Category: Uncategorized

Will “Pay more for less service” be the Trump administration’s new marketing slogan for businesses dealing with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)? The administration plans to raise fees more than 50% for many business applications, while workers will need to pay more to become citizens or gain permanent residence.

On November 14, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a proposed rule that would increase fees across key business immigration categories, in essence, levying a tax increase on employers that access the global market for labor. The fee increases come at a time when U.S. job openings in 2019 outnumbered the unemployed by “the widest gap ever,” which, along with a large body of economic research, undermines the argument that immigrants prevent natives from finding jobs.

Click here for the full Forbes article. 

Immigration attorneys continue to have concerns about a new electronic registration process designed to make the H-1B visa application process easier, even as the government moves ever closer to implementing it.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services late Dec. 6 announced that the spring 2020 H-1B filing season will feature an electronic preregistration process. The new protocol, laid out in a January 2019 regulation, will allow employers to enter the annual lottery for the specialty occupation visas without having to prepare a full petition with supporting documentation until they are actually selected. Continue reading “Bloomberg Law: Upcoming H-1B Registration Process Still Fraught With Concerns”

Our North Carolina clients may be interested in this opinion piece by Kate Evans, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Duke University School of Law. Professor Evans is addressing a North Carolina Supreme Court case that is currently pending, which will decide whether immigrants detained unlawfully under state law by state officials can challenge their detention in the state’s courts.

Click here to read the full article in NC Policy Watch.

 

Most instances of H-1B visa denial do not attract appeals by employers, according to new research by a US-based anti-immigration think tank. This comes even as denial rates for the prized visa category have spiked to 24% in financial year 2019 from about 6% in 2015. In 98.4% of the cases where the H-1B visa was denied, the employer chose not to file an appeal, said David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which is based in Washington, DC.

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/72118260.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

 

Courtesy of our friends at Globaladvocaten, we are providing this helpful information explaining recent changes to the United Kingdom’s immigration laws.

Click here to read full article.

If you need assistance with outbound immigration to the United Kingdom or other countries, we stand ready to assist through our Globaladvocaten network.

Globaladvocaten is a collaboration between independent law firms with a network that includes over 800 lawyers working in 20 countries, and is a premier resource for Shumaker, enabling us to add value for our clients abroad. Globaladvocaten has been ranked by the Chambers Global Guide for 2019 for Leading Regional Law Firm Networks – Europe-wide. 

In a new press release, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), boasted that the Trump administration has increased red tape and bureaucracy for U.S. companies. It’s the latest example of administration officials lauding efforts to make it more difficult for employers to obtain what economists often consider to be a company’s most valuable resource – talent.

Since 2017, Trump administration policies have focused on restricting the entry of immigrants and foreign nationals, including scientists and engineers. “Denial rates for new H-1B petitions have increased significantly, rising from 6% in FY 2015 to 32% in the first quarter of FY 2019,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. Continue reading “Forbes: Ken Cuccinelli, U.S. Immigration Services Chief, Boasts Of Increasing Bureaucracy”

Shumaker is pleased to announce that Mechelle Zarou, partner and Immigration practice group co-chair, was a presenter at a Diversity and Immigration seminar hosted by the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, Bowling Green Economic Development, and Welcome BG on October 2, 2019. Mechelle spoke about employment-based immigration to employers.

Svetlana Kuznetsova will not defend her Citi Open title because of visa issues.

 

Kuznetsova, who is Russian, announced Thursday on Twitter that she is withdrawing from the tennis tournament, which will begin next week in Washington.

“Wanted to apologize to all my fans who were waiting for me there ..Never had issues like this in my life, hopefully one day I can finally get a visa and play at list [sic] some events of the US swing!” wrote Kuznetsova, a two-time Grand Slam champion.

Continue reading “From the Washington Post: Svetlana Kuznetsova will not defend Citi Open title because of U.S. visa issues”

Two important lawsuits may affect whether international students and the spouses of H-1B visa holders will continue to be permitted to work in the United States. Adding to the complication, the Trump administration is expected to issue regulations that would affect the ability of one or both groups to work.

Click here to read more of the story from Forbes.

On a recent Tuesday, Neal Fachan walked down a dock in Seattle’s Lake Union and boarded a blue and yellow Harbour Air seaplane, alongside six other tech executives. He was bound for Vancouver to check on the Canadian office of Qumulo, the Seattle-based cloud storage company he co-founded in 2012. With no security lines, it was an easy 50-minute flight past snow-capped peaks. Later that day, Fachan caught a return flight back to Seattle.

Fachan began making his monthly Instagram-worthy commute when Qumulo opened its Vancouver office in January. Other passengers on the seaplanes go back and forth multiple times a week. Fachan says his company expanded across the border because Canada’s immigration policies have made it far easier to hire skilled foreign workers there compared to the United States. “We require a very specific subset of skills, and it’s hard to find the people with the right skills,” Fachan says as he gets off the plane. “Having access to a global employment market is useful.”

Continue reading “From Time: Tech Companies Say it’s Too Hard to Hire High-Skilled Immigrants in the U.S. — So They’re Growing in Canada Instead”