US Immigration News

Several US pro-immigrant organizations are urging the Obama administration to implement a new procedure that would allow undocumented immigrant spouses and children of US citizens to remain in the country while their immigration application is processed.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services launched the first phase of its electronic immigration system, known as USCIS ELIS. The system was created to modernize and expedite the process for filing and adjudicating immigration applications. This marks the first step in its multi-year plan to shift the immigration department from paper to digital forms.

There has been a surge in demand for the popular US H-1B visas that companies use to bring graduate level highly skilled workers to the country. As of 18 May, US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that it has received about 42,000 H-1B cap-subject petitions out of the 65,000 available visas. This number is much higher than the 11,200 visa petitions filed during roughly the same period last year.

US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that, as of 11 May 2012, it has already received 36,700 H-1B cap-subject petitions out of the 65,000 available visas. Additionally, they have already received 14,800 H-1B visa petitions for foreigners with US advanced degrees out of the 20,000 available visas. This means that on 27 April 2012 there were only 28,300 visas left under the H-1B regular visa cap and 5,200 for the H-1B visa advanced degree level visa cap.

US Republican Senator John Cornyn has proposed legislation to increase the number of H-1B visas that are issued to foreigners who have graduated with a master's and doctoral degree from a US university.Senator Cornyn, the senior Republican on a Senate panel that oversees immigration, proposed a bill that would make an additional 55,000 visas available each year for graduates with master's and doctoral degrees from US universities.

Following India's announcement to lodge a complaint about the US at the World Trade Organisation over the increase in US visa fees, the US assured India that it continued to fully support the admission of qualified Indian works.US State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the US and India "did have a good and thorough discussion" on the visa issues with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.