Close X
Thursday, December 19, 2024
ADVT 
International

Senator Moves Amendments To Immigration Reform To Reduce Green Card Backlog

The Canadian Press, 15 Feb, 2018 11:55 AM
    In a move aimed at bringing in the issues of green card backlog and H-1B visa, a top American lawmaker has moved amendment to a White House-backed immigration bill that mostly focuses on illegal immigration and merit-based immigration.
     
     
    The amendments, moved by Senator Orrin Hatch, aim to eliminate annual per-country limits for employment-based green cards so that applicants from more populous countries are not unfairly discriminated against relative to applicants from less populous countries.
     
     
    “I have long said that high-skilled immigration is merit-based immigration,” Hatch said after moving the amendments on Wednesday.
     
     
    It increases worker mobility for individuals on the path to a green card by enabling such individuals to change jobs earlier in the process without losing their place in the green card line.
     
     
    It also codifies existing regulations regarding spousal work authorisation and post-education practical training.
     
     
    The amendments exempt holders of US master’s degrees or higher who are being sponsored for green cards from the annual numerical limitations on H-1B visas and subjects employers who fail to employ an H-1B worker for more than three months during the individual’s first year of work authorisation to a penalty.
     
     
    Also, it further updates the 1998 law exempting H-1B-dependent employers from certain recruitment and non-displacement requirements.
     
     
    In particular, the amendment raises from USD 60,000 to USD 100,000 the H-1B salary level at which the salary-based exemption takes effect, narrows education-based exemption to H-1B hires with a US PhD, and eliminates exemption for “super-dependent” employers altogether.
     
     
    “It’s immigration targeted at the best, the brightest, and the most highly educated. The amendments, I filed today, are focused, commonsense reforms that will make a real difference for our economy,” Hatch said.
     
     
    “In particular, they will help streamline the process by which a worker with in-demand technical skills can obtain a green card and will cut back on some of the troubling abuses we have seen with the H-1B programme. These are important reforms that can attract broad support, and I intend to pursue every opportunity to include them in the pending immigration bill,” the lawmaker said.

    MORE International ARTICLES

    UK Resorting To 'Dirty Politics' Ahead of International Court Of Justice Election: Sources

    UK Resorting To 'Dirty Politics' Ahead of International Court Of Justice Election: Sources
    In all previous incidents, the candidate getting majority in the General Assembly has eventually been elected a judge of The Hague-based International Court of Justice.

    UK Resorting To 'Dirty Politics' Ahead of International Court Of Justice Election: Sources

    School Teacher In US Pulls Off Muslim Student's Hijab

    The teacher pulled off the girl's hijab while she was talking with her friends at the Lake Braddock High School, Virginia.

    School Teacher In US Pulls Off Muslim Student's Hijab

    British Watchdog To Question Schoolgirls On Hijab

    British Watchdog To Question Schoolgirls On Hijab
    The move follows concerns that girls as young as four are being forced to wear the Muslim headscarf to school

    British Watchdog To Question Schoolgirls On Hijab

    Indian Girl Sherin Mathews's Foster Mother Moved To Dallas County Jail

    Indian Girl Sherin Mathews's Foster Mother Moved To Dallas County Jail
    The foster mother of three-year-old Indian girl Sherin Mathews found dead in a culvert in Dallas has been moved to a jail on a charge of abandoning a child.

    Indian Girl Sherin Mathews's Foster Mother Moved To Dallas County Jail

    Sikh Lawmaker Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Trolled Online In UK For Not Speaking On Sikh Issues

    Sikh Lawmaker Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Trolled Online In UK  For Not Speaking On Sikh Issues
    Tan Dhesi became Labour's MP for Slough in June, was recently accused of ignoring the plight of a British Sikh man who was arrested during his visit to India.

    Sikh Lawmaker Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Trolled Online In UK For Not Speaking On Sikh Issues

    Punjab Police Deny British National Jagtar Jaggi Johal Was Tortured

    Punjab Police Deny British National Jagtar Jaggi Johal Was Tortured
    Not only did it have sufficient evidence to prove the complicity of Jagtar alias Jaggi in the cases of targeted killings, the police had also ensured that there was no violation of his rights at any stage

    Punjab Police Deny British National Jagtar Jaggi Johal Was Tortured