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July 25, 2008 - Recent actions have been taken to
urge Congress to pass three bills that are pending in the
U.S. House of Representatives that would change the employment-based
green card system.
- H.R. 6039 would exempt foreign-born individuals who have
earned a U.S. Master’s degree (or higher) in science, technology,
engineering or mathematics and who have a job offer from
a U.S. employer from the numerical limitations on immigrant
visas. For the full text of the bill, please see:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6039.
- H.R. 5921 would eliminate the per country levels for employment-based
immigrants and would exclude the tie-in to the number of
issued family-based immigrant visas from the calculation
of available employment-based immigrant visas for each year.
For the full text of the bill, please see:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h5921_ih.xml.
- H.R. 5882 would allow for the recapture of unused employment-based
immigrant visas from 1992-2007 and would prevent immigrant
visas from going unused in the future. For the full text
of the bill, please see:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h5882_ih.xml.
BAL Comment: If passed, these bills would have a tremendous impact on employment-based green card applicants, especially Chinese and Indian nationals who have been waiting years to be able to apply for a green card due to country-specific backlogs. Early estimates indicate that these bills may make an additional 400,000 to 450,000 immigrant visas available. The extensive wait times for certain green card applicants with U.S. Master’s degrees would be eliminated and the immigrant visas that otherwise would have been used by these applicants would then be available to others, further helping to eliminate the delay in obtaining an employment-based green card. Additionally, the number of available employment-based immigrant visas available each year would no longer be reliant upon the number of family-based immigrant visas issued. The calculation would solely be based on 140,000 plus any unused employment-based immigrant visas from the prior fiscal year. We are continuing to monitor the progression of these bills.
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