Press. voanews.com
The United
States has announced changes to its nonimmigrant work visa policies that are
expected to make renewals more difficult. In the past, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services would generally approve the renewals unless the visa
holder had committed a crime. Now, renewals will face the same scrutiny as the
original applications.
"USCIS
officers are at the front lines of the administration's efforts to enhance the
integrity of the immigration system," USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna
said, according to the announcement posted on USCIS' website this week.
"This updated guidance provides clear direction to help advance policies
that protect the interests of U.S. workers."
The new
regulations could affect more than 100,000 people holding at least eight
different types of work visas who fill out the I-129 form for renewals.
Sam Adair, a
partner at the Graham Adair business immigration law firm in California and
Texas, said that for the most part, he expected visa holders would most likely
face lengthier adjudication periods in their renewal processes, as opposed to
increased numbers of denials.
"I don't
think it's going to be a big shift for us," Adair told VOA. "But I
think what we'll see is just an increase in the number of requests for
evidence, an increase in the delays on the adjudication of these petitions, and
really it's going to just result in more costs for the employers who are filing
these petitions."
Of all visa
holders affected by this policy, those in the United States on an H-1B, a visa
for "high-skilled" workers, are the biggest group. Of 109,537 people
who had to submit I-129 forms in fiscal 2017, 95,485 were H-1B holders,
according to data sent to VOA by USCIS.
H-1B visas have
been threatened in the past, most recently by a bill proposed this year that
would have raised the minimum salary requirement for workers brought in on the
visa. While advocates of the program argued that it would keep workers from
being exploited, many H-1B holders feared that businesses would be less willing
to hire them or keep them on board.
But some
Americans support the new regulations, saying that nonimmigrant work visas hurt
American workers. "It's prudent to
make sure that the people that receive those visas are in complete compliance
with all of the requirements," Joe Guzzardi, national media director of
Californians for Population Stabilization, told VOA.
"It just
isn't possible to think that there aren't American workers that couldn't fill
these jobs," he said, noting that while the regulations might hurt
businesses, they would help Americans looking for work.
https://www.voanews.com/a/greater-scrutiny-set-nonimmigrant-work-visa-renewals/4087885.html