New legislation tackles business immigration issues

New legislation tackles business immigration issues | Articles |: "Regarding green cards, those most notably affected by these backlogs are nationals of India and China. Based on the current immigrant visa backlogs, many individuals with employment-based applications could wait seven years or more for their green cards.

This bill has a provision, which exempts from the H-1B cap individuals who have earned a masters degree or higher from a U.S. accredited university or who have been awarded a medical specialty certification based on post-doctoral training and experience in the United States.

In addition, the bill increases the H-1B cap by 20 percent in a year where the quota was reached the previous year. The bill also exempts the following categories of individuals from the worldwide immigration cap: 1) those who have a masters degree or higher from a U.S. accredited university; 2) those who have been awarded a medical specialty certification based on post-doctoral training and experience in the United States; 3) those who will work in shortage occupations; 4) those who have earned a Masters degree or higher in science, technology, engineering, or math and have been working in a related field in the United States during the three-year period preceding the immigrant visa application; 5) those who have extraordinary ability or have received a national interest waiver or 6) spouses and children of an employment-based visa applicant.

The bill also includes a procedure, which would allow employers who file multiple employment petitions to be pre-certified.

Most notably, the bill creates a new visa category, the H-5A visa, for essential workers. In addition, the bill provides an avenue for certain undocumented workers to adjust to temporary nonimmigrant status.

This bill contains several key provisions addressing business immigration. In particular, the bill increases the number allotted to employment based visas by 310,000 each year for 10 years.

If this bill becomes law, this provision could bring to an end the long backlogs currently being experienced by those whose cases are affected by retrogression and visa unavailability.