Monthly Archives: October 2015
The Visa Wizard, New Tool from the Department of State
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: The Department of State has posted a fun new tool – a Visa Wizard! You fill in basic info like where you are from and what you want to do in the United States, and the wizard suggests the right visa options. Do you need a B-1 or a B-2? An F-1 or… Read More »
Same Sex Couples to be Allowed to Sponsor Visas
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: Now here is some good news, long-awaited. USCIS is accepting new immigration applications from same-sex couples, and is reviewing older cases to overturn past denials. One of the most difficult tasks I have had in my career as an Immigration Lawyer has been explaining to same sex couples that, until now, there was… Read More »
International Student Enrollments Up In U.S., Down in Hawaii
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: A recent article in Civil Beat Hawaii, the online news site, outlines a counter-intuitive trend: international student enrollments in colleges and universities across the U.S. are growing at an unprecedented rate, but enrollments in Hawaii are falling. Many reasons are given, but perhaps some thought should be given to why it is so… Read More »
Indian Tech Company Fined for Visa Abuse
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: Infosys, a large multi-national technology services company based in India, has agreed to pay $34 million dollars to settle charges that it mis-used the U.S. visa system in hiring and deploying foreign technology workers in the United States. The New York Times reports that this is the largest ever settlement in a visa… Read More »
Higher Denial Rate for Working Visas
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: Businesses with international staffing needs are finding it harder and harder to work with the immigration bureaucracy, a trend that shows little sign of near term improvement. Here in Hawaii, our hospitality, travel and emerging technology sectors are negatively impacted. USA Today reports on the issue. Study: Work visas being denied at a… Read More »
Annual “Tech Visa” lottery leaves half of applicants disappointed
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ran its annual selection process to distribute the quota of 85,000 high-skilled worker visas among over 172,000 applicants in April. Tech firms who rely on the H-1B visa category are finding this bottleneck in the labor market increasingly difficult to manage and appear to be developing strategies… Read More »
More Immigrants Now Coming From Asia Than Latin America
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: Despite the media focus on Hispanic immigration, there has been a significant change in immigration demographics – Asian immigration is now significantly higher. Over time, will this make the rest of the U.S. look a little bit more like Hawaii? Nate Silver’s blog FiveThirtyEight provides some interesting analysis. Immigration Demographics
Immigrants are creating new jobs, not taking them away
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: Immigrants Entrepreneurs are making more jobs by starting new businesses, more so than our native-born population. An interesting analysis on Vox.com breaks down the statistics. Immigrants are determined to make their own way, and are less familiar with alternative career options, so are more likely to start a business, creating jobs as a… Read More »
Why Delaying Immigration Reform Fails
IMMIGRATION INSIGHTS: President Obama has put off his proposed fix of the U.S. immigration system. A very revealing chart in this week’s Economist shows why deferring reform fails. The only significant updates to immigration law in recent years have focused on tightening our southern border and penalizing re-entries, but this has had the unintended consequence… Read More »
“Birth Tourism” and U.S. Citizenship
Recent news reports show the “birth tourism” scam is alive and well, and has popped up again in Southern California. While the idea of coming to the U.S. to give birth and thereby qualifying a newborn child for U.S. citizenship is not new, the large scale and open marketing of current tour group-style operations based… Read More »