Most people feel that the entire business of immigration is easy. The reality is that it is furthest from the truth. The adjudicators at USCIS, or the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services are determined to explode this myth, and that too at a record-setting pace.
The denial rate for L-1B petitions to transfer high-skilled employees into the United States went up, to a historic high of 35 percent in the FY 2014, according to data obtained from USCIS. It was just in 2006 that the denial rate for L1-B petitions was only 6 percent.
In order to transfer an employee with “specialized knowledge” and who possesses L1-B status into the United States an employer must first obtain an individual petition approval from the USCIS. Only after this is done that he can use the approved petition to obtain a visa from the US post abroad for the employee to gain entry to America. The increasingly high rate for L1-B petitions to transfer employees of Indian origin was at a remarkable rate of 56 per cent for FY 2012 to 2014,compared to an average denial rate of 13 per cent to transfer employees from all other countries during the same period.
Attorneys for the government in the United States are denying claims that the government is delaying its response to a ruling brought about by a federal judge that was issued last month. The ruling was issued last month against the President of the country, who planned to make millions of illegal immigrants eligible for lawful status and get access to work permits.
It was said that there was no need for the courts to rush as it was felt that there was no need for the courts to rush as there was no urgency in the approach that the federal government had taken to the litigation.
Lawyers are saying that far from taking a unhurried approach the government was moving as promptly as possible and was persistent in its obligation under federal court rules to seek relief from the district court in the first instance.
The President had pledged last month to be as “aggressive as he could” in the legal challenge to override Justice Hanen’s court ruling on the executive action.
A foreign national who wishes to become a lawful permanent resident and has been granted the privilege of living and working in the United States permanently can do so on the basis of a family member who is already a citizen of the country. An applicant desiring to become a lawful permanent resident must go through a multi-step process that is detailed below:
- The immigrant visa petition – I-130 Petition for Alien Relatives must be approved by USCIS. USCIS is the officiating body for all immigration procedures and stands for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The relative of the applicant who is also a sponsor files the petition; the petition should be followed by the proof of relationship with the relative.
- The Department of State will then verify whether the immigrant visa number is already available to the foreign applicant. If it is available it is implied that the immigrant applicant can apply to have one of the immigrant visa numbers assigned.
- If the immigrant applicant is already in the United States he or she can apply to change the status to that of a lawful permanent resident once the visa number becomes available.
- If the immigrant applicant is outside the United States then the processing should be done through the United States Consulate Servicing office in the country of the applicant.
New data from a survey states that a large number of Americans felt that the passage of the Department of Homeland Security funding bill should not be blocked. That means they were not supporting the Republicans who have been trying to block the passage to the bill, which would be repealing President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Most voters in the survey felt that the Congress should pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill; they felt that the Congress should focus on passing the reform rather than forcing the President to reverse his executive order. More than 59 percent of the people surveyed felt that the entire time spent on the funding debate was a waste of time- time that could have been spent fruitfully on working out a bipartisan reform bill that strengthened the border security while giving undocumented immigrants a gateway to immigration. A majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans supported the moving forward of immigration reform over reversing the President’s actions. Very few voters supported the Republican action to use various tactics that could force the President to change or reverse the order.
