Category: News

As immigration continues to be a flashpoint political issue, this updated edition of John F. Kennedy’s A Nation of Immigrants released on the 60th anniversary of its initial publication, is a timely read despite the intervening years.

This new edition has been updated to include information on current immigration policies, according to publisher Harper Collins.

Why read this now?  Here’s one Amazon.com reader’s review:

(T)hough some of his numbers are out of date, the themes, subject, and his pragmatic arguments are timeless. I found myself reading and smiling with disbelief with how relevant this whole book is and how beautifully entwined he mixes history with compassion and historical backing. When I read it I was impressed with how never ending and cyclical the immigration debate really is. The only thing that seems to change is what nationality or group is coming here and how people react to them. I highly recommend any and all people interested in this subject to read this book, which shouldn’t take more than a few hours. I admire Kennedy a great deal and am grateful I bought and read this small treasure. While I was reading it I often found myself imagining and wishing he were across from me, coffee in hand, to discuss todays problems and his views on how to solve them.

Harvard Business School professor William Kerr has recently published The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society.

An abstract of the book from Professor Kerr’s HBS faculty page states:

The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on immigration policy, and the world around the United States is rapidly catching up, especially China and India. The future is uncertain, and the global talent puzzle deserves close examination. This book combines insights and lessons from business practice, government policy, and individual decision-making to give voice to data and ideas that should drive the next wave of policy and business practice.

At the opposite end from the academic spectrum, an Amazon.com reviewer states:

In the Gift of Global Talent, William Kerr unpacks the topic of high-skilled immigration in highly readable prose, and clarifies an otherwise murky subject. On those two counts alone, this book is a triumph. It’s also wicked fun to read.

Kerr’s book reviews how high-skilled immigration shapes top talent clusters (e.g., Boston, San Francisco), spurs entrepreneurship and innovation, and spreads new ideas to businesses and societies around the globe. He also surveys the many regulations and debates that surround high-skilled immigration before concluding the book with his own set of practical advice to political and business leaders. Kerr ultimately argues that human talent is “the world’s most precious resource,” beating out “other candidates for this title, like water or oil.” Having finished the book, I’m inclined to agree.

The Gift of Global Talent is best-suited for policymakers, industry leaders, and anyone else looking to understand why high-skilled immigration matters. Kerr’s approach is refreshingly level-headed and happily leaves out the many partisan platitudes that plague discussions about immigration. Instead, Kerr has compiled a series of original and persuasive arguments that should reshape the contours of the immigration discussion itself.

I strongly recommend The Gift of Global Talent to anyone who wants an enjoyable, smart book that can be finished in a single sitting. Two big thumbs up.

This may be worth adding to your reading list.

Months after a draft was released, on October 10, 2018 the administration published proposed revisions to immigration regulations interpreting the “public charge” ground of inadmissibility.    The proposed rule, if it takes effect in its current form, would result in a sharp decrease in immediate family immigration.

As explained in this prior post, in 1996 Congress required immigrating immediate family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file an “affidavit of support” proving their petitioning relative’s ability to support them with an income higher than 125% of the federal poverty guidelines before they could be approved for permanent residency.  Under the proposed new rule, that affidavit of support would just be the threshold requirement.  The intending immigrant would also be judged on a variety of other factors that are designed to deny residency to those who are not extremely advantaged.

Factors that the government would view as “negative” or “heavily weighted negative” when evaluating whether an immigrant is “likely to become a public charge” would include:

• If the intending immigrant is younger than 18 (despite the fact that immigrant youth quickly learn English and acclimate, and go on to work and pay taxes for decades);
• If an immigrating parent of a U.S. citizen is older than 61 (despite the fact that s/he may be fully capable of working, or will provide childcare to grandchildren, enabling both parents in the household to work);
• If the intending immigrant lacks proficient English, or higher education, or private health insurance; or
• If the intending immigrant has children, among several other factors.

The intending immigrant could counter any negative factors with positive ones, such has already having a job that provides health insurance (an unlikely scenario), but the only proposed “heavily weighted” positive factor would be a household income that exceeds 250% of the federal poverty guidelines.  In 2018, for example, that is nearly $63,000 for a family of four, an amount that is higher than the nation’s median income. The Migration Policy Institute has found that 40% of native-born U.S. citizens would not meet that income threshold, as well as 56% of those who immigrated to the U.S. in the past 5 years.

Let’s be clear – this proposed rule is not about keeping immigrants off of public benefits.   Since 1996, immigrants have been excluded from federal public benefits eligibility during their first five years after becoming permanent residents of the U.S., with limited exceptions such as FEMA disaster assistance and emergency Medicaid.  And undocumented immigrants who are here while they wait to immigrate are also ineligible for federal benefits, with the same limited exceptions.  This is a “solution” where no problem exists.  Moreover, the government’s analysis and  benefits thresholds are disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, according to this analysis by the Cato Institute.

Instead, the administration is trying to reduce immediate family immigration without involving Congress.   The administration has pushed Congress multiple times to cut immediate family immigration nearly in half, and been repeatedly thwarted.   But should this rule take effect as proposed, that will be the result.  The bill ostensibly applies also to nonimmigrant (temporary) visa holders, and to those immigrating through employment, however, this is a smokescreen.  As a practical matter, nonimmigrants do not get visas unless they are well-off or are entering on employment-based visas, and in that latter case they start work and support themselves immediately after arriving.  Nonimmigrants also are ineligible for all but emergency-based public benefits in any case.  Additionally, immigrants applying for residency through employment are typically professionals or highly skilled individuals with high incomes who are not likely to need public benefits.   So, despite its breadth, this bill’s impact aims squarely at people immigrating through family.

About two-thirds of immigrants to the U.S. annually are immediate family members of  U.S. citizens or permanent residents.  In Maine, from FY 2010- FY 2016, that translated into over 6600 new community members, workers and taxpayers added to the state’s population through family-based immigration.  According to the Census, from 2010-2016, Maine’s population grew by only 3118 people.  If the proposed rule had been in place during those years, family based immigration would have been halved, resulting in net population loss in Maine.  With Maine’s aging population, shrinking workforce, and low unemployment rates, we need more immigrants, not less.

Immediate family immigrants bring their backgrounds with them, ranging from unskilled to highly educated and skilled and everything in between.   Maine’s economy needs farmworkers and caregivers every bit as much as it needs highly trained professionals.  Immediate family immigration has stimulated the nation for centuries and will continue to do so.

Public comments on the proposed rule change will be accepted through December 10, 2018  Comments can be submitted via the government’s comment portal.  Comments longer than 5000 characters must be uploaded to that site.   Note that you must specifically request that any links or attachments included in/with your comments be incorporated by reference and reviewed, otherwise they will be ignored.

MeBIC will submit comments opposing the rule change.   Please join businesses across the country by submitting your own comment, using this Maine-specific comment template, or you can submit your own comment directly, here.  Comments are due by 11:59 p.m. on December 10, 2018.

Please contact MeBIC  to let us know that you submitted a comment.

For a more detailed discussion of the proposed rule change and its impact, read these analyses by MeBIC partner New American Economy and by FWD.us .

This story in The Mercury News highlights how Canada’s reformed immigration system, designed to make it easier for talented foreign nationals with STEM skills to immigrate, is paying off for that nation.

As we’ve noted in prior posts, in the U.S., employers are experiencing new levels of delays and denials of applications for professional working visas, and the administration is planning to revoke the ability for spouses of professional level visa holders to work while they wait as much as a decade or more for an available permanent resident visa.  These and other measures taken by the administration at best create uncertainty, and at worst, impressions of hostility, that may discourage foreign-born talent from wanting to stay and work in the U.S.

In contrast, Canada’s new Global Skills Strategy offers eligible professional level workers the opportunity to have their visa application processed within two weeks.  Obtaining the Canadian equivalent of permanent residency is also streamlined through the Express Entry system, which can take as little as six months.  As the Canadian government stated in the article,

Immigration will continue to play a crucial role in keeping our country at the forefront of the global economy…..Thanks to immigration, Canada is in a strong position to face future labor-force challenges arising from our aging population.

With unemployment at 3.9%, the lowest rate since 1969, and with the nation’s aging population, the U.S. would do well to emulate Canada’s immigration policies.

UPDATE:   On October 25, 2018,  the government notified the federal district court that it will comply with the order (described below) by automatically extending until April 2, 2019 the work permits of Sudanese and Nicaraguans who have TPS currently  (including those whose application during the most recent re-registration period for TPS was already approved, or whose most recent application for TPS is still in process with USCIS and no decision has been received yet).

On October 3, 2018, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for citizens with TPS from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

The U.S. admitted only 22,491 refugees for resettlement during FY 2018, which ended on September 30th.   This is the lowest number resettled by far since Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980.

This comes when the number of refugees around the world is at an all-time high, as we have noted previously.  Regions that are among the most conflictive in the world were strikingly shunned, in part due to Executive Orders crafted last year.  For example, only two refugees from Yemen, and 62 from Syria were resettled.  In contrast, the U.S. resettled 2,635 refugees from Ukraine and 437 from Russia.

In Maine, 66 refugees were resettled during FY 2018, only 10% of the number resettled here in FY 2016.

While this trend is a clear abdication of the nation’s values as a defender of human rights, it also has ominous economic repercussions.

The data is clear that the U.S. (and Maine’s) population is aging, and the nation’s birth rates are below replacement level.  The U.S., and Maine, needs an influx of people if our population, and our economy is not going to shrink.  Refugees have been one steady source of that influx.

For example, in the last two fiscal years of the Obama administration, the U.S. resettled nearly 155,000 refugees.  Nearly 26,000 refugees were resettled from October-December 2016.  For the remainder of FY 2017, under the Trump Administration, 28,000 refugees arrived.  Combined with FY 2018’s total, the Trump administration has resettled just over 50,000 people in the U.S., only a third of the number resettled in FY 2015 and FY 2016.

This national drop in refugee admissions translates directly into a drop in refugees being resettled in Maine.  With the Administration setting an even lower cap on refugee admissions for FY 2019 than it did for FY 2018, it’s unlikely that Maine will receive many refugees in the coming year.

Maine employers are clamoring for more workers.  The administration’s refugee policy is clearly not going to help alleviate our shrinking workforce woes.

As MeBIC has written previously, a federal court ordered the U.S. government to reunite the more than 2600 children taken from their parents after entering the U.S. seeking asylum under the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.  Following months of forced separation and anguish, most of the parents and children have now been reunited.  However, in September, over 400 children remain separated from their parents, including  304 of them whose parents were deported (with many of those parents agreeing to deportation because authorities  told them they would be reunited more quickly with their children if they did so).

Now, lawyers from the ACLU who represent those children have gone to Central America to try to find their parents, who face a wrenching choice – give permission for their children to apply for asylum which means staying in the U.S. without them, or have their children returned to their home countries where they can be reunited with their parents but will face the same dangers that compelled the families to try to find safety in the U.S. in the first place.

Paralleling this tragedy, the administration has issued proposed regulations that would undo the Flores settlement agreed to by the federal government in 1997.  It stipulated that immigrant juveniles should be housed in the least restrictive setting possible, and that any detention must not exceed 20 days and must be in a state-licensed, non-jail facilities.  Standards for care and education also needed to be met.  The proposed regulation would thwart the Flores settlement and allow for indefinite detention of juveniles in unlicensed facilities.

We have a preview of what this new landscape would look like, as the administration grapples with over 13,000 minors now in its custody.   The administration is housing unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America who came alone or were taken from their parents under the new “zero tolerance” policy in hastily constructed tent camps and abandoned shopping centers.    In Texas, these makeshift shelters don’t meet state licensing requirements for childcare facilities, so the Texas Board of Education recently decided that state funding can’t be used to educate the children housed there.  This has resulted in local school districts refusing to provide any educational services at all and immigration authorities are not adequately filling that void. Moreover, there have been reports of harsh conditions and abuse in the federal detention centers.

Nonetheless, the administration has proceeded to expand some of these facilities, such as the “tent city” in Tornillo, Texas, and has been moving minors there from shelters in other states.   While the administration says the minors’ stays in these centers will be short term, because it has begun detaining undocumented relatives already living in the U.S. who step forward to foster them, those relatives are now afraid to come forward.

While there is no question that the federal immigration system needs an overhaul, the current administration has made the border situation a humanitarian disaster.  This is despite the fact that the number of people trying to enter the U.S. is similar to recent years, and far lower than the numbers apprehended in FY 2014 or seeking entry in FY 2016.

The administration’s solutions betray the nation’s values, and will cause irreversible damage to children and families who came to the U.S. believing that we were a beacon of safety, human rights, democracy, and opportunity.   That reputation is being shattered, despite the economic reality that we need immigrants as much as we ever have.

Comments are due by 11/6/2018 on the proposed regulations that would gut the Flores settlement.  Please contact MeBIC if your Maine business wants more information about submitting a comment.

Foreign student (F-1) visa holders pursuing bachelors or advanced degrees at U.S. colleges and universities are allowed to take advantage of “optional practical training” (OPT) to gain work experience in their fields of study.   Some students use their OPT time for internships during the school year, and many others work after graduation.

An employer can petition for an H-1B professional work visa on the F-1 graduate’s behalf, so that the s/he can continue to work for the employer after the OPT period and corresponding work permit ends.   However, there are annual numerical limits on H-1B visas, particularly affecting F-1 visa holders who have only bachelors degrees.  That visa limit is known as the “cap.”

New H-1B visas do not become available until the beginning of each fiscal year on October 1st.  However, the F-1 visa holder’s OPT work permit may expire before that date.   USCIS devised a “cap-gap” regulations for this situation allowing the F-1 visa holder to continue working uninterrupted until the approved H-1B visa validity kicks in on October 1st.  This policy has avoided disruption for the employer and the employee alike.

USCIS has just announced that due to processing backlogs, many initial H-1B visa petitions for F-1 visa holders will not yet be decided by October 1, 2018, the start of FY 2019.   It noted that former F-1 students covered by the “cap-gap” whose work permits have already expired or will expire on September 30th will no longer be able to work until USCIS approves the employer’s H-1B petition filed on their behalf.  USCIS clarified that these “cap-gap” individuals can stay in the U.S. while they wait for USCIS to adjudicate their H-1B petitions, as long as they don’t work.   While the F-1 student can volunteer for the employer after September 30th, any form of monetary or in-kind contribution during this limbo period would constitute unauthorized employment and be a violation of status.   The F-1 student would have to leave the U.S. to obtain a new visa at the appropriate U.S. consulate abroad, causing additional disruption.

This information is not a substitute for individualized legal advice.  Employers and their F-1 employees with pending H-1B applications that have not been decided by September 30th should consult with their immigration counsel for more details.

As reported in a prior post, on June 28, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a new policy under which it would assume a power normally delegated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency charged with interior enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.  Under the new policy USCIS would have vastly expanded power to issue the Notice to Appear (NTA) initiating proceedings to remove from the U.S. noncitizens who have applied to USCIS for permanent residency or nonimmigrant status.

After postponing implementation of the new NTA policy in July, the administration announced on September 26, 2018 that it will take effect on October 1, 2018.   The announcement states that implementation will be incremental and will apply at the outset to I-485 applications (applications for permanent residency) and to I-539 applications to extend or change nonimmigrant (temporary) visas, such as a visitor requesting to stay longer, or to change to a student visa to study at a U.S. university.  USCIS says it will not yet apply the new policy to humanitarian petitions or employment-based applications.

Since employment-based applicants for immigration benefits typically have legal representation, as a practical matter, this new policy is likely to disproportionately be applied to immediate family immigrants who often file their applications without a lawyer and can make innocent mistakes as a result.

Coupled with a new policy that took effect on September 11, 2018 directing USCIS employees to deny applications that may be incomplete or have an error, instead of requesting more information as was the prior practice, the new NTA policy will result in many more people ending up in removal proceedings.  In many cases, they will be able to apply again in front of the immigration court, but their immigration process will be much longer, more complicated, more burdensome emotionally and financially, as well as more costly to U.S. taxpayers.

The new NTA policy continues this administration’s disturbing trend towards “zero tolerance” and a heightened enforcement mentality, even towards those who have the legal right to apply to remain in the U.S.

The State Department has announced that registration for the Diversity (DV) lottery for fiscal year 2020 will be open from noon (EST) on October 3, 2018 through noon (EST) on November 6, 2018.

The DV lottery allows foreign-born individuals, whether they are abroad or in the U.S., to apply for a chance to immigrate to the U.S.    A person who is selected next spring after registering this fall for the DV-2020 lottery will able to apply for residency at the start of FY 2020 on October 1, 2019.  S/he may apply with USCIS, if s/he is already in the U.S. and is otherwise eligible, or else may apply with the State Department for an immigrant visa interview at the appropriate U.S. consulate abroad.   The person will undergo the usual medical exam and criminal and security background checks before being interviewed or approved to immigrate.

The lottery is pure luck.  But up to 50,000 people  gain residency each year because they happened to be lucky.

A person who is in the U.S. on a work permit, such as an asylum seeker, who has never violated her/his status, can register for the lottery and if selected, may be able to get her/his green card through the lottery.   Registering for the lottery in no way adversely affects a person’s current status or other applications already pending with USCIS.

Eligibility requirements for the DV-2020 lottery include:

• Not being from one of the ineligible countries (see list in the announcement);
• Having completed high/secondary school in the U.S. or abroad (a G.E.D. is not sufficient); or
• Having worked for at least two years of the previous five years in a skilled trade, which is one that takes at least two years to become qualified in it.

There is no age requirement, although people under 18 may not qualify if they haven’t yet met the education or skills requirement.

An individual may only submit ONE lottery application.  If more than one is submitted, the person will be disqualified.  However, spouses may include each other, giving them two chances to be selected (but each spouse must meet the eligibility requirements).  All children who are unmarried and under 21 must be included on the registration application in order to be allowed to immigrate if their parent is selected in the lottery.

Employers in Maine with employees currently working with work permits, such as asylum seekers, should encourage their employees to get additional information about eligibility to register for the lottery.  While it’s a long shot, many asylum seekers have won the lottery and gained residency through it while their asylum cases remained stuck in processing backlogs.

Note that lottery registration is FREE.  Instructions and the application form will be posted on the State Department’s website on October 3rd.  Those signing up for the lottery from inside the U.S. should avoid any website that asks for a fee to register, and also avoid people who are not lawyers, or authorized by the Board of Immigration Appeals to provide immigration law assistance, who ask for money to “help” with a lottery application.  Unauthorized practice of law is illegal in most states, including in Maine.

MeBIC is available to come and talk with employees at Maine businesses and nonprofits to help them understand the lottery and whether it may or may not be worth it for them to register.  Contact MeBIC for more information.

September 17, 2018 was “National Citizenship Day,” part of a week when thousands of permanent residents nationwide took the oath in over 100 U.S. cities and territories to become newly naturalized U.S. citizens. For them, this was the culmination of years of contributing to the United States as neighbors, friends, family members, volunteers, workers, employers, and taxpayers, and of reaching for their version of the American Dream.

Permanent residents (“green card” holders) can live and work permanently in the U.S. as long as they follow all of our laws. But only once they become U.S. citizens can they petition to bring their immediate family members such as their parents, siblings, and their married children to the U.S., or apply for certain jobs restricted to citizens, or vote in federal and state elections.

For most immigrants, applying for citizenship involves completing a lengthy and often confusing application form, paying $725 in application fees, undergoing criminal record and security checks, and going through an interview testing their ability to speak, read and write in English, and their knowledge of U.S. history and government.  (See this study guide to learn what the test covers).

But many immigrants who may have hoped they could soon naturalize are having their hopes dashed.   At the end of the second quarter of FY 2018 (the most recent data available), 753,352 naturalization applicants were stuck in a backlog, including 575 immigrants from Maine. This is a 44% increase over the number of naturalization applications pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the end of FY 2016. Where most N-400 naturalization applications were decided in less than six months under the prior administration, now, the average processing time is over ten months, with many applications pending for nearly two years.

These backlogs not only prevent noncitizens from reuniting their families and voting. They also have an economic cost to them and to the country. Immigrants who become U.S. citizens are more likely to buy a home, to increase their earnings and pay higher taxes, and to have health insurance.

On National Citizenship Day, immigrant advocates filed suit against USCIS to compel it to release data that may help explain the reasons why so many immigrants are having their dreams of becoming U.S. citizens deferred.

Stay tuned.