Hilary Clinton, "a Huge Supporter" of Immigration Reform and Her Promise to Push Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Hilary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, said that she was a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and the path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million unauthorized immigrants.  "I'm a huge supporter of immigration reform and a path to citizenship and will continue to advocate for that," said Clinton.


At an event hosted by the Clinton Foundation Thursday, Clinton was asked by a 19-year old woman, an undocumented immigrant, what she would do about immigration.
The young woman explained that her family had illegally brought her to the US from Croatia when she was five-years-old.  "It's been very hard ... because I don't have the documentation to get a job, to vote—which is essential obviously to women representation—to buy an apartment, to take out a loan to go to college, so I couldn't even go to my dream college because of that, to get no financial aid."


Clinton responded, "I believe strongly that we are missing a great opportunity by not welcoming people like you and 11 million others who have made contributions to our country, into a legal status so you don't have to worry, you can go to school, you can work, you can pursue your dreams."  Clinton made it clear that reforming the broken system would be one of her priorities.  She is “strongly in favor” of the bipartisan immigration bill passed in the Senate and that it is “a big missed opportunity for our country” that the House has not yet taken up the legislation.


Clinton has also supported the Obama administration's deferred action initiative for young unauthorized immigrants who would benefit from congressional approval of Dream Act legislation.


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Spouses of H-1B Holders May Be Able To Work

According to a proposed rule change the Department of Homeland Sec, spouses of H-1B visa holders may be able to receive work authorization in the U.S.  This would remove obstacles for some high-skilled workers to staying in the U.S. 


DHS Deputy Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated "these steps will help the U.S. maintain competitiveness with other countries in our efforts to attract the best and the brightest high-skilled workers from around the world to support companies here at home.  Businesses continue to need these high-skilled workers, and these rules ensure we do not cede the upper hand to other countries competing for the same talent."


The current regulations do not allow employment authorization to dependents of H-1B highly-skilled non-immigration workers, or H-4 non-immigrants.  This has "long caused difficulties for the spouses of skilled immigrants, mainly from China, India and the Philippines, who are working here on temporary visas known as H-1B.  The spouses, mainly wives, often have skills and education too, but are not authorized to work in the United States, causing their careers to languish" according to the New York Times.


The proposed rule would allow H-4 non-immigrants to request employment authorization as long as the H-1B visa holder has already started the process of seeking lawful permanent residence through employment.




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Retrogression of June Cut-Off Date

 

Retrogression of June Cut-Off Date

June 2014 Visa Bulletin has been released.  The new cut-off date has been announced in the bulletin. For F2A family based sponsored visas, the cut-off date was retrogressed to May 01, 2012.  

The cut-off date for F2A category was advanced at a very rapid pace during the fiscal year 2013 in order to generate demand to use all numbers available under that annual limit.  However, it has resulted in a dramatic increase in the level of applicant demand in the past seven months.  This has caused the retrogression of the F2A cut-off date to hold number use within the annual limit.  If the applicant demand with early priority dates continues to increase, further retrogression may be expected.

 

Similarly the priority date for EB3 employment based visas was retrogressed to April 1, 2011.  There was also an unexpected and dramatic increase in applicant demand received in the past several months, which resulted in the necessary retrogression of the cut-off dates for the month of June.