Immigration news

This week, as employers began filing petitions for the popular US H-1B work visas, Microsoft stressed the importance of the visa in keeping America's IT companies competitive."While the vast majority of our US workforce is comprised of US workers, the individuals we employ in H-1B status -educated at some of the best universities in the US and around the world - are crucial to our business," said Brad Smith, general counsel & executive vice president, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft.

A new study released this week questions whether Canadian governments should continue to maintain high immigration levels in tough economic times.The study released 4 April by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), proposed that if Canada reduced immigration numbers during recessions then it could possibly improve the overall performance of immigrants. They added that it could also reduce the damage caused when new immigrants enter the labour market but can't find work for lengthy periods of time due to the economy.

Business owners have criticized the UK government's decision to close the Tier 1 post-study work (PSW) visa saying that it makes it more difficult for companies to fill vacancies that require specialized skills.

This week the US began accepting applications for the popular H-1B visa program. While the H-1B visa has been a popular visa among IT workers for a long time, critics are saying that the L-1 visa is now being used improperly in place of the H-1B visa.The L-1 visa is used for intra-company transfers of employees from foreign offices to US offices.

The UK Border Agency announced that from 5 April 2012 they will resume full visa services in Libya. The UK visa service was originally closed in February 2011 due to increased violence at that time.

The US Department of State (DOS) has released the April Visa Bulletin and announced that the EB2 employment based immigration priority cutoff dates for Indian and Chinese nationals have stayed the same as in the March bulletin. However, the cutoff date for EB2 immigrant petitions for Indian and Chinese nationals could go back to August 2007 in May or June 2012. This will mean that visa applications received on or before August 2007 will be processed. Visa applications received after this date will have to wait for the cut off date to become current.