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Intersection Of The Relief Act And Fairness For High Skilled Immigrants Act Of 2019
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</h3><h4><i>by <a href=”http://discuss.ilw.com/articles/articles/392537-article-intersection-of-the-relief-act-and-fairness-for-high-skilled-immigrants-act-of-2019-by-alan-lee-esq#bio”>
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Alan Lee, Esq.
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<p>
There has been recent action with these two pieces of legislation aimed at
reducing immigrant visa backlogs, which will hopefully continue with rapid
pace when Congress again begins its work.
</p>
<p>
S 2603, the Resolving Extended Limbo for Immigrant Employees and Extended
Families (RELIEF) Act, which is widely regarded as the best hope for
equitable expansion and distribution of immigrant visa numbers, has gained
a House companion bill, HR 5327, introduced by Representative Donna Shalala
(D-FL) on December 5, 2019. The RELIEF Act would eliminate green card
backlogs within five years, among other favorable provisions.
</p>
<p>
There is even more action in the flawed Fairness for High Skilled
Immigrants Act of 2019, HR 1044/S386, as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reached
a compromise on December 18 with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), S386’s sponsor,
under which he would drop his opposition to S386 in return for the ability
of employment based applicants to file for early adjustment of status under
the EB-1, EB-2, or EB-3 categories if the visa petition has been approved
or pending for more than 270 days, regardless of whether the priority date
is available. (Such information is contained in a draft of the amended bill
which is being circulated around Washington). The adjustment of status
application could not be approved until an immigrant visa becomes
available. The early filing comes with the ability to gain employment
authorization for three years at a time, to change employers, and travel
freely as well as protection for children who age-out after the adjustment
of status application is filed. Sen. Durbin is a pivotal figure as it was
his earlier opposition to S 386 that stopped the bill from being passed by
unanimous consent in the Senate and he is the sponsor along with Sen.
Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) of S 2603.
</p>
<p>
HR 1044/S386 comes with a small price to the Indian community as the draft
bill would prohibit employers with 50 or more employees from having over
50% on H-1B or L-1 visa statuses. All subsidiaries or group related
companies that are part of one group would to be treated as a single
employer as long as they are filing taxes under one entity as per §414 of
the IRC. (Indian companies have dominated the H-1B market in past years
garnering approximately 75% of all H-1B visas in 2016 and 2017).
</p>
<p>
Although the draft compromise makes the legislation better, it does not
solve the huge problem of immigrant visa backlogs, which are more readily
tackled by the RELIEF Act. It should be emphasized that the draft
compromise like the original bill does not add any immigrant visa numbers.
It merely reshuffles the numbers to natives of India to the detriment of
the rest of the world, including China. (See our article,
<a
href=”http://discuss.ilw.com/articles/articles/391715-article-amended-hr-1044-in-s-386-happening-now-amid-a-flood-of-concerns-by-alan-lee-esq”
>
“Amended HR 1044 in S386 Happening Now Amid a Flood of Concerns”, <em>The Immigration Daily, September 23</em>, 2019
</a>
). To those who would say that HR 1044/S386 benefits China-born also, one
only has to point out that the China backlog under both EB-2 and EB-3
categories is less than 50,000 while the Indian backlog is over 600,000.
India and China are not in the same boat, but the one piece of legislation
that would make an equitable sharing of immigrant visas for everyone is the
RELIEF Act.
</p>
<p>
Yet the political realities of the situation must be considered. Discussing
his compromise with Sen. Lee on the Senate floor, Sen. Durbin pointed out
that although he favored his own bill, it would not pass in the Senate at
this time; that the President did not agree, and that most Republicans in
the House and Senate also did not agree. It may well turn out that this
compromise is the only game in town for a long time.
</p>
<p>
The question is then whether the immigrant community at large should
continue to oppose HR 1044/S 386 in favor of the status quo or support it
despite its inequitable sharing of immigrant visas and H-1B strictures –
(in effect turning H-1B’s into a recruitment based program in which
employers test the American job market using a searchable Internet website
for posting positions administered by the Department of Labor, pay a fee
for applying for a labor condition application (LCA), and prevailing wage
challenges are placed directly under the jurisdiction of DHS).
</p>
<p>
It’s a closer call.
</p>
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About The Author<br/>
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<b>Alan Lee, Esq.</b> is an exclusive practitioner of immigration law based in New York City with an AV preeminent rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory for 20+ years, registered in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, on the New York Super Lawyers list (2011-12, 2013-14, 2014-2015, 2015-2019), and recognized as a New York Area Top Rated Lawyer. He has written extensively on immigration over the past years for Interpreter Releases, Immigration Daily, and the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Epoch Times, Pakistan Calling, Muhasba and OCS; testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings; and is a regular contributor to Martindale-Hubbell’s Ask-a-Lawyer program. His article, “The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis” was Interpreter Releases’ cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004; his 2004 case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged Legacy INS’ policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof, although its central holding that the government had to notify approved immigrant petition holders of the revocation prior to the their departure to the U. S. for the petition to be able to be revoked was short-lived as it was specifically targeted in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 (which in response changed the language of the revocation statute itself). Yet Firstland lives on as precedent that the government must comply with nondiscretionary duties established in law, and such failure is reviewable in federal courts. His 2015 case, Matter of Leacheng International, Inc., with the Administrative Appeals Office of USCIS (AAO) set nation-wide standards on the definition of “doing business” for multinational executives and managers to gain immigration benefits.
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‡ This article © 2019 Alan Lee, Esq.
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