On March 19, 2009, two of our firms Attorneys, Mr. Joe Jian Zhou and Mr. Bennett Wisniewski lobbied Senators and House Representatives at Capitol Hill as part of the National Day of Action activities promoted by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Representing Zhang & Associates, our clients and potential clients, Attorney Zhou and Wisniewski wanted to pass simple yet focused requests to congress: (1) improve the current immigration visa number allocation system for employment based immigration cases and to create a new mechanism to eliminate visa number retrogressions; (2) improve the efficiency and consistency in immigration case adjudication; and (3) increase the H-1B quota.
Joe and Ben met with Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), staff members of Representative Linda Sanchez (D-CA), and staff members of Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). Both Representatives are members of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law and Senator Durbin is a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.
During these meetings, Joe and Ben stressed the importance of reforming the employment based immigration system. Particularly, they discussed the need to abolish the per country limit for employment based immigrant visas. Joe and Ben emphasized the struggles faced by high skilled immigrants from China and India in the EB2 category, who are forced to wait many years to file for adjustment of status even though their original I-140 petition may have been approved. These long waiting periods are caused by the fact that each country is capped to 7% of the available employment based visas. As a result countries who export a large number of high skilled workers such as India and China face a severe disadvantage in the current American system. Many times the 7% cap is hit even though the overall visa number cap of 140,000 is not reached. This results in serious delays for people from these countries. Therefore Joe and Ben explained the unfairness of this system and the ways it harms American recruitment of the best and brightest from around the world.
In addition, Joe and Ben also mentioned the need to no longer count family members of employment based immigrants against the annual visa quota, the need to institute a method of re-capturing unused employment based visas which were not allocated in the fiscal year due to USCIS processing delays, and the need to increase the annual H1B quota numbers. Other concerns included USCIS efficiency and consistency.
Overall, the trip was a success. Although it is unknown when the President and Congress will take up this issue, there seems to be a general optimism on capital hill that this issue is important enough to be placed on the national agenda. The recent Democratic gains in the House and Senate bolster the chances of real immigration reform happening before the 2010 midterm elections. One solution that Congress is currently pursuing is a bill sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) which would recapture immigrant visas previously wasted by USCIS processing delays. If this bill were to pass and be signed into law, it would free up an additional 300,000 employment based immigrant visas, which in turn would reduce the massive USCIS backlog. On the executive side, President Obama reemphasized his support for comprehensive immigration reform at a California town hall meeting earlier this week.
Our firm is optimistic that the political environment in Washington DC is more conducive than it has been in the last eight years for comprehensive immigration reform, including addressing the needs of high skilled immigrants pursuing an employment based path. The people that Joe and Ben met with appreciated their valuable information and hoped that it could be used to persuade other members of Congress. All of us at Zhang and Associates remain committed to continuing the dialogue with a special focus on reforming the employment based immigration system with respect to the per country limits with influential politicians on the House and Senate Immigration Subcommittees about the concerns of our valued clients.
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From left to right: Attorney Joe Jian Zhou, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-D), Attorney Bennett Wisniewski
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Founded in 1996, Zhang & Associates, P.C. offers legal services to clients nationwide in all aspects of U.S immigration law. We have successfully handled thousands of immigration cases.
At Zhang & Associates, P.C., our attorneys and supporting professionals are committed to providing high-quality immigration and non-immigration visa services. We specialize in NIW, EB-1, PERM, and I-485 cases. In the past twelve years, we have successfully helped thousands of clients get green cards. If you plan to apply for a green card, please send your CV to Attorney Jerry Zhang (info@hooyou.com) for a free evaluation.
Zhang & Associates, PC.
Houston ∙ New York ∙ Chicago ∙ Austin ∙ Los Angeles
Tel：1-800-230-7040, 713-771-8433
Email: info@hooyou.com
website：http://www.hooyou.com
(03/20/2009)
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