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| (c) Law Office of Bonnie Stern Wasser |
Winter 2007 |
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Greetings,
Happy New Year! 2007 promises to be a busy year as the new Congress takes up
immigration legislation. But will Congress
enact much needed comprehensive immigration
reform (CIR) or piecemeal bipartisan fixes
such as jobs for agricultural workers? Stay
tuned. This newsletter and future issues
will keep you informed of developments in
Congress
and other topics in immigration law as they
affect
our business and family based immigration
clients.
The firm website has also
been updated with new
articles with links to some of them in this
email.
Your comments about this newsletter or
suggestions for future articles would be
appreciated. Let me know if you would like
to contribute an article.
Best Regards,
Bonnie Stern Wasser
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Visas for Entrepreneurs
Options for Investors, Founders, Executives and Key Personnel
This article discusses visa options for
individuals and foreign based
companies desiring to start or expand a
business in
the United States. Visa options include E-1s/E2s,
Ls, Os, H1Bs and E3s. Permanent residence
categories are also described. Strategy for
determining the appropriate category depends
upon several factors, some of which include:
nationality of all investors and owners,
amount and type of funds to be invested,
nationality of prospective employees,
prospective job duties, length of stay
needed, entity structure, availability of
related entities abroad, reputation in the
field, education and work experience, and
scope of international trade, if any. Find out more...
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New Study on Immigrant Entrepreneurs
25% of High Tech Start-Ups are Created by Immigrants
Duke University researchers, who studied over
2000 new high tech companies created
nationwide in the last decade, found that
immigrants from India, China, Taiwan, the UK
and Canada made up 25 percent or more of the
founders, executives or chief technologists.
In some states, immigrants formed up to 52
percent of new companies.
Learn more about the Duke study....
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Industry Focus: High Tech
H-1B Caps and Wages
H-1B specialty occupation visas for
professional workers are available across all
industries. However, high tech employers are
one of
the largest industry users of this visa
category.
The annual allotment of H-1B visas is a rather
paltry 65,000 per year, down from 120,000 a few
years ago. The 65,000 "cap", or annual quota, was
reached for
this fiscal year 2007 before the
fiscal year even
started on October 1, 2006! Therefore, employers
have been out of luck employing H-1B workers this
year except in certain cases. Employers
hoping to
hire new H-1B
workers needed for FY 2008 beginning October 1,
2007
can begin to file applications on April 1,
2007.
Therefore, now is the time to locate and make
offers
to the best and brightest talent in order to have
H-1B applications ready to file on April 1.
More about cap exceptions and wages...
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Legislation and Policy: CIR
25% of High Tech Start-Ups are Created by Immigrants
Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) looks
at the big picture of immigration addressing
who we
should encourage to come lawfully through a
better system of legal immigration, dealing
with the millions of immigrants here
illegally, and striving for a balance between
efficient inspections and national security
protections with the needs of employers. CIR
means having a fair system of determining who
can stay and who must leave ensuring due
process and civil liberties. Enforcement
only legislation, on the other hand, deals
primarily with building walls,
militarizing the border, criminalizing
illegal immigrants, promoting closed hearings
and secret evidence, mandatory and indefinite
detention, and keeping people out of
the US. Where do you stand on immigration
issues? Many hope that the new Congress
will take action on CIR this year. Others
believe immigration will continue to polarize
legislators to the extent that nothing will
get done, leaving everyone with the same old,
same old.
Learn more about the essential components of CIR....
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Source Country Spotlight: Australia
In this issue, we take a look at immigrants from
Australia. Australian companies and entrepreneurs
benefit from being able to use the E-1/E-2
treaty trader/investor visas, among others.
See the article above on entrepreneur visas.
In addition, Australians benefit from a
unique and country-specific visa just for
them called the E-3 visa enacted in 2004.
These are for persons working in specialty
occupations where at least a bachelors degree
or higher is required to perform the job.
One problem faced by some Australian-educated
immigrants trying to use the H-1B, E-3 or
professional green card categories involves the
requirement of needing to hold at least a US
equivalent
four-year university degree. Several
Australian bachelors-level university
programs do NOT equate to a four-year US
degree. Instead, they equate to three-year
programs. Therefore, Australian educated
immigrants may need to obtain credentials
evaluations that combine both academics and
work experience. For each year of US
university lacking, three years of
professional level work experience in the
field is required to equate to a US four-year
degree.
Australians coming to the US for less than 90
days
as bona fide tourists may use the visa waiver
program
which means that no visa at all is required.
However, there are some risks. One is that if the
tourist overstays and is caught, the right to an
immigration hearing is forfeited. Secondly,
one can
be denied entry to the US if the visa waiver
is used
to come to the US with the intent to stay
permanently. Australian nationals tend to
have a very low overstay or fraud rate. In
our experience, the US consulates in
Australia that issue visas for other purposes
are fairly easy to deal with, depending upon
the facts in the case.
Finally, in 2002 the Australian Parliament
finally passed legislation allowing
Australian citizens to hold dual US and
Australian citizenship. For many years, this
was an impediment for Australian permanent
residents in the US to seek US citizenship.
While most countries do not favor dual
citizenship, it is now permitted in both
Australia and the USA.
More on E-3 visas....
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Military Naturalization
Expedited Naturalization for Soldiers Abroad
Many lawful permanent residents serving in the US
military have
benefited from a Presidential Executive Order
allowing for expedited naturalization. Overseas
processing of citizenship applications is
streamlined and quick, and US residency
requirements
are relaxed. In addition, posthumous
naturalization
is available for our fallen service men and
women.
Find out more....
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Firm News
Bonnie Stern Wasser appeared in the August
25, 2006
issue
of the Puget Sound Business Journal on the
subject
of why we need Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
Her article, Travelers Beware: Border
Searches of Laptops and Other Electronic
Gear appeared
on the blogs of Appellate Law and Practice Blog,
Future Lawyer Blog and Home Office Lawyer Blog.
The mission of this firm is to help bring people
together by reuniting families and to
help employers lawfully hire the best and
brightest talent. In addition to providing
strategic
planning
for obtaining temporary and permanent
immigration,
we also provide internal immigration audit
services
to employers, counsel about mergers and
acquisitions
as they affect immigration, and solve complex
problems in the areas of
citizenship, naturalization and asylum.
Please be sure to give me your feedback on
this newsletter. Thank you for your business
and/or your
continued referrals.
Best wishes for a wonderful 2007,
Bonnie Stern Wasser
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