Watson Law Offices Newsletter
May 2012
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EB-2 India and China Annual Immigrant Visa Limit Reached for FY2012
| |  No more immigrant visa numbers will be available in these categories until after October 1, 2012 The American Immigration Lawyers Association has confirmed with the State Department that the annual limit of immigrant visas in the EB-2 category for China-mainland born and India has been reached.
AILA recently released the following statement:
The State Department notified USCIS on April 11, 2012, that no further visas for those categories would be authorized. This is the "additional corrective action" that was forecast as a possibility in Section D of the May 2012 Visa Bulletin. USCIS will continue to accept adjustment applications based upon cut-off dates published in the April and May Visa Bulletins. However, requests from USCIS service centers and field offices for visas in the EB-2 category aliens chargeable to China-mainland born or India will be retained by DOS for authorization in FY2013, beginning on October 1, 2012.
This means that any Applications for Adjustment of Status filed by second-preference applicants born in mainland China or India pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will not be processed until after October 1, 2012.
The law allocates at least 140,000 immigrant visas each fiscal year for beneficiaries of employment-based immigrant visa petitions. 28.6% of these visas are set aside for beneficiaries in the second-preference category (EB-2). However, no more than 7% of immigrant visas may be used by any one country.
The rapid movement in these categories for the last several Visa Bulletins has created significant demand. The total possible number of visas that could be issued for these two categories has been reached.
The new fiscal year begins on October 1st. The quota for immigrant visas will be reset, and more immigrant visas should become available. The October 2012 Visa Bulletin, which will be issued in early September, should provide us more information about how much movement will be possible.
If you fall into one of these categories and you currently have an Adjustment of Status application pending with USCIS, it will remain pending until after October 1st. It is important to discuss your options with your immigration attorney to make sure you are maintaining valid status, that you can work, and that you can travel.
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46,200 H-1B Cap-Subject Petitions Already Received
| |  Filings continue to pour in
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is now reporting the current H-1B Cap Count as of May 4, 2012.
Each Fiscal Year, the government may only issue 65,000 new H-1B visas. An additional 20,000 are set aside for graduates of U.S. Master's degree programs.
The first month of filings has showed the most significant usage in several years. As of May 4th, 32,500 Cap-Subject petitions had been received by USCIS for the 2013 Fiscal Year H-1B quota. 13,700 petitions that qualify for the U.S. Master's Exemption have also been received. More than half of the U.S. Master's Exemption has been used up.
USCIS began accepting petitions for the 2013 Cap on April 2nd. In the past, the quota for H-1B visas was exhausted within days, but that has not been the case for the last couple of years. In FY 2012, the cap was not reached until late November 2011. However, usage has already increased significantly this year, and current projections predict that this year's quota will be used up by June 2012.
If you are an employer interested in hiring a foreign worker under the FY 2013 H-1B Cap, now is the time to contact us! |
Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Controversial Arizona Immigration Law
| |  Judges appear to accept many of the contested provisions
In April, the Supreme Court heard arguments from the Obama Administration and the State of Arizona over four of the provisions in the controversial immigration enforcement law (SB 1070) passed by the state in 2010. These provisions of the law have been struck down by lower courts, but the initial reactions of the Justices suggest that the Court could uphold many of them.
Much of the controversy over the law focuses on the claim that the law will promote racial profiling. While others argue that it is simply not good for business or the Arizona economy and question whether or not a State has the right to enact laws addressing what has traditionally been seen as the responsibility of the Federal Government.
A ruling is not expected until June. However, the affects of the enforcement-focused law have already been seen in Arizona and in many other states who have passed similar bills or are drafting immigration enforcement bills of their own. Over 100,000 undocumented workers have left Arizona since the bill was passed, affecting the businesses that employed them, the stores where they shopped, the landlords they rented from, and the State to which they paid taxes. Other states have reported similar consequences of their new laws. After the passage of Alabama's even more draconian law, farmers have reported crops rotting in their fields, while national headlines lit up with reports of the embarrassing arrests of a German Mercedes Benz executive and a Japanese Honda employee, both working legally in the state.
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This is an effort on our part to reach out to our larger community of friends, colleagues, current and former clients and anyone interested in Immigration Law. We expect there will be a strong push to make changes to existing Immigration Laws in the coming months and years, and we will try to keep our subscribers informed not only as to what changes are taking place, but how they are likely to impact everyone.
We welcome your input on what we should include, and how we should present this information. Please let us know what you think and what you would like to see. Also, please share this email with anyone whom you think would be interested in and benefit from this information.
THANK YOU!
Sincerely,
ROY J. WATSON, JR.
Watson Law Offices
142 Great Road
Bedford, MA 01730
rjw@watson-law.com
(781)533-7700 |
The information you obtain in this newsletter is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice, and persons receiving this information should not act on it without consulting professional legal counsel. We invite you to contact us and welcome your calls, letters and electronic mail.
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