House Passes Bill to End Per-Country Limitations for Employment-Based Immigrant Visas
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 Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 (H.R. 3012) passed by the House with a strong majority
The Associated Press has reported that the Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 (full text) was passed with an overwhelming majority - 389-15 - in the House of Representatives on November 29th. The bill now moves into the Senate, where the head of the Senate Judiciary panel on immigration, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), hopes to move it through as quickly as possible.
If passed, the bill would dramatically change the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by eliminating the per-country limitations for employment-based immigrant visas. The current law prevents the government from issuing more than 7% of the approximately 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas issued each year to nationals of any one country. This has resulted in long backlogs for nationals of countries with large populations - India and China in particular.
Many reports have been released recently expressing the disadvantages caused by the per-country limitations, which leave some foreign nationals waiting decades for a green card. The per-country limitations have also been cited as the cause of "reverse brain drain" in the U.S., as some highly-educated foreign students who earn U.S. degrees choose to return home to pursue their career goals, instead of working in the U.S. and waiting in long backlogs for a green card.
The Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 would remove this restriction for employment-based visas from the INA and will be phased in over a three year period. Instead, employment-based immigrant visas would be issued on a first-come, first-serve basis. HOWEVER, no additional visas would be added to the total annual quota.
The removal of this limitation would somewhat ease the unacceptably burdensome wait times imposed on nationals of India and China. As a consequence, however, we would anticipate that this change would result in dramatic backlogs for the worldwide visa category, possibly adding years to the process for nationals of other countries.
The bill will also change the per-country limitations for family-based immigrant visas, but not eliminate them altogether. Currently, the family-based per-country limitation is also 7% of the total number of visas issued in that quota each year. Under the new bill, this percentage would be increased to 15%. This change would shave time off the long wait for foreign family members from Mexico and the Philippines, but also could increase the wait times for other nationals.
It is generally our office's policy not to comment on potential legislation being debated in Congress, because a bill can, as this one likely will, go through many changes before it becomes law, if it is passed at all. However, we decided to alert all clients to this bill because of the important changes it could make. If the Senate passes the bill, it very well could be the most significant change to U.S. immigration law since the 1990s.
We are following its progress closely and will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
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