ALERT: Starting April 3, 2017, USCIS will temporarily suspend premium processing for all H-1B petitions. This suspension may last up to 6 months. We will notify the public before resuming premium processing for H-1B petitions. Read more here: USCIS Will Temporarily Suspend Premium Processing for All H-1B Petitions
US suspends expedited processing of H-1B visas
(CNN) The US is temporarily suspending expedited processing of H-1B visas, eliminating the option of shorter wait times for the program that helps highly skilled foreigners work at US companies.
Under the current system, companies submitting applications for H-1B visas for potential employees can pay extra for expedited processing, which is referred to as premium processing. Premium processing costs an additional $1,225 and ensures a response from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in 15 days or the fee is refunded. Processing of standard H-1B applications — those that are not premium — takes between three to six months.
The suspension is effective April 3, and could last up to six months, according to USCIS.
The change comes as President Donald Trump is said to be drafting a new version of his court-halted executive order that banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. The new ban will exclude existing visa holders, sources familiar with the plan have told CNN.
Fierce competition
The H-1B visa program is the main pathway for highly skilled foreigners to work at US companies. Various industries, including tech, engineering, journalism, medicine and academia, vie each year for the program’s 85,000 visas.
The visas are doled out by a lottery, and the number of applicants continues to swell each year. Last year, the demand was three times greater than the quota.
Outsourcing firms flood the system with applicants, obtaining visas for foreign workers and then farming them out to tech companies. They take a sizable cut of the salary.
While the visas are used to fill the US skills gap, Trump has spoken out about abuse of the program.
Calls for reform
A bipartisan bill introduced this week in Congress calls for reform of visas for highly skilled workers.
**** C’mon Donald…it is not enough as you said on the campaign trail.
ComputerWorld: In November, President Donald Trump said on his first day in office he would order an investigation of H-1B abuses.
That never happened, though critics held their tongues. After all, Trump had repeatedly campaigned for H-1B reforms, even inviting laid-off Disney IT workers to speak at his campaign rallies. Even so, patience is ending.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), a long-time critic of the H-1B visa program and co-sponsor of a reform bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), accused Trump today of failing “to put American workers first by cracking down on H-1B visa abuse.
“I am disappointed that you have broken your campaign promise to take action on the first day of your Administration to reform foreign guest worker visas – especially the H-1B visa – to put American workers first,” Durbin wrote in a letter to Trump sent Friday.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Durbin’s letter could be dismissed by some as a partisan attack by a Democrat, but he is not alone. The IEEE-USA has also warned that Trump is in danger of “letting down American workers.”
A key issue is the upcoming April 1 H-1B visa lottery. Trump has voiced support for a merit-based distribution system. As it stands now, however, the H-1B visas for the 2018 fiscal year will be distributed by lottery, no different than any other year. As a result, the IEEE-USA has warned that unless Trump moves to change the lottery, thousands of visas will go to offshore outsourcing firms.
IT workers have long complained about training H-1B-holding replacements, and Trump has spoken of the problem.
“Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans,” Trump said at a campaign rally last fall for Millennial-age voters in Ohio.
It’s not clear how much authority Trump even has to change the lottery. There are three competing views.
The IEEE-USA believes Trump needed to make a regulation to change the annual H-1B distribution. But Trump needed to do so this week to meet a 30-day notice requirement. But an official from the American Immigration Lawyers Association believes the only way Trump can change the lottery is with legislation, which means he has to wait for Congress to act. A third view is that Trump can change the lottery right up to April 1 with an executive order.
The Trump administration has given no indication of what it will do about this year’s visa lottery.
“The American people deserve an explanation for your decision not to pursue H-1B reforms on your first day in office,” wrote Durbin.
“If you do not take action in the next few weeks, outsourcers will secure the right to import tens of thousands of low-wage foreign guest workers to replace American workers,” wrote Durbin. “This is in addition to hundreds of thousands of H-1B workers who are already employed by outsourcing companies in the United States.”
