US Immigration News

During the August 2016 visit to India, Michele Bond, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs revealed that despite a hike in USCIS H-1B and L-1 visa fees on December 19, 2015, Indian nationals remain the highest beneficiary of these non-immigrant visa categories. According to Bond, India accounts for 70% of H-1B visas and 30% of L-1 visas issued worldwide by Washington.

Despite shrugging of pre-election anti immigration remarks by Donald Trump and others concerning US work visas, the chief of India’s software trade lobby group the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), R Chandrashekhar, is growing increasingly concerned over what he calls ‘discriminatory plans’ to hike US H-1B and L-1 visa fees.

According to a report submitted to US Congress by Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, Maria Odom, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is issuing a high number of requests for evidence (RFEs), especially for L-1A and L-1B visas. The CIS report states that ‘USCIS continues to frustrate employers with a series of processing delays.’

According to a report published by US immigration reform group, FWD.us, which is backed by Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, voters in so-called critical ‘swing states’ hold adverse views towards Donald Trump’s US immigration plans, which involve deporting 11 million undocumented migrants.

Swing states are US states where the Republican and Democratic parties have similar levels of support among voters, which are viewed as important in determining the overall result of a Presidential election.

The number of Chinese executives arriving in the US on L-1A and L-1B intracompany transfer visas has spiked over the last 10 years, according to an article published by CNNMoney. China is reportedly relocating thousands of executives to the US to work in new US acquisitions on L-1A Executive or Manager visas.

An article published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) claims a leading US lawmaker admitted that the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2016 has ‘very little chance of passing in the near future.’

The comments were allegedly made by US Congressman for New Jersey, Bill Pascrell Jr, during a phone-based press conference on July 18, 2016, about the Reform Act that he introduced in the House of Representatives on July 8.