Visa for foreign entrepreneurs

Business week in March has a articles about visa for entrepreneurs. See article here.
This week also has short article titled "import job creator". I can not find the link so if someone can provide, it will be great.

2010 H1B visa cap reached

Finally, 2010 H1B visa cap reached. It usually takes less than a month to reach cap but this time during recession year, cap last almost a year. You can see official USCIS press release here about H1B visa 2010 cap.

Get EB5 Green Card by investing in Dallas

Dallas Regional Center stir a buzz about getting green card by investing money in city of Dallas project. This is so called EB5 category immigration. If the investment generate at least 10 jobs for the city, in return, you and your family (for spouse and under age children only) get green cards. It might make sense for some wealthy foreigners. Their children get American education and it might save some money in the long run as being an international students always end up paying more. So if investors has four or five kids...good for them. Minimum of U.S. 500k might be cheaper than send all four kids as international students for four or six years including masters degree.

Please read the related article from DALLAS Morning News here.

Business Week new article about H1B visa

Business Week once in a while will have short article about H1B visa. please read here for the most recent one. Some people usually argue H1B visa are cheap labor in IT. That is not true. Not all H1B visa holders are in IT field and they should not be cheap. At least there need to meet Department of Labor salary minimum. They are set by DOL, so there should not be a cheap labor. Even someone think they are cheap, they should already meet the salary requirement.

Again, immigrants are one of the key factors America is not aging as most of the European countries.

H1b quota used 61100

There are not much left. H1b quota usually used up within a very short period of time if not a week or so. Now is mid December still have some quota left. Some lawyer estimate that the quota should use up within a week. If you are still in the process of filing the H1B visa, please do not wait. Talk to your boss and let them know what's happening.

Temporary Acceptance of H-1B Petitions Without Department of Labor Certified Labor Condition Applications (LCAs)

This news release about H1b will be better if just read the original post, please check here.

American High Tech Sweatshops and H1B visa

This week in BusinessWeek magazine talks about H1b visa abuse and some so called "outsourcing consultanting" company how do they mistreat honest H1B visa workers.
see article here" Ameircan High Tech Sweatshops and H1B visa"

USCIS name check backlog eliminated

Name check is one of the important step for USCIS and FBI to determine if you are a good standing person who did not conduct any criminal offensive that might potentially harm USA. Name check used to take for a while and if you are in bad luck, such as the same name as most wanted, it will take a while and there is some backlog. No more. According to the USCIS press release in June, they are eliminating these backlog thanks to updated computerization and more staffing.

TARP Receiver can not sponsor H1B visa

Sorry for my reluctant postings recently. As current economic downturn, there are not much movement for H1B. I would like to share some news that occur when U.S. government bailed out some big bank and how it also hurt some skilled workers. Please see news here.

USCIS Continues to Accept FY 2010 H-1B Petitions

Not sure if this is a good news or not. Having quota left means USA economic is definitely hurt but also means that applicants still have time to file the paper work, looking for opportunities out there.
Please see official press release from USCIS here.

Why skilled immigrants are leaving the U.S.

U.S.A. is a country formed by immigrants came from everywhere. In fact, most of the countries in the world are formed by immigrants. People move. Canada has better open door policy toward immigrants than U.S. but it does not mean there is no problem. Please see full article here.

Buy American, Hire American

It is impossible to buy all American and Hire all American. just read Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. (and yes, Mr. Friedman was born in USA) If do so, it might actually hurt America. In this AP article "Bank sought foreign workers" it once again, like some other articles accuse H1B worker got paid less than American. I really do not think so. I do not believe some bank will really pay their foreign born VP less than U.S. born VP. VPs are not cheap.

Obama and immigration reform

Business week has one new article about H1b worker. Nothing new, readers can see here for full article.

Best H1B tracking site

Not only H1B visa tracking, but green card, labor certificate, H2, I 140, you name it, they got it.
please visit trackitt

Application for Naturalization

Mailing address changed.

please see detail at here.

What to do if you did not receive EAD within 90 days

First, you can call USCIS Service Center at 1-800-375-5283. Ask for "service request" so you can get response within a week or even better, ask for interim card and get a response.

Second, you can schedule infopass appointment at local USCIS office. Personally I think this method is not really helping anything as local USCIS office no longer issue EAD. They will still forward your case to service center.

Third, after you attemp above, and get no reponse, write e mail to cisombudsman.publicaffairs@dhs.gov
with detail of your efford.

for detail stpes, check DHS webiste here.

Citizenship test questions

After 5 years holding your green card, you can apply for citizenship. You will need to pass 6 questions out of 10 questions that tester ask you. The questions will be chosen from 100 questions pool. Right now there are three languages test available, Chinese, English and Spanish. USCIS also provide flash card so you can better prepare your test. See more educational material here.

Lehman Brothers and H1B

If Lehman Brothers can disappear overnight then H1B holders sometimes might worry what it the same thing happen to them? When the company file chapter 11, they might still operating so your H1B will be ok as long as you are not laid off. In other words, you need to be "hired" to keep your H1B. When you would like to go to next step, Green Card, it might be risky as USCIS will consider the company "ability to pay". Sometimes Fortune 500 company is not the best place to get H1B as they usually have more hiarachy and you need to go through more people to get your paperwork done. more people usually means more time and what H1B applicants do not have is time.

Oct visa bulletin

Oct visa bulletin does not have good news. Employment base EB2 people from China and India processing time have draw back.

Olympic and Immigrants

2008 Olympic Games ended in Beijing and U.S.A. won 110 medals. Some of the medalists are immigrants. Lopez Lomong, Nastia Liukin, Benard Lagat, and Henry Cejudo, son of undocumented worker from Mexico.

What will it be if there is no more immigrants in U.S.A Olympic Team? Above list is just for 2008 team, what will the list be if we count all Olympic Teams in the history? U.S.A. is used to be the country of immigrants because it is the land of opportunity. No more. It is so hard to immigrant here because I have seen many.


Immigration issue is never easy and sometimes emotional.