US Immigration Latest Green Card Priority Dates

The United States Department of State (DOS) has released its July 2014 Visa Bulletin.

EB-3 applicants from China and India are currently waiting for eight to ten years for a permanent residence visa (or 'green card' as they are popularly known).

The full figures are laid out in a table below.

Priority cut-off dates for Employment based visas

Visa Category	General	Mainland China	India	Mexico	Philippines
EB-1	None	None	None	None	None
EB-2	None	1 Jul 09	1 Sept 08	None	None
EB-3	1 Apr 11	1 Oct 06	1 Nov 03	1 Apr 11	1 Jan 09
EB-3 (others)	1 Apr 11	1 Jan 03	1 Nov 03	1 Apr 11	1 Jan 09
EB-4	None	None	None	None	None
EB-5	None	None	None	None	None

Only applicants who filed their petitions (applied) for a green card before the 'priority cut-off date' can currently apply for their permanent residence visa (or 'green card' as it is known).

Adjustment of status

If they made their initial application before the priority cut-off date, and they are already in the US, for example with an H-1B 'specialty occupation' visa, then providing their petition has been successful, they can apply to US Citizenship and Immigration for 'Adjustment of Status' for a green card.

If they made their initial application before the cut-off date and are living outside the US, they can go to the US consulate or embassy in their country of residence and apply for their green card.

So, for example, if an applicant A from the UK filed his/her EB-3 visa petition on 3rd March 2011 then his/her priority date is 3rd March 2011. The priority cut-off date for EB-3 applicants from most countries is now 1 April 2011. Therefore, A's petition was filed before the cut-off date. He/she can, therefore, apply for Adjustment of Status/ a visa.

Chinese applicants wait longer

However, if an applicant B, from China, had filed his/her EB-3 application on the same day as A, 3rd March 2011, he/she would not be able to apply for Adjustment of Status/a visa because the cut-off date for Chinese applicants is 1st October 2006. Chinese applicants can only apply for Adjustment of Status or a green card if they applied before 1st October 2006.

This confusing system has arisen because of the complexity of the US visa system and because demand for US green cards greatly exceeds supply. Only about 140,000 employment-based visas are available each year and these are split between 5 employment-based (EB) visa categories.

They are divided as follows

Visa Category	Visas available
EB-1 - Priority workers of extraordinary ability	28% - 40,000
EB-2 Members of 'the professions' with advanced degrees, 'exceptional ability' or 'national interest'	28% - 40,000
EB-3 Skilled workers and professionals	28% - 40,000
EB-3 Other workers	Maximum of 10,000 of the EB-3 quota
EB-4 'Special immigrants' including religious workers	7.1% - 9,940
EB-5 Investors	7.1% - 9,940

N.B. Some unused family visas from the previous year may be available for the EB categories each year. If so, the actual number of EB visas will be distributed according to the proportions set out in the table above.

Country caps

Because the US receives many more than 40,000 EB-3 visa applications each year, applicants will not receive EB-3 visas in the year that they apply. Over the years, lengthy waiting lists have accumulated and now, many applicants have to wait for years after making their visa application before there is a visa available for them.

This problem is particularly acute for applicants from some countries with high demand for US visas. This is because only 7% of the total number of visas in any category can go to applicants from one country. (So, for example, only 2.908 EB-2 visas can go, each year, to any one country).

Because many more than 7% of the applicants each year come from several countries with high demand (such as China, India, Mexico and the Philippines), applicants from those countries have to wait longer than other applicants before a visa becomes available.

Indian cut-off date November 2003

Thus, the priority cut-off date for Indian applicants for EB-3 skilled worker visas now stands at 1st November 2003. This cut-off date has actually moved backwards in the last year as have several others for countries with high numbers of visa applicants.

However, the main cut off priority date for most countries has moved forward by four years in the last year, from 2007 to 1st April 2011.

Sanwar Ali of workpermit.com said 'At workpermit.com, we have in-house US immigration attorneys who can help you with all your visa concerns. Please give us a call. We have many years of experience and have helped thousands of people with US visa petitions.

Most EB-3 applicants waiting three years

'There are currently no waiting times for applicants from most countries for EB-1, EB-2, EB-4 and EB-5 applicants though most EB-3 applicants will have to wait for at least three years.

'We would be happy to help with your petition'.

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Posted in: green card , Immigration News , travel news , US Visa

Tattoos can Cause Trouble for Immigrants

Legally immigrating to the United States can be a long and difficult process. Potential immigrants to this country have to maintain a job and clear criminal records or they can face deportation to their home country. It isn’t easy, but for those who achieve it, it is well worth it.

To add to the difficulty for immigrants, tattoos can also play a role in their being denied a green card to the become United States citizens. Many tattoos in certain countries and cultures have connections to gangs and other criminal organizations. Certain tattoos can affiliate a person from Japan with the Yakuza, certain iconography is associated with the Russian mafia, and various Latin street gangs have tattoos that identify their affiliations.

The issue with tattoos and gangs in Latin America has become a recent issue for immigrants from Mexico. The Wall Street Journal ran a recent article profiling two immigrants named Hector Villalobos and Rolando Mora Huerta. Villalobos has been working in the United States since 2006, but when he went back to Mexico to meet with an immigration officer about his processing for his green card, he was stopped at the border. He had two tattoos of the classic laughing/crying theatre masks—which can mean “Laugh Now, Cry Later” to certain gangs—on his back. Though Villalobos simply got the tattoos because he liked the artwork, that specific tattoo has been tied to Mexican gangs, and his re-entry into the country has been detained. He is awaiting review of his application, with no date set.

A similar situation happened to Huerta, who had been married to an American citizen, when he was arrested in 2008 for being the country illegally. His record showed only minor offenses, such as speeding. He was deported and in 2010 was interviewed at the United States consulate in Juarez, Mexico to attempt to get a visa. He had similar tattoos as Villalobos, though he denied any gang affiliations. His visa was denied to “have affiliation with a criminal organization”. Both men’s families are seeking legal action claiming profiling.

The trouble for these men is not unique in the world of tattoos and popular culture. There are instances of tattoos that marked one as affiliated with certain organizations that go back centuries. Yet as time has went on, the popular culture as time goes on and unfortunately law abiding citizens can find themselves in trouble with the law. With worries of gangs coming across the border with Latin American immigrants, the justice department can be accused of being “hyper cautious”, yet maybe they rightfully so given the current troubles that some of our southern neighbors are dealing with.

Unfortunately for these two men, their families, and others like them the love of artwork can has landed them in trouble with the law due to the lack of knowledge of the symbolism of their tattoos. Perhaps the moral of this story is not so much about immigrants being wrongfully deported and associated with gangs. Perhaps it is also a warning to those that get tattoos to make sure they research they symbolism before they get inked.

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Posted in: green card , immigration and travel , Travel Tips , us immigration , US Visa , visa tips

Chances for Green Cards boosts by the US

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to change family-based visa limits from 7 percent to 15 percent per country, an adjustment that could slightly ease the backlog for naturalized citizens—particularly from the Philippines and Mexico, trying to bring relatives into the country. The legislation, which passed 389-15, was a rare example of bipartisan accord on immigration, an issue that largely has been avoided during the current session of Congress because of the political sensitivities involved.

The measure would eliminate the current law that says employment-based visas to any one country cannot exceed 7 percent of the total number of such visas given out. Instead, permanent residence visas, or green cards, would be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. The bill also seeks to end per-country caps on worker-based immigration visas, a move that should benefit skilled Indian and Chinese residents seeking to stay in the United States and the high-tech companies who hire them.

Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, the sponsor of the bill, said it “does encourage high-skilled immigrants who were educated in the United States to stay and help build our economy rather than using the skills they learned here to aid our competitor nations.” Currently, the US state department issues about 140,000 such green cards a year to foreign nationals working in the United States, often after getting degrees from US universities.

The bill, if passed into law, would boost the number of Filipinos migrating to the United States.

Filipino immigrants are already the second largest immigrant group after Mexicans, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). Citing US census data and immigration statistics, the MPI said there were 1.6 million immigrants born from the Philippines, a former US colony, in the United States in 2006. Many of them were petitioned by relatives.

The MPI said that almost half (46 percent) of Filipino immigrants resided in California and that over two-thirds were concentrated in five states (California, Hawaii, New York, Illinois and New Jersey).

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas placed the number of Filipinos in the United States in 2009 at 2.88 million, including 2.59 million permanent residents. Overseas Filipinos are a big source of foreign exchange for the Philippines. In 2010, they remitted $18.8 billion, helping boost the Philippine economy.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who heads the Senate judiciary panel on immigration, said he planned to move the bill as quickly as possible in the chamber, “where we expect it to find overwhelming support.” Schumer said the legislation would “remove outdated constraints that prevent us from attracting the kind of innovators who can create job growth in America.”

The Obama administration in its first two years failed in several major efforts to change immigration law, and this year the issue has largely been off the table, with Republicans making clear that anything suggesting amnesty for those in the country illegally would be rejected. The Chaffetz bill does not change the number of visas being issued, and groups representing immigrants said the bill would do little to resolve pressing immigration issues. However, they praised US Congress for showing it can act.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said that while the bill would not bring significant changes, “we think this is a positive step forward.” He said it was a good sign that “Republicans and Democrats are actually working on solutions.” Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the measure “makes the system a tiny bit fairer and demonstrates that Congress can do something on immigration, however small.”

Williams cited estimates that while someone from England might wait two or three years for a green card, an Indian could conceivably be on the waiting list for decades.

Still, because there will be no increase in visas issued, there will be losers. Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards. Compete America, a group that represents high-tech companies such as Google and Microsoft Corp. and research institutes, said the bill would correct a problem in which countries with very small populations were subject to the same 7-percent cap as countries such as India and China, which account for more than 40 percent of the world’s population.

The lengthy waiting periods for people trained and working in America “are contributing to a reverse brain drain in the United States as frustrated professionals opt to return to their home countries to pursue their professional ambitions,” Kevin Richards, senior vice president of Tech America, which represents the technology industry, said in a letter to lawmakers. US employers are prohibited under the law from hiring foreign workers unless they show there are not sufficient US workers willing and able to take the jobs.

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Posted in: Filipino immigrants , green card , Immigration News , immigration tips , travel news , Travel Tips , UK work Visa , us immigration , visa tips

Top Ten US Immigration Tips for Avoiding Trouble

Most of us really want to visit US, But sadt to say it is not that easy for your US Visa to be approved . Here's the thing, keep your status secure and your visa and green card applications moving along smoothly by following these immigration tips.

1. Plan for delays. If you are in the United States and your work permit or status needs to be renewed, realize that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly called the INS) is extremely backed up. Cope by turning in your application far in advance. This is particularly important if your legal status has an expiration date on it. If you fall out of status, the immigration authorities could arrest you.

2. Consider U.S. citizenship. If you have a green card, file for U.S. citizenship as soon as legally possible. This will not only protect you from removal (deportation), but will also help you get a more secure status for your close family members. Most people have to wait five years after their green card approval before applying, but a few people can apply sooner. 

3. Avoid summary removal. When arriving in the U.S. from overseas, be ready to convince the border official that you deserve your entry visa. These officials have a lot of power, and they can send you back if they think you are a security risk or that you lied in order to get the visa. Tourists should be careful not to pack anything that looks like they're planning a permanent stay, such as a résumé or a wedding dress.

4. Notify USCIS of address changes. If you're spending more than 30 days in the United States, you must notify USCIS of your changes of address, within ten days of moving. You and every member of your family must send separate notifications. You can do so either by mailing in Form AR-11 (available on the USCIS website) or, better yet, by using USCIS's online change of address service. Also, be sure to send written word of your new address to every USCIS office that's handling an application of yours -- otherwise, the office might not hear of the change.

5. File multiple visa petitions. If you plan to get a green card through a family member, see if more than one member of your family is eligible to submit the visa petition for you. For example, a brother and a sister who are U.S. citizens could both file for you, as could a U.S. citizen spouse or parent. That way, if the waiting list in one category gets especially long or if one person dies, you'll have another option in the works already.
   
   
   

6. Don't be late. Be extremely careful to arrive on time for any scheduled appointment with the USCIS, a U.S. embassy or consulate, or the U.S. immigration court. Arriving late -- or not at all -- can result in months of delays at best and removal from the United States (deportation) at worst.

7. Avoid visa violations. Make sure you understand the fine print surrounding your visa, work permit, or green card, and follow the rules carefully. Violating even minor terms of your visa or green card -- for example, working while you're here as a tourist or helping to smuggle a family member over the border -- can result in your visa being canceled or you being deported. 

8. Copy and track paperwork. USCIS is famous for losing paperwork. Send all applications and other material by certified mail, with a return receipt, and keep a copy. They're not only your proof of filing, but may become the main copies used by USCIS if the original file is never found.

9. Do your research. Be careful who you accept advice from. Rumors and friends can't be relied on -- everyone's legal situation is different. Even USCIS employees sometimes give out wrong advice, for which you pay the consequences. Do your own research where possible and, if necessary, take your unanswered questions to an immigration attorney or accredited representative whose reputation you've checked out.

10. Get help from above. If nothing else is working, contact your U.S. congressperson. They can usually make an inquiry for you, which often encourages the USCIS or consulate into taking appropriate action.

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Posted in: green card , immigration tips , US Embassy , us immigration