Important News from AILA for Small Business Owners and H1B Visa Applicants-12/24/03

On November 20th, 2003 Palma R. Yanni, President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, appeared before the House Committee on Small Business to talk about the backlog in the visa approval process, one that is essential to businesses who seek workers to hire foreign workers on a temporary or permanent basis.

Attorney Yanni pointed out that the vast majority of US employers are small businesses and that they produce two-thirds to three-quarters of net new jobs in the U.S. They often seek workers from abroad with expertise in specific markets or technologies in order to expand and create even more jobs for U.S. workers. Unfortunately, AILA estimates that 20 to 25 percent of employment-based immigration cases are subject to requests for additional documentation that is not required by USCIS regulations and that, in some cases, is extremely difficult to obtain, causing severe delays in processing time. Further, most of the delayed cases are for aliens who would work for a small business. Because of these delays for small businesses, larger businesses have a better chance of completing the approval process in time to receive one of the 65,000 H1B available each year.

According to AILA, this situation may soon become worse as the USCIS begins a “pre-certification program” not available to small business. Under this program, large companies would receive a blanket certification for certain job positions. When they identify a foreign candidate, they can use their blanket certification to ensure they do not receive requests for additional documentation. While many small businesses would be stuck with delays, larger companies could quickly use up many of the available H1B visas.

Delays at US consulates abroad are also contributing to this problem. Attorney Yanni gave several examples of delays that ended up hurting American businesses. In one case, an engineer who had worked in the US for four years under an L-1 visa applied to renew his L-1 visa stamp in Indonesia in 2002. The visa is still pending with no satisfactory explanation for the delay. His American employer had to go through the expense of transferring the engineer to an overseas office and moving projects that were to be completed in the US to offices abroad. This is just one case in which an American company or organization was hurt because of delays in visa processing. In fact, Attorney Yanni says, not long ago, obtaining a H1-B visa was considered a two month process. Now, companies may have to wait over one year. AILA characterizes this as an “emergency” that must be remedied right away to ensure that the American economy can continue to grow.