Immigration Visa Attorney Blog

Last month a Congressional bill that would have allotted 55,000 permanent resident visas for foreign graduates with STEM degrees was defeated in the House of Representatives. The fate of the bill is particularly interesting because of the window it provides into the current state of immigration legislation in the United States.

Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, sponsored the bill, entitled the STEM Jobs Act. The bill provides thousands of green cards for immigrants who receive degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. On that point many in Congress were supportive.

But the fast-tracked measure failed in its vote, 257-158 coming up short of the two-thirds majority needed. The bill received the vote of the entire Republican caucus, along with that of several dozen Democrats.

Continue reading "Green Card Bill for STEM Graduates Fails" »

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is the government's way of providing a two-year respite from deportation for so-called DREAM Act youths. And while not a permanent solution to the country's many immigration issues, Deferred Action does seems to be a positive step towards addressing an immigrant group with unique characteristics.

As with virtually any program of this nature, there will always be complications arising from its parameters. Deferred Action is no exception, and in recent weeks we've been seeing some of those make their way to into the public eye.

To meet the criteria for Deferred Action, one must "have continuously resided in the country between June 15, 2007 to the present." Which means immigrants who otherwise would have qualified for Deferred Action but chose to leave the U.S. temporarily in order to apply for citizenship are stuck in a type of limbo.

Continue reading "More on Deferred Action" »

In recent weeks we've done some blogging about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program similar in many ways to the DREAM Act most people are familiar with. (If you're not up to date on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, please check out THIS POST.)

An interesting component of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals which will begin to play itself out over the upcoming months deals with how qualified candidates will be made aware of the program. Some estimates say more than 1 million immigrants are eligible for Deferred Action. According to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, less than 85,000 have signed up.

That disparity means there are quite a number of immigrants who are unaware they qualify for the two-year deferment. That is literally hundreds of thousands of children, teenagers and younger adults who don't have access to information that could impact their lives significantly.

Continue reading "Getting Creative to Reach DREAM Act Candidates" »