. We have many Filipino caregivers, physical therapists, medical practitioners and nurses. These essential workers have proven their worth especially during this time of crisis. Current immigration law makes it difficult for most healthcare workers to obtain their immigrant visas. Even when the priority dates for employment-based third preference became current for Philippine nationals, it is usually still subject to long delays of months or years for the healthcare professionals to migrate to the United States. The increasing need for the essential healthcare workers had never been critical and President Biden should consider re-establishing a temporary visa category for nurses like before such as the H1C and H1A visas. This category will make it faster for healthcare workers to enter the United States.

7. Other Employment Based Visas

Philippines was included again in the list of those countries eligible to participate in a temporary working visa program or the H2B. Realizing how it will be in the best interest of the U.S. to make sure that the Filipinos are added to the workforce in the construction of military bases in Guam. This is a positive development. But also, there are Filipinos who are holders of H1B, J and L visas that have been affected by the Presidential Proclamation banning them from entering except those covered by litigation. President Biden should rescind this proclamation and reverse the H1B regulatory changes that Trump released prior to his departure from the White House.

All 7 immigration issues are just a few of the immigration priorities of the Biden Administration. As we maintain our faith in the new administration, we also hope that the Democratic led Congress will find it a priority to pass the Biden’s immigration reform bill for all these provisions to have a meaningful impact on our Filipino immigrants and their families.

(Atty. Lourdes Santos Tancinco, Esq. is a San Francisco based immigration attorney and an immigrant rights advocate. She may be reached at 1 888 930 0808, law@tancinco.com, or facebook.com/tancincolaw, or through her firm’s website at www.tancinco.com)

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What Changes in Immigration Policies are Expected under a new Biden Administration?

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As President Joe Biden takes his oath of office on January 20, 2020, the immigrant community is looking forward to a new vision of the United States as a more welcoming country. After 4 years of cruel and inhumane immigration policies specifically relating to asylum restrictions, interior enforcement and separation of children at the border, a more compassionate administration is taking over. President Biden plans to rescind asylum restrictive policies, reform the parole programs and improve the immigration system, among others.

Below are some of the main focal points of the proposed immigration changes.

Pathway to Citizenship for the 11 Million Unauthorized Immigrants

On his first day of office, President Biden will roll out a comprehensive immigration bill that will provide a pathway to U.S. citizenship for long time residents and those who have been present in the United States without legal status. The bill will cover those immigrants who have been in the United States as of January 1, 2021. The proposed legislation will have an eight (8) year pathway where qualifying immigrants will have temporary status for five(5) years and then they will be granted green cards after meeting certain qualifications which is payment of taxes and background checks among others. After being granted green cards, these immigrants will be able to apply for citizenship three (3) years thereafter.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and those in temporary protected status (TPS) program have a faster route to citizenship. They can apply for a green card immediately. DACA recipients are the children who arrived in the U.S. at a young age and have had no lawful status. With the DACA program, they are protected from being deported. TPS, on the other hand, refers to those immigrants from strife torn countries many of whom are from El Salvador.

100 Days Moratorium on Deportation

President Biden promised a moratorium on deportation during his first 100 days in office. Unlike the prior Trump administration where there was intense interior enforcement that caused fear in the immigration community, a moratorium on deportation will mean a more compassionate approach to dealing with unauthorized immigrants and most especially for those who have strong family ties in the United States and who do not have criminal case histories.

Reversing Trump’s Proclamations

President Biden pledged to move quickly to reverse several Trump proclamations. A memorandum is expected to be issued on his first day that will delay for 60 days the implementation of last minute regulations promulgated in the last days of the Trump presidency.

Three Presidential Proclamations must be reversed immediately. First, the two Presidential Proclamations (10014 and 10052) signed in April 2020 and June 2020 suspended entry of certain immigrants and non-immigrants to the United States following the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak. With certain exceptions, the latter Proclamation 10052 curtails the ability of H1B visa, H2B visa and L1 visa and certain categories of the J visa from entering the United States. These two proclamations while they were issued during the pandemic to avoid risk to the U.S. labor market are more a restriction on the entry of lawful immigrants especially for parents and adult children of U.S. citizens. Trump extended these two proclamations to be effective until March 31, 2021.

Aside from these Presidential Proclamations, there is also the October 2019 Proclamation referred to as the Uninsured Ban. This proclamation bars entry of immigrants without “approved” health insurance. Obviously, this was meant to curb legal immigration by making it harder for low income immigrants from reuniting with their immediate family members in the US.

The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the legality of these bans. President Biden must act to immediately reverse this Proclamation. However, despite a firm intent to invalidate Trump’s proclamations, it may not be a smooth process for the Biden administration given prior Court rulings. Reversing proclamations require the government to address the scope of authority and rationale behind the policies.

Bill Must Be Passed in Congress

The Biden Administration has a considerable number of priorities in his first 100 days. With the number of COVID-19 related casualties rising each day, President Biden will surely prioritize the Covid-19 issue and take clear measures to deal with the pandemic crisis. While the proposals and plans to change immigration policies are positive developments contrary to the prior anti-immigration agenda, it may not be easy to implement them without legislation passed in Congress. The hope is that the Democratic controlled Congress led by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer must take active roles in prioritizing the passage of the Biden immigration reform bill.

(Atty. Lourdes Santos Tancinco, Esq. is a San Francisco-based immigration attorney and an immigrant rights advocate. She may be reached at 1 888 930 0808, law@tancinco.com, facebook.com/tancincolaw, or through her firm’s website.)

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Trump calling PH a ‘terrorist nation’ is absurd

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At a campaign rally in Portland, Maine earlier this month, Presidential candidate Donald Trump discussed his plans to suspend the entry of nationals from terrorist nations into the United States because it’s too difficult to vet terrorists. In his speech, Mr. Trump listed the Philippines as one of the terrorist nations whose immigrants, or in Mr. Trump’s words – “animals”, have been arrested in the United States for terrorism-related offenses. Not only is Mr. Trump’s inclusion of the Philippines offensive considering the historical relationship between the Philippines and the United States, but it sends the wrong message to Filipino immigrants in the US and future immigrants from the Philippines.

The U.S. Department of State designates only three countries as states sponsoring terrorism – Iran, Syria and Sudan – and the Philippines is not one of them.

The United States and the Philippines have strong historical ties as allies. We were allies in the fight against fascism during World War II. During the cold war, the U.S. military bases were present in the Philippines for more than half a century. In the present war on terror, the Philippines entered into an agreement with the U.S. to allow U.S. soldiers to be stationed in some areas in the Philippines to train local forces on counter terror operations. So how can the Philippines be on the list as a terrorist nation? Was Mr. Trump referring to a dangerous terrorist group called Abu Sayyaf in Southern Philippines? This extremist group has been designated as a terrorist group even by the Philippine government together with other nations, like UK, Canada, Australia and the United States, among others. How can a terrorist group not be distinguished from a terrorist nation?

Filipinos have been coming to America for over 100 years. Filipino immigrants are one of the largest foreign-born groups in the United States. Latest census indicates that there are 3.4 million Filipinos (native- and foreign-born) which is the second largest Asian ethnic group in the United States.

Studies show that the median income of Filipino households headed by an immigrant was $82,370 as of 2013, far above the $53,000 of United States-born households.

Filipino Americans (most of whom are voters) have family members who are in the Philippines and a significant number of these Filipinos have pending petitions for their family members. Currently, there is a pending backlog of 400,000 petitions where applicants for visas have been patiently waiting for visa availability. Instead of barring admission based on assumptions, Presidential candidates should consider supporting federal legislative reforms that will eliminate the visa backlogs and create a more efficient immigration system for family members of U.S. citizens and residents. The changes must reflect policies that promote family unification, facilitate immigrant assimilation and boost economic growth.

Lawful Filipino immigrants who have played by the rules and who have contributed to the growth of this nation must be recognized.

In this war on terror, the Philippines and the United States are allies as they have been historically. On the immigration policy of admitting immigrants, both permanent and temporary, the vetting procedures for those who wish to enter the United States is quite extensive. The various levels of security checks that a person undergoes before being issued a temporary and permanent resident visa are comprehensive enough to determine who are threats to national security. If, in fact, the current vetting policy is not enough, the solution is certainly not to bar admission of nationals of a country who have always been an ally of the United States.

(Atty. Lourdes Santos Tancinco, Esq. is an immigration attorney with the Tancinco Law Offices, a San Francisco CA based law firm. She may be reached at 1 888 930 0808, law@tancinco.com, facebook.com/tancincolaw, or through her website tancinco.weareph.com/old)