Rachel Huan Kao's Archived Articles
Immigration
News
March 2004
H-1B cap
CIS announced that as of February 17, 2004 they had received enough H-1B
petitions to meet the 65,000 cap for fiscal year 2004. From February 18,
2004 to March 31, 2004, CIS will return all H-1B petitions that are not
extensions or otherwise exempt from the H-1B cap. Petitions for new H-1B’s
will be accepted as of April 1, 2004 for fiscal year 2005, beginning October
1, 2004.
Due to treaties with Singapore and Chile, 6,800 of the 65,000 H-1B’s have been set aside for their use during FY 2004. While demand for H-1B petitions from nationals of Singapore and Chile is expected to be only several hundred, CIS has set aside these H-1B slots until September 30, 2004. At that time, after an audit of the H-1B’s issued to nationals of those countries, any remaining H-1B slots can be used for nationals of other countries and attributed to FY 2004.
Service Centers around the country have differing processing times for H-1B petitions, and in an effort to be fair, CIS has determined that they will permit more of the remaining H-1B slots to be allocated to slower service centers so that there is some equity to the process.
Service Centers will begin to accept petitions for new FY 2005 H-1B’s beginning April 1, 2004.
PERM developments
PERM regulation was released to OMB on February 23, 2004, is subject to a review period of up to 90 days, and is expected to be implemented 120 days after publication. Once this 120 day period is up, we will have a new procedure for processing labor certification applications. While the old procedure will apply for all cases filed up to that date, the new PERM system will be the only procedure available for cases filed after PERM is implemented. Anyone who is eligible or interested in a labor certification application is encouraged to speed up processing by filing their case prior to PERM implementation.
Labor Certification Applications
Pending labor certification
applications are experiencing more scrutiny than ever. Some cases may
have additional recruitment requirements depending on when they were filed,
and the initial recruitment results. Employers with pending labor certification
applications may have to advertise again, and encouraged to prepare themselves
for another round of advertisements and interviews. The Department of
Labor has indicated that as the condition of the economy changes, their
requirements will fluctuate. For instance, if the economy was strong at
the time of recruitment and filing, and the recruitment requirements in
existence at that time were met, but by the time the case gets reviewed,
the economy has changed, new recruitment requirements may have been implemented
and applicants will have to meet these new requirements.
Advance Parole Delays
Recent applicants for advance paroles have experienced delays in receiving
their documents. CIS Service Centers announced that they have been unable
to process these requests because they ran out of the security paper used
for advance paroles. The basic form stock needed to be re-branded with
the DHS logo. Until this paper can be prepared, Service Centers will use
the old INS format to print advance parole documents. On January 15, 2004
the form stock was supplied to Service Centers, and they are making the
advance paroles their priority. As you can see from this month’s
processing times, advance parole issuance has really picked up.
Revised and New Forms
Form N-600, Application for Certificate of Citizenship has been revised,
and Form N-600K, Application for Citizenship and Issuance of Certificate
under Section 322 has been newly created. Valid Form N-600’s are
November 15, 2002 edition or later, and valid Form N-600K’s are
April 30, 2003 edition or later. Form I-131, Application for Travel Document
(covers reentry permits and advance parole as well) has been revised.
Valid Form I-131’s are September 19, 2003 edition.
Processing changes at the District Offices
District offices (ours is Chicago, 10 W. Jackson) have begun sending all
new family-based cases to the National Benefits Center for initial processing.
Receipt notices, employment authorization, and advance parole will be
processed at the National Benefits Center in hopes of providing more uniform
and speedy processing times to all district offices. The procedure for
applicants in our district will remain the same - send the applications
to the district office. From there, applications are boxed up and sent
to the NBC. In the future CIS may direct us to send all applications to
the NBC directly, but until this direction is provided applicants should
continue to send cases to the district office. After filing, the National
Benefits Center will send the receipt notices, EAD interview notices,
advance parole interview notices, fingerprint notices, EAD cards and advance
parole documents directly to the applicants, and the applicants will no
longer go to the Chicago District Office to pick up these documents. Applicants
will process fingerprints and photographs at the Application Support Centers.
After security checks have been completed, cases will be sent to the District
Offices for interview scheduling and adjudication. Interviews and decisions
will continue to be made at the District Offices. Applications for waivers
of inadmissibility will be processed at the National Benefits Center.
Can you vote?
I encourage every citizen to register to vote. If you are not registered
to vote, please do so. If you are registered, but do not vote regularly,
please consider doing so. Your voices should be heard!!! For those of
us who are naturalized citizens, remember that we chose this country.
We should exercise our rights, and the most important right is our right
to vote. If anyone has questions about where to go to register, I will
include that information in later articles. In the meantime, if you need
to renew your driver’s license, you can automatically be registered
to vote at the same time.
Pending legislation
There are numerous pieces of pending immigration legislation, but the
most favorable appears to be the Immigration Reform Act of 2004, (S. 2010)
introduced by Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Tom Daschle (D-SD). This
bipartisan bill addresses comprehensive immigration reform by proposes
to resolve the main issues of family reunification, new temporary worker
program, and earned adjustment.
Call List
In the past several months I have received innumerable calls for information
on potential immigration changes and programs. As it looks like we may
soon have new immigration laws that may be helpful to many people, I would
like to compile a call list for individuals who are interested in being
called if major laws are passed. If anyone is interested, please call
or email my office and provide a contact name and telephone number for
the list, and any specific interests you may have. Once an immigration
law is passed you will be contacted and informed of the law. Your information
will be kept confidential and only be used to contact you if an immigration
law is passed.