President's State of the Union Address And The Possibility of Immigration Reform

Wednesday night, President Obama spoke for seventy minutes on the State of our Union. About two of those minutes focused on one of the greatest challenges facing it.

The President talked of health care and jobs and our economy. That was the right thing to do. But the President must acknowledge that fixing our economy, providing health care, putting people back to work and moving America forward cannot be separated from fixing our broken immigration system.

For more information check out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/timeline-for-immigration_b_440062.html

The Trials And Tribulations Of Highly Educated Immigrants

The global economy in which we live necessitates that the US be able to attract top foreign talent in order to remain competitive. And the intent of US immigration law is to permit the "the best and the brightest" to enter our labor force. In practice, however, the administration of our law often has just the opposite effect. This article highlights the real-life stories of five talented foreigners, employees of academic institutions, who have been caught up in our immigration system.

TO READ THE ARTICLE CHECK OUT: http://www.ilw.com/articles/2010,0120-donoghue.shtm

U.S. EMPLOYERS ARE SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM EXAMPLE?

“SSA did not always use the E-Verify program as intended. Specifically, we found that of the 9,311 new employees hired in FYs 2008 and 2009, E-Verify was not used to confirm the employment eligibility of 1,767 (19 percent) new hires; 44 of these new hires would have received an SSA TNC response or been referred to DHS had SSA verified them through E-Verify, and E-Verify was used to confirm the employment eligibility of 7,544 (81 percent) new hires. In addition, we determined that SSA did not always comply with the requirements of the E-Verify MoU. Specifically, we found that SSA had verified the employment eligibility of 26 existing employees because they had applied for new positions in the Agency. In addition, SSA erroneously verified the employment eligibility of 31 volunteers who were not considered Federal employees for any purpose. Furthermore, we found SSA had verified the employment eligibility of at least 18 external candidates who had applied for jobs at SSA but were not hired. Thus, it appeared the Agency used E-Verify procedures for verifying these individuals prior to their hire date, which is prohibited."


SSA OIG, Jan. 2010

The wave of the near future seems to be that we are going to try to solve our Nation’s credit woes with investment by Foreign National Entrepreneurs w

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/invest-us-biz-immigrant-visa/story?id=9513745


However, it is interesting to note that the EB-5 Investor Green Card Program has been, and continues to be, mired with a myriad of issues. In fact, from the “usage” statistics, it is interesting to note the number of these applications that continue to be denied by the CIS over the years.


Our Firm continues to work with clients to determine whether, in fact, the EB-5 Investor Green Card Program is the “right fit” for everyone.


There may be ways for foreign nationals to make investments in the U.S. and get nonimmigrant works visas and ultimately a green card without tying-up capital.