Category: News

The more than 200 asylum seekers who arrived in Portland from the U.S.’s southern border in June will have better prospects of getting into housing due to a recent change announced by Maine’s Governor Mills on July 18, 2019.  This is welcome news for them, and for the State, as it will help them stay in Maine so that once they get their federal work permits, they can get to work right here and help offset the state’s workforce shrinkage.

The asylum seekers, who have been sheltered on an emergency basis at Portland’s Expo, are facing a mid-August deadline to leave the Expo due to that facility’s contractual obligations to the Red Claws basketball team.

However, challenges to moving into more permanent housing have been daunting since the asylum seekers, while legally here, will not be eligible for federal work permits for 180 days after they file their asylum claims, and therefore will be unable to support themselves for months.

Under state law, individuals who are lawfully present in the U.S. or are in the process of filing for an immigration status such as asylum, are eligible for General Assistance, with the state reimbursing 70% of the cost to towns that provide G.A. to them.

Unfortunately, the LePage administration improperly excluded most asylum seekers from G.A. by writing the G.A. regulations implementing the law too narrowly.

Governor Mill’s administration has taken a look at those regulations and agreed that they don’t comply with the statute,  improperly excluding many immigrants who should be eligible for G.A.

Under rewritten regulations, Portland, and any other towns where asylum seekers might settle, should be able to get state reimbursement for G.A. assistance provided to the recent asylum seekers.   This will help towns shoulder the challenge of getting the asylum seekers and their children into stable housing.

The best solution for the asylum seekers would be for federal laws to be revised to allow them to get to work right away.  With Maine’s labor shortages, having people who want to work be legally unable to do so is an affront both to their dignity, and to economic good sense.   Representative Chellie Pingree has proposed legislation that would speed up asylum seekers’ work authorization.  Maine businesses should urge our Senators to support similar legislation in the Senate.

Maine can’t afford to waste human capital, but in the meantime, Governor Mill’s action will help these asylum seekers stay in Maine so that eventually, once they get their work permits, they can get to work right here where they are greatly needed.

On July 17, 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published Aging and Declining Populations in Northern New England:  Is there a Role for Immigration?  It’s an interesting (and fairly quick) read.   Some takeaway quotes:

According to Maine’s Department of Labor, the statewide unemployment rate in June 2019 was 3.2%,  a level not seen since November 2000.   Maine’s unemployment rate has been continuously below 4% since February 2016. Only Aroostook and Washington Counties had rates over 4%, at 4.6% and 4.1% respectively, and these rates were lower than the prior year.

While low unemployment is more welcome news than high unemployment, as has been reported previously, the shortage of workers is reaching a crisis point in many of Maine’s economic sectors, from high tech to hospitality.

Immigrants, including those coming here seeking asylum, can be part of Maine’s and the nation’s workforce solution.  We urgently need to reform our federal immigration laws to recognize the nation’s demographic realities, and the strengths that immigrants have always brought, and will continue to bring to our communities and to our economy.

 

As has been reported by MeBIC here and in the mainstream media, in June, a large influx of asylum seekers arrived in Portland after having entered the U.S. from Mexico.   The majority of them are originally from Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.   MeBIC has assisted ILAP, Maine’s only nonprofit provider of free immigration legal aid statewide, in conducting legal intake of these asylum seekers to assess their legal needs.   This post will try to answer questions that MeBIC has been receiving about our newest asylum seekers, based on what we know from talking directly with the asylum seekers and our immigration law expertise.

• Q.  Are the asylum seekers in the U.S. legally?

A.  Yes.  All of the asylum seekers are lawfully here, after being processed and released by border officials. The U.S. complies with international laws created after WWII to ensure that never again would anyone fleeing persecution not have a chance to ask for safe haven in another country. In 1939, the U.S. would not let Jews fleeing Europe disembark from the ship St. Louis to seek safety here. The ship was forced to return to Europe, and hundreds of its passengers were eventually killed in Nazi concentration camps. Now, U.S. asylum law lets people apply for protection in the U.S. regardless of how they arrive at or enter the country. While their cases are in process with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), or in front of the immigration courts, which may take many years, they are lawfully here.

• Q.  Can they work in the U.S.?
  

A. Eventually. It will likely be about a year before they get their federal work permits.  Federal immigration laws prevent asylum seekers from getting work permits until 180 days after filing their asylum applications with the immigration court. But first, their case files must be sent by border officials to, and must arrive at, the correct immigration courts. Unfortunately, border officials randomly assigned almost all of these asylum seekers’ cases to immigration courts all across the country. They will have to ask that their case files be transferred to the Boston immigration court, the correct court for Maine cases, before they can file their applications for asylum. This will at least double the usual 180 day delay for getting their work permits, and their ability to work.

• Q.  Do they want to work?

A.  Yes.  The recent asylum seekers are eager to work. Due to federal law and the process described above, they are not legally able to work at this time. Many have readily transferable skills, such as accountants, electricians, and engineers, and all of them are eager to do any work that’s needed in Maine and will support their families. All of the adults are of prime working age, with most of them between the ages of 25 and 40. At a time of increasing labor shortages in Maine, it is a wasted opportunity for them, and for Maine’s employers and economy, that federal law forbids asylum seekers from being able to get right to work immediately.

• Q.  What work-related activities and training are they permitted to do they do while waiting for their work permits?

A. There are several work-readiness steps the asylum seekers can take before getting their work permits. First, they can study English and take other courses to help them be work ready, they can volunteer, they can have their skills assessed for transferability, and they can participate in job skills programs that do not require federal work authorization. They can’t receive any compensation for volunteering or training. Under federal immigration law, any kind of exchange for services, including meals or housing, is prohibited.

• Q.  How did they enter the U.S.?

A.  They tried to enter the U.S. legally at a border inspection post.  Unfortunately, for more than a year, the U.S. government has been engaging in “metering”- restricting the number of people who can ask for asylum at the  southern border posts to only a few people each day.   (The government’s use of “metering” is confirmed in this Office of Inspector General report at page 4).  People are given a number by U.S. border officials and are told that they have to wait until their number is reached.  Some of Portland’s asylum seekers entered legally, after waiting more than three months in Mexico, where they had nothing more than tarps for shelter, for their number to come up.  Most of the others waited for about two months before losing hope that their number would ever come up, and then crossed over the Rio Grande, where they turned themselves in to border patrol agents on the U.S. side.  “Metering” is a likely violation of U.S. asylum law and of international human rights laws to which the U.S. is a party.

• Q.  Why didn’t they just apply for asylum at the U.S. embassies in their home countries?

A.  It isn’t possible to get asylum at the U.S. embassies.  Asylum seekers are asking to be legally recognized as refugees, who by definition have been forced to leave their countries due to past persecution or a “well-founded” fear of future persecution.  (In the U.S., “refugees” are people who were processed for refugee status while outside the U.S., typically while in refugee camps.  The U.S. uses the terms “asylum” and “asylum seekers” for people who apply to be recognized as refugees once they are already at a U.S. border post or are in the U.S.)  With limited exceptions that occurred during the Cold War, the U.S. embassies don’t grant asylum.

• Q.  Why did they come to the U.S. through the southern border rather than flying into the U.S.?

A.  It is virtually impossible for someone who is from a country where the U.S. requires a visa (including all countries in Africa) to get a U.S. tourist or other temporary visa if that person is not at least upper middle class and quite wealthy.  Many of the asylum seekers flew to countries in Latin America where visas for entry weren’t required.

• Q.  Why didn’t the asylum seekers just stay in Latin America?

A.  The U.S. is known around the world as a land of freedom, democracy, and opportunity.  Asylum seekers naturally want to go to  a country where they believe they’ll be safe and where they’ll have a chance to provide a future for their children.  The U.S. has long had that reputation.

• Q.  Why did the asylum seekers have to leave their countries in the first place?

A.  Conditions in their countries were intolerable.  After years of civil wars, political repression and civil unrest is endemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  In fact, 44% of refugees admitted to the U.S. so far this year are from the DRC.  Learn more here.  Similarly, while there has been a recent change in government in Angola, arbitrary detention and political repression continues, as noted here.

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This Texas Monthly article gives  a glimpse of part of the asylum seekers’ journey to Maine.

UPDATE,  July 11, 2019:   After nearly two weeks of back and forth from the Justice Department lawyers litigating the case and the President, on whether the administration was going to stop pursuing adding the citizenship status question to Census 2020, or going to try to do an end run around the Supreme Court’s opinion blocking the question,  President Trump announced today that he will no longer fight to add the citizenship status question to the Census form.  Instead, he is instructing the government to mine all of its databases to obtain the information about who is a citizen and who isn’t.

This raises a host of issues including concerns about the rationale for this effort and its costs, privacy concerns, and concerns about accuracy.    The President mentioned scouring Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Social Security databases among others.   But inaccuracies abound in those databases.  For example, a person who immigrated as a child who became a citizen automatically when her parent naturalized would still appear in USCIS’s database as a permanent resident, not as a U.S. citizen.   A person who received a Social Security card while a refugee who has since become a permanent resident and then a citizen will still be in Social Security’s database as a refugee.

Again – query what the rationale is for this effort? Our country prides itself on the ideal of not drawing lines between classes of individuals, even if it frequently fails to meet that aspiration.   This effort feels like the beginning of an official shift to create divisions and treat people differently depending on their status.   Food for thought.

In the meantime, the fight over the citizenship question on Census 2020 reportedly has sown sufficient distrust of the census that there may be a substantial undercount even without that question appearing on the form.

The Constitution calls for all people who live in the U.S. to be counted every 10 years.  It is unfortunate that this prolonged fight may have undermined the Census bureau’s ability to fulfill that mandate in 2020.

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July 3, 2019:  Just days after the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s stated rationale for adding a citizenship status question to the 2020 decennial census strained credulity and sent the case back down to the lower court, the Justice Department informed that court during a telephonic hearing that the administration was dropping the effort to add the question.   The Secretary of Commerce, in whose department the Census Bureau resides, also issued a statement that the Census Bureau would begin printing the Census 2020 questionnaires without including the question.

The Census Bureau has stated that it needs to begin printing the forms in July to have them ready for the start of the census in 2020.

According to lawyers representing the plaintiffs, the presiding judge in the federal court case requested that the government confirm its withdrawal in writing.  The judge’s caution appears to have been warranted, because less than 24 hours later, according to news reports, President Trump contradicted the Justice Department and his Commerce Secretary, tweeting that the administration would continue its efforts to add the question to the census.

There is expert consensus that adding the citizenship question to Census 2020 would result in a significant undercount of the U.S. population, which would be damaging for all the reasons that we’ve described previously here.

Stay tuned to learn which position will prevail – the President’s or the Justice and Commerce Departments’.

 

 

On July 10, 2019,  the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 by a 365 to 65 bipartisan vote.  While the bill attempts to solve one problem, it does so at too high a cost.

Current immigration law imposes not only numerical limits on most categories of employment-based immigrant visas issued annually, but also per-country limits.  These have resulted in wait lists for green cards for high-skilled immigrants from certain countries, particularly India or China, that are decades long, harming U.S. businesses in the global competition for talent.   H.R. 1044 would phase in changes leading to elimination of the per country limits by FY 2023.

However, because the bill does not address the overall numerical limits of employment-based immigrant visas, this shift would create untenable wait lists for aspiring immigrants from all the other countries of the world.   Not only they, but also the businesses that seek to employ them, would  be disadvantaged by the effects of HR 1044.

The current waiting list for Indian and Chinese professionals need to be eliminated, but this must be accomplished through a thoughtful overhaul of the numerical limits on immigration, not by shifting the waits from those two countries to immigrants from other countries.   HR 1044 addresses only part, not the whole, of the problem.

Maine’s Representatives Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden both joined the majority to vote in favor of HR 1044.  A companion bill of the same name in the Senate, S. 386, currently has 36 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, including Maine’s Senator Susan Collins.

Maine’s business community should encourage our Congressional delegation to work for a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration system, not piecemeal solutions that simply shift who bears the cost of the flawed structure.

A July 7, 2019 article in the Portland Press Herald highlights the growing labor shortage impacting Maine’s businesses, particularly those in the hospitality industry and other sectors that rely on seasonal labor.  In case you missed it, you can read it here.

Steve Hewins of Hospitality Maine sounded the alarm in the article, stating “I always refer to tourism as kind of the tip of the spear of economic development, because it’s the thing that introduces people to Maine, perhaps to relocate here, perhaps to move a company here or work here,” he said. “So if we have a problem handling that, it’s going to impact beyond just hospitality.”

Dana Connors, CEO of MeBIC partner the Maine State Chamber of Commerce added that “in a recent survey of about 1,200 Maine businesses….three of the top five problems cited by respondents were workforce-related. The problem isn’t limited to any one industry or region of the state.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of Maine residents holding DACA or TPS status who are living and working here legally have only court orders standing between them and the loss of their legal status and the requirement to leave the U.S.    Nationwide, about 1.1 million others are in their same position.    The House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, that would provide a path to permanent residency for them.   Maine businesses should tell our Senators to take up companion legislation as one step towards stemming Maine’s, and the nation’s demographic and labor crisis.

Additionally, Maine’s recently arrived asylum seekers want to work but federal laws prevent them from doing so for at least 180 days after they apply for asylum.   Maine’s Representative Chellie Pingree has introduced legislation to allow issuance of work permits 30 days after filing for asylum.   Maine needs workers, and immigrants, including asylum seekers, want to work.  Congress should make that happen.

There are daily reports in the mainstream media on developments at the southern border, including the conditions in which children are being detained, the President’s threats of mass deportations, later postponed, negotiations in Congress on a funding package for humanitarian aid at the border, and protests against companies like Wayfair and Bank of America for doing business with centers where immigrant children are detained.  And of course, the southern border has felt much closer to Maine in recent weeks given the recent arrival in Portland of asylum seekers predominantly from Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Here are a few items from June that you might have missed:

• On Detaining Immigrant Children

“You need to know what I saw” – Blog by Immigration Law Professor Bill Ong Hing, on an official monitoring visit under the Flores v. Reno lawsuit settlement in which the government agreed to standards governing detention of children.  June 27, 2019.

“Geronimo and the Japanese were imprisoned there.  Now Fort Sill will hold migrant children again, sparking protests“,  Washington Post, June 23, 2019.

“Trump administration still separating hundreds of migrant children at the border through often questionable claims of danger“, detailing a case of a 4 year old separated for months from her father, Houston Chronicle, June 22, 2019.

“Trump administration cancels English classes, soccer, legal aid for unaccompanied child migrants in U.S. shelters“,  Washington  Post, June 7, 2019.

• On Legal Challenges to the Administration’s “Migrant Protection Protocol” (MPP) Policy that Forces Non-Mexican Asylum Seekers to Wait in Mexico.

Amicus (“Friend of the Court”) legal brief filed on June 26, 2019 by the Union representing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Asylum Officers supporting the Plaintiff’s challenge that the MPP is a violation of U.S. and International Law.

“Few migrants seeking U.S. asylum successfully claim fear of waiting in Mexico“, finding that only about 1% of Central American asylum seekers have not been pushed back into Mexico since the MPP policy began, Reuters, June 28, 2019.

• Office of Inspector General Reports on Immigration Detention Conditions
  

“Management Alert -DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding Among Single Adults at El Paso Del Norte Processing Center “(Redacted), report following unannounced spot inspections to five Customs and Border Protection holding facilities, that found dangerous overcrowding and immigrants being held for far longer than legal limits allow, Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, May 30, 2019.

“Concerns about Detainee Treatment and Care at Four Detention Facilities“,  report following unannounced spot inspections to four detention facilities holding  ICE detainees (who are in civil, not criminal, detention) finding serious, and some egregious, violations of ICE detention standards,  Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, June 3, 2019.

 

 

 

On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court announced that in its next term that begins in October, it will consolidate and hear the government’s appeal of three cases that have blocked the administration’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Nearly 800,000 immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were children, many of whom can recall no other home besides the U.S., currently have DACA.  Their ability to remain and work in the U.S. has continued solely due to federal court injunctions since the administration’s rescission announcement on September 5, 2017.  If they cannot remain, not only they and their families will suffer, but the U.S. economy will be damaged as well.   A recent report by MeBIC coalition partner New American Economy notes that in 2017, nearly 94% of DACA holders were employed, while others were students not yet in the workforce.  DACA holders contributed over $4 billion in federal, state and local taxes, and had over $19 billion in spending power that year.

The fate of DACA holders should not be in the hands of the courts.  It is high time for Congress to get legislation across the finish line that would provide a path to permanent residency for those with DACA.

The House recently passed H.R. 6, the  American Dream and Promise Act of 2019.   The U.S. public overwhelmingly supports a path to permanent status for DACA holders and the so-called Dreamers, as does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the CEOs of some of the U.S.’s largest companies.

With a decision on DACA now due from the Supreme Court in its next term, Congress should act before the Supreme Court does and render the case moot by passing the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019 by veto proof majorities in both chambers.

Today the Supreme Court ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s stated rationale for adding a citizenship question to the upcoming decennial Census 2020 was a pretext, and sent the case back to the federal district court in New York for further proceedings.

As we’ve written  previously, experts both inside and outside of the Census Bureau have no doubt that adding a citizenship question to Census 2020 will result in an undercount of the U.S. population, and the stakes in this case are high – affecting representation in Congress, federal funding apportionment, and business decisions.

The Commerce Department has stated repeatedly that it must begin printing the actual Census 2020 questionnaires in July 2019.  If that is a hard deadline, the clock may simply run out on the government’s ability to add the citizenship question to Census 2020.  But others have stated that October is the hard deadline, and in any case, the controversy will continue, unless the government decides no longer to pursue adding the question.

You can find a brief summary of the interesting case history and the ruling at SCOTUS Blog.

 

The 2019 State Legislature recessed on June 20, 2019.  While not every bill that MeBIC supported was enacted, overall, it was an extremely positive session in terms of passage of bills that will help Maine welcome and integrate immigrants.  MeBIC testified on fifteen bills during the legislative session.   Here’s a review of the bills that were MeBIC’s highest priorities.

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SUCCESSES:

Bills enacted:

• LD 1841:  Resolve, Directing the Commissioner of Profesional and Financial Regulation to Create a Working Group to Study Barriers to Credentialing.   Many of Maine’s immigrants are highly educated but work at jobs far beneath their education and experience level because their foreign credentials are not recognized by their fields’ licensing boards. This bill creates a working group to study barriers to the credentialing of those with foreign education and skills.  It instructs the Commission to make recommendations to reduce barriers, and to propose legislation, if appropriate, to the Committee on Innovation, Development Economic Advancement and Business (IDEA) by February 15, 2020.   MeBIC supported this initiative, originally introduced in two separate bills, LD 532 and LD 769.  You can learn more about these bills here.

 

• LD 1685:  An Act To Facilitate Entry of Immigrants into the Workforce.  Many immigrants eligible to apply for permanent legal status in the U.S. must wait months to get their initial work permits, and without an income, cannot afford to take initial steps that would improve their work readiness once they receive their work authorization, such as having their foreign credentials evaluated or translated at a cost of hundreds of dollars.   LD 1685 creates a new Foreign Credentialing and Skills Recognition Revolving Loan Program administered by the Finance Authority of Maine, to pay specified costs since traditional loans aren’t available to these individuals, so they can get into better, higher paying jobs once they get their work permits.   MeBIC proposed and was the lead organization supporting this legislation, sponsored by Rep. Kristen Cloutier, of Lewiston.  It will take effect on September 1, 2019.  You can read more details about the bill in this post, and read MeBIC’s testimony here.

 

• LD 1596:  An Act to Enhance the Long-term Stability of Certain At-Risk Youth.    This bill will help an estimated 10 to 30 noncitizen youth annually who are at-risk due to the death of, or abuse, neglect or abandonment by at least one parent, to gain state court protections, and provide them with a path towards permanent residency and stability.   These youth are already here in Maine and their potential, and ability to contribute and be part of our workforce, is thwarted without the ability to get permanent residency.  This bill remedies that.  MeBIC was an active member of a coalition supporting this bill, sponsored by Rep. Donna Bailey.  It will take effect on September 1, 2019.  Learn more about the bill here.
  

 

• LD 1475:  An Act to Eliminate Racial Profiling in Maine.   This bill aims to reduce the occurrence of racial and bias-based profiling that people of color, including immigrants, experience in Maine.  It would mandate policies, training, and development of data collection methods aimed at eliminating profiling by law enforcement in Maine. You can learn more here about MeBIC’s reasons for supporting this bill, and read MeBIC’s testimony here.  It will take effect on September 1, 2019.

 

• LD 777:  An Act to Create a Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Maine Tribal Populations.    This bill will convene public and private stakeholders to do research and propose solutions to improve equity and justice for historically disadvantaged populations in Maine, with immigrants also included in its scope.   You can learn more here about  this bill.

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Bills Carried Over to 2020

• LD 647: An Act To Attract, Educate and Retain New State Residents To Strengthen the Workforce.   This  bill was MeBIC’s top legislative priority, and we marshaled strong business support for it, including from many of MeBIC’s coalition partners, as described in this post.   The bill easily passed in both chambers, but it also had a high fiscal note.  Even after scaling back the bill’s scope, it became clear that getting the bill funded this session was too heavy of a lift.   The bill was carried over to next year, when we’ll try again to get it funded.

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Bills Defeated

• LD 1077:  An Act to Ensure Fair Employment Opportunity for Maine Citizens and Legal Residents by Requiring the Use of the Federal Immigration Verification System.    This bill would have required all employers in Maine, whether public or private sector, to verify the employment authorization eligibility of new hires through  the federal E-Verify system in addition to using the I-9 employment authorization verification form.  This mandate would have unduly burdened smaller and seasonal employers.   Read MeBIC’s testimony providing more detail about why this bill deserved to be defeated.

 

• LD 1449: An Act To Facilitate Compliance with Federal immigration Law by State and Local Government Entities.    This bill is of a genre known around the country as a “show me your papers” bill, and would have turned local law enforcement agencies into proxy immigration agents. The first state to enact such a law was Arizona, whose tourist industry and economy suffered a severe hit as tourists, conventions, and others boycotted the state.  Read more about why MeBIC opposed this bill in our testimony.

A June 2019 Gallup Poll finds that while 23% of the public view Immigration as the nation’s most pressing problem, 76% feel immigration is good for the country, and 65% think immigration should stay at current levels or be increased.   For the first time since Gallup has asked the question, a majority (55%) felt that immigrants help the economy, rather than hurt it.

While there were party line differences,  62% of Republicans joined the 87% of Democrats and 78% of independents who viewed immigration as good for the nation.  But when it comes to the economy, 60% of Republicans saw immigration as having a negative effect, while 72% of Democrats and 58% of independents viewed immigration’s impact as positive.

It’s no surprise that the public sees immigration as one of the nation’s most important problems, given the humanitarian crisis at the southern border playing out daily in the media.   But the fact that the public also views immigration positively would indicate that Congress should be able get support for reforming our broken immigration system, despite the topic being commonly played as a wedge issue.

You can read Gallup’s report on its poll here.

 

 

The Cato Institute has issued a report  highlighting the backlogs to immigrate as immediate members of U.S. citizens or permanent residents’ families, or through employment.  The report underscores the urgent need to reform the U.S. immigration system.

While the time it takes for the government to process residency petitions has lengthened, this June 18, 2019 report focuses on the increases in wait times for an available visa after a petition has been approved, due to numerical limits on visas and to caps on recipients by country.

The analysis found that wait times generally had more than doubled between 1991 and 2018.  In 2018 only 2% of beneficiaries of immigrant visa petitions saw no backlog, compared to 31% who did not have to wait in 1991.  In 2018, over 28% of those with approved petitions had to wait more than 10 years to reach the top of the wait list, with 41% waiting more than 5 years.  Certain categories, such as Mexican adult children or married Filipino offspring of  U.S. citizens, face wait times of more than 20 years before they will reach the top of the waitlist.   Citizens of India with masters or bachelors degrees  must wait far longer than a decade to get to the top of their employment based wait list.

Overall, 4.7 million prospective immigrants whose petitions have been approved are stuck in the backlogs waiting for their opportunity to take the final steps to become permanent residents of the U.S., with 83% of these in the family based categories, and 17% waiting to immigrate through employment.

As the report points out, wait times for those initiating the immigration process now, are likely to be substantially longer than backlogs already experienced by those for whom immigrant visa petitions were filed years ago.

To stem its growing workforce shortage caused by an aging population and low birthrates, the U.S. must overhaul its immigration laws so that legal immigrants don’t face years-long backlogs that keep families divided and employers uncertain about their ability to have the talent pool they need to remain competitive.

Read the report here.

 

International students are an economic boon to the U.S. not only due to their tuition payments and spending during their studies, but also because they disproportionately make up our future potential workforce, in STEM fields as outlined in this previous post.

Yet the administration is delaying and denying issuance of F-1 student visas and of work permits for foreign students, damaging the U.S.’s talent pool and competitiveness.

State Department data shows that in FY 2018,  389,579 student visas were issued, a 22% decline from the 502, 214 visas issued in FY 2016.  Disproportionately affected were students from China and India, who experienced a 33%  and 31% decrease in student visa issuance, respectively, from FY 2016 to FY 2018.

Moreover, F-1 students are allowed to engage in Optional Practical Training, or OPT, in order to gain experience in their fields, benefiting them and the employers who hire them, alike.  International students who attain bachelors or post-graduate degrees in STEM fields can do post-curricular OPT for up to three years.   But as the New York Times recently reported, delays by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in processing students’ OPT work permit requests are causing many to lose positions that have been offered to them, while upending the employers who were counting on the OPT students to join their workforce.

Together with increases in requests for evidence, and delays and denials of student visas,  these developments are impacting colleges’ and universities’ ability to recruit and enroll international students.  As 29 presidents and chancellors of higher education institutions in New Jersey stated in a letter to their Congressional delegation,

Some of our schools have experienced decreases in foreign student enrollment and all of our schools have encountered an increasingly log-jammed immigration system that is impacting our ability to recruit, retain, and bring to our campuses foreign talent.

Simply put, as it becomes more difficult for foreign students and academics to study and work in the United States, many of them are turning to other options, weakening not just our individual institutions, but American higher education as a whole, and, by extension, our country’s global competitiveness.

This is another example of the continued disconnect between the needs of the U.S. economy and the adminstration’s management of U.S. immigration laws, belying the administration’s stated commitment to legal immigration even when the unemployment is  3.6%, and employers are struggling to find the talent they need.