USWorkVisa.com News Archive
for February, 2008

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Specifically, USCIS noted that in July and August of 2007, the agency received nearly 2.5 million applications and petitions, which was double the number typically received in a two-month period. In fiscal year (FY) 2007, USCIS received 1.4 million applications for naturalization, more than the totals from FYs 2006 and 2005 combined. Forty percent of those, or 562,000, were filed in the fourth quarter. Applications for employment- and family-based adjustment of status increased by 76 percent, from 497,000 in FY 2006 to 875,000 in FY 2007.

USCIS said it plans to reduce processing times to six months by the third quarter of fiscal year 2010. USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez noted that up to several thousand new employees are being hired and trained to deal with the “deluge.” This is in addition to about 700 retired federal government employees who are being hired back without having to sacrifice their pensions, under a plan proposed by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

A sign-on letter expressing deep concern about the delays notes, among other things, that “[m]any of the undersigned organizations opposed fee increases of the magnitude that USCIS proposed and warned that if USCIS were to proceed with the fee increases, it must prepare for a surge in applications from immigrants wishing to avoid the fee increases. In fact, USCIS did move forward with the fee increases, but did not adequately prepare to handle such a surge.”

An announcement about processing times and case status is available on page 5 of USCIS’s December 2007 newsletter. Related testimony from Mr. Gonzalez on January 17, 2008, before the House of Representatives’ immigration subcommittee is available at http://www.uscis.gov/files/testimony/testimony_ETG_17jan08.pdf.

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USCIS said it is rejecting any petitions for new H-2B workers seeking employment start dates before October 1, 2008, that arrive after January 2, 2008. The agency will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions subject to the cap that were received on January 2, 2008, to select the number of petitions needed to meet the cap. USCIS will reject, and return the fee, for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected.

Petitions for workers who are currently in H-2B status do not count toward the congressionally mandated biannual H-2B cap. USCIS will continue to process petitions filed to extend the stay of a current H-2B worker in the U.S.; change the terms of employment for current H-2B workers and extend their stay; or allow current H-2B workers to change or add employers and extend their stay.

Kathleen Campbell Walker, President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said, “This continuing failure to connect the dots between meeting valid labor needs and our immigration laws is inexcusable. Placing America at a competitive disadvantage is unacceptable. Maxing out on a cap four months before the applicable period even begins shows how little relation there is between immigration policy and the needs of the economy.” AILA said that service industries such as hospitality, including restaurants and hotels, landscaping, construction, and seafood processing are among those most damaged by Congress’s inaction.

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The department’s US-VISIT program includes checks of a visitor’s fingerprints against DHS records of immigration violators and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records of criminals and known or suspected terrorists. The DHS said that collecting 10 fingerprints improves fingerprint matching accuracy and the agency’s ability to compare a visitor’s fingerprints against latent fingerprints collected by Department of Defense (DOD) and the FBI from “known and unknown” terrorists. Additionally, visitors’ fingerprints are checked against the FBI’s Criminal Master File.

On an average day at Logan, almost 2,000 international visitors complete US-VISIT biometric procedures. Visitors from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and France comprise the largest numbers of international visitors arriving at Logan.

Washington Dulles International Airport began 10-fingerprint collection on November 29, 2007, and Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport began 10-fingerprint collection on January 6, 2008. Seven other ports of entry will soon begin collecting additional fingerprints: Chicago O’Hare International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport, Miami International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Orlando International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The remaining air, sea, and land ports will transition to collecting 10 fingerprints by the end of 2008, the DHS said.

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At a later date, to be determined, the Departments of State and Homeland Security will implement the full requirements of the land and sea phase of WHTI. Proposed rules require most U.S. citizens entering the U.S. at sea or land ports of entry to have either a U.S. passport; a U.S. passport card; a trusted traveler card such as NEXUS, FAST, or SENTRI; a valid Merchant Mariner Document (MMD) when traveling in conjunction with official maritime business; or a valid U.S. Military identification card when traveling on official orders. Members of the U.S. Armed Forces on active duty traveling on orders are exempt from the passport requirement. The passport requirement does not apply to U.S. citizens traveling to or returning directly from a U.S. territory.

U.S. citizens may begin applying in advance for the new, limited-use, wallet-size passport card beginning February 1, 2008. The Department said it expects that the cards will be available and mailed to applicants in spring 2008. When available, it will only be valid for land and sea travel between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean region, and Bermuda.

A related 23-page letter on the WHTI from Richard Stana, Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the Government Accountability Office, to the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, is available. Among other things, Mr. Stana noted that the GAO “acknowledge[s] that DHS has taken a number of actions to prepare for testing and deploying technologies and managing the implementation of other WHTI activities. However, as key elements of planning for program management and execution remain uncertain, we continue to believe that DHS faces challenges deploying technology, and staffing and training officers to use it.”

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