Read Again!

Key points that raise serious concerns from Immigration Voice:
1. Annual quota for undocumented immigrants compared to legal skilled immigrants: The annual quota available to the undocumented immigrants for adjustment of status to Greencard is equal to 20% of total number of such undocumented immigrants who file for Z visa. With over 11 million undocumented immigrants, the annual quota is set to 20% of the total number1 of such potential applicants to grant Greencards to all of them in 5 years or less. Therefore annual Greencard quota for the undocumented immigrants subsequent to Z visa petition would be approximately 2.2 million per year for the first 5 years. The annual quota for the legal skilled immigrants, currently backlogged due to low numerical cap of 140,000 would be lowered to 90,000 for first 5 years. The current legal employment based Greencard system is facing backlogs of 5-6 years – not counting the processing delays. Yet the annual quota of 140,000 Greencards for legal skilled immigrants has been driven down to 90,0002 instead of increasing it to a higher number from 140,000. This distribution of annual quota makes it much faster to immigrate for the undocumented immigrants than the legal skilled immigrants.
1 Section 203(f)(2) of this act.
2 Section 501(b) that redefines 8 U.S.C. 1151(d). See (1) (A) and (1) (B) of the amended version.
2. Existing backlogs exacerbated by lowering the numerical cap for legal skilled immigrants instead of raising it and diverting those visas to future guest-worker program: Those who do not want to wait for new points based merits system3 to be ready for accepting petitions and want to continue with existing system defined by this act4 are subject to an annual quota of 90,000 immigrant visas (Greencards). So instead of raising the cap from 140,000 as attempted by congress on several occasions5 in last 2 years, the new cap for existing employment-based system goes down to 90,000. A step backwards would exacerbate existing backlogs. The bill diverts a big portion6 of annual visas to Y visa holders7 and also to untested and untried points based system. The future guest worker program of Y visa holders would benefit at the expense of skilled, legal employment based immigrants already in the country.
3. Undue burden of per-country ceilings on skilled immigrants: The per-country ceilings within the newly set 90,000 visas are modified only slightly for skilled legal immigrants. However, the currently undocumented individuals (future Z visa holders) who would apply for permanent residency under the annual cap of approximately 2.2 million would face no per-country ceilings8. Therefore, the oversubscribed countries in low-skills undocumented population would not be unduly burdened if they belong to larger suppliers like Mexico. The legal skilled immigration system faces a discriminatory per-country ceiling where immigrants from India and China face longer backlogs just because they were born in India or China.
4. No adjustment of status provision for legal skilled immigrants: The legal skilled immigrants cannot file for adjustment of status as long as they don’t fit into the annual numerical cap. Adjustment of status would solve quality of life issues for these immigrants who are certified by department of labor to be doing jobs no US citizen is willing, qualified or able to do. Congress has recognized this potential relief in previous legislations9. However, this bill fails to provide such relief. At the same time, the undocumented immigrants would be able to register and receive a tamper-proof probationary card that would allow them to work for any employer without restrictions regarding occupations and without any certification from department of labor and without any labor market test.
3 Section 502(b)
4 Section 502(d).
5 S 2611 (109th Congress). S 1932 (109th Congress). SKIL act (109th congress).
6 Section 501(b) that redefines 8 U.S.C. 1151(d). See (1) (A) and (1) (B) of the amended version.
7 New visa category for unskilled workers under the guest-workers program. Quota = 400,000 per year.
8 Section 508 of this Act.
9 S 2611 (109th Congress). S 1932 (109th Congress). SKIL act (109th congress).
5. Making it difficult to renew temporary non-immigrant visas like H1B when a Greencard petition is pending. The proposed bill would repeal10 2 sections from AC2111 that deals with H1B extensions beyond the initial 6-year term and replaces the extension provision with a narrowed down amendment to the INA. The big difference is that AC21 had 2 ways to qualify H1 extension beyond 6 years. With this proposed law, you have to have a pending 140 for 365 days or more or an approved 140 petition. A pending labor filed 365 days ago or longer wont be sufficient for filing H1B extensions beyond 6 years. This can adversely affect those stuck in the Philadelphia and Dallas backlog centers created by department of labor to work on the 5 year processing backlogs of labor certifications.
6. The new merits based points system would put undocumented immigrants ahead of the legal skilled graduate degree holders in the queue for available Greencards. The merits based points system would award more points for illegal presence and lows skills and less points to legal immigrants with skills. For example, A Z visa worker who has been undocumented in this USA can score 21 points with 3 years of agriculture experience. A legal skilled immigrant with MBA, MD or Graduate degree would score 20 points for the education. The merits based points system is poorly designed and unbalanced and it puts undocumented immigrants ahead in the queue of those who have waited in the queue for several years under the immigration laws.
10 Section 419(d) of this act.
11 106(a) and 106(b) of the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000

所有跟帖： 

• 上麵的link可不是這個。anyway，等通過了在討論吧。 -yeeha- ♂ (0 bytes) () 05/28/2007 postreply 16:24:01

• Look inside the tab 'Immigration Voice's Position'. -mission08- ♂ (139 bytes) () 05/28/2007 postreply 22:50:58