Oppose HR 3012 and its companion s-1857
Removal of country quota unfairely increases wait time for all countries at the expense of India and China.
We are writing on behalf of all citizens concerned with an immigration bill- HR 3012, that eliminates the per country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, and increases the per country numerical limitation for family based immigrants from 7% to 15%. I think we should consider the following points before moving the bill any farther:
- The bill is retroactive to October, 2011 and offers a 3 year implementation transitional phase when it provides worldwide applicants a merely 15% reserved visas. But the fiscal year has already started, and by the time the bill becomes a law, that reserve will be completely consumed, which means- for the rest of this fiscal year, these categories will have no available visas at all. This would inevitably send a wrong message to the employers.
- The bill proponents estimated (!) a ridiculous 70-year waiting for some employment based applicants, but they hide the fact that the actual spillover rule that currently helps the backlogged EB2 applicants and will help EB3 applicants in foreseeable future! At the moment, the oldest applications of EB2 category (mostly Indians) are enjoying the spillovers (about 15% of all visas) from EB1 and EB5 and are moving at a very fast pace.
[Source: http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/Web_Annual_Numerical_Limits.pdf ]
[Source: http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/EmploymentIndia.pdf ]
At this rate they will soon reach the cutoff dates of all other countries, and old applications under EB3 category will be qualified to receive them. This will drastically reduce even the backlogs waiting time by several years into a single digit year period. It is worth noting that due to the spillover rule, in reality, some 30% of the total visas went to applicants from India and China in 2010. [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2010/ois_yb_2010.pdf ]
- The country quota had been placed a few decades ago to prevent too many doctors and nurses from Philippines backlogging the system. What was fair for doctors is no longer fair for IT professionals- the very group that has the highest number of H-1B frauds? Why should rural IOWA loose a doctor who reverse migrates because of long waits at the expense of an IT professional?
- Generally speaking the return migration flows appear to correlate more closely with the ease of circulation, than with economic condition in receiving countries. The matter of the fact is, the long wait understandably has not caused a reasonable return migration in India. Research shows, ?sustained economic improvements in Eastern Europe are widely thought to have facilitated the large scale return migration of Poles and certain other Eastern Europeans?. [Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/lmi_recessionJan09.pdf ]. So, at the end of the day-the real loser will be the US businesses and all the drivers of US economy.
- The bill is retroactive to October, 2011 and offers a 3 year implementation transitional phase when it provides worldwide applicants a merely 15% reserved visas. But the fiscal year has already started, and by the time the bill becomes a law, that reserve will be completely consumed, which means- for the rest of this fiscal year, these categories will have no available visas at all. This would inevitably send a wrong message to the employers.
- The bill proponents estimated (!) a ridiculous 70-year waiting for some employment based applicants, but they hide the fact that the actual spillover rule that currently helps the backlogged EB2 applicants and will help EB3 applicants in foreseeable future! At the moment, the oldest applications of EB2 category (mostly Indians) are enjoying the spillovers (about 15% of all visas) from EB1 and EB5 and are moving at a very fast pace.
[Source: http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/Web_Annual_Numerical_Limits.pdf ]
[Source: http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/EmploymentIndia.pdf ]
At this rate they will soon reach the cutoff dates of all other countries, and old applications under EB3 category will be qualified to receive them. This will drastically reduce even the backlogs waiting time by several years into a single digit year period. It is worth noting that due to the spillover rule, in reality, some 30% of the total visas went to applicants from India and China in 2010. [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2010/ois_yb_2010.pdf ]
- The country quota had been placed a few decades ago to prevent too many doctors and nurses from Philippines backlogging the system. What was fair for doctors is no longer fair for IT professionals- the very group that has the highest number of H-1B frauds? Why should rural IOWA loose a doctor who reverse migrates because of long waits at the expense of an IT professional?
- Generally speaking the return migration flows appear to correlate more closely with the ease of circulation, than with economic condition in receiving countries. The matter of the fact is, the long wait understandably has not caused a reasonable return migration in India. Research shows, ?sustained economic improvements in Eastern Europe are widely thought to have facilitated the large scale return migration of Poles and certain other Eastern Europeans?. [Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/lmi_recessionJan09.pdf ]. So, at the end of the day-the real loser will be the US businesses and all the drivers of US economy.
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