• What are the requirements for H-1B status?

• How far in advance of the expiration of my current status should I consider H-1B sponsorship?

• What is the current situation with H-1B ?numbers? for undergraduate and graduate students?

• What questions should I ask potential employers about their immigration policies with regard to H-1B status and employing foreign nationals?

• What happens to my status if I am laid off from my job while in H-1B status?

• How can I obtain permanent residency? How does permanent residency relate to my H-1B status?

• How do I maintain my F-1/J-1 status if I marry a US citizen and apply for permanent residency?

I have attached the presentation and the handouts for anyone who cannot make the presentation tomorrow.  Please also feel free to e-mail me at info at harms-law.com to schedule a one-hour consultation for a nominal fee to design an immigration strategy relevant to your particular situation.

Melissa Harms H-1B Workshop May 2010

H visa

What is almost more disturbing than the law itself, is the statistic that one radio show touted: Seventy percent of Americans agree with Arizona’s law.  My question is: what part of the law?  Fixing a broken immigration system?  Yes.  Arresting people with “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal which will undoubtedly lead to racial profiling?  Not so much.  This law is going to have disasterous consequences on many fronts.  It is true that something needs to be done, but this is a horrible misguided effort.

Jon Stewart offers some humor on a very humorless situation:

Looking for the silver lining, maybe Arizona’s folly will finally breathe life into comprehensive immigration reform.  One can only hope.

  Obama’s health care plan is certainly sweeping and controversial in its own right, but Rep Wilson’s outburst brings up the point that immigration reform also must be addressed.  By simply excluding immigrants from his reform proposals, Obama is looking at half the problem.  Policies that restrict immigrants’ access to health care such as preventive services lead to the inefficient use of emergency room and other costly services.  The economics behind immigration and health care are addressed in the report by the Immigration Policy Institute, entitled, Unequal Accecss: Immigrants and US Health Care.

Dr. Sarita Mohanty, a professor of medicine from the University of Southern California , the author of the report, explains that although immigrants comprised 10 percent of the US population in 1998, they accounted for only 8 percent of US health care costs.  Further, she documents that, “despite the fact that all immigrants are eligible for emergency medical services, they had lower expenditures for emergency room visits, as well as doctor’s office visits, outpatient hospital visits, inpatient hospital visits, and prescription drugs.”

 Although this report focuses on immigrants and health care, it captures the essence of the immigration debate by underscoring the importance of immigrants to our economy and to our nation.  Even pushing aside the fact that we are a nation of immigrants, as besides the Native American’s our ancestors all hail from other nations, the hard facts speak to the importance of immigration.  Not only to illegal immigrants perform jobs that native born Americans cannot and will not do, they also contribute to paying taxes and paying into the Social Security system for benefits they will never collect.  In 2001, the Social Security Administration (SSA) found that undocumented immigrants pay a major portion of taxes into the Social Security system under names or social security numbers that don’t match SSA records and which payees can never draw upon.  As of July 2003, these payments totaled $421 billion.

 It’s time to give undocumented immigrants an earned path to legalization so they can obtain health insurance and continue to contribute to our country, rather than focusing the health care debate on a broken immigration system.

The Late Senator Kennedy with President Obama

 His record on immigration related measures in the Senate is unparalleled:

 1965

The first major bill that Senator Kennedy managed on the Senate floor was the Immigration Act of 1965. It was enacted and stood as a major turning point in immigration and civil rights policy because it eliminated discriminatory immigration quotas which favored European immigration, but restricted immigration from other parts of the world. The 1965 Act gave priority to immigrants based on their skills and family relationships.

 1990

Senator Kennedy was also sponsor of the Immigration Act of 1990 to expand immigration quotas to reunite families in the U.S. and to meet economic needs, which was signed into law.

2005

 Senator Kennedy also begins a four-year effort to achieve comprehensive immigration reform, including a legalization program for immigrants who have been working in the United States, a reduction of the backlog of petitions to unify immigrant families, a temporary worker program, and strict security to protect the nation’s borders.

2007

Following an immigration raid on a factory in Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy worked with the Department of Homeland Security to develop guidelines on humanitarian screening for workers arrested in such raids.

Unfortunately, Senator Kennedy did not live to see his dream of immigration reform become a reality.  Click here to read the post by the American Immigration Lawyers Association which explains the loss the immigration community feels without this champion of immigrant rights serving his country.  The country needs more immigration advocates who are willing to take a stand and speak out for immigrant rights and champion immigration reform, an issue which is politically charged, yet needs to be addressed.