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Immigration Voice is an American nonprofit organization that works to alleviate problems faced by legal high-skill foreign workers who have immigrated or are attempting to immigrate to the United States. Immigration Voice aims to solve issues faced by foreign workers by working to fix the United States employment-based green card policy. Immigration Voice works to reduce delays due to retrogression, [1] delays due to USCIS, and delays due to Labor Certification backlogs.

A majority of activity within Immigration Voice is done through their website. The Immigration Voice website [2] is a platform for members to share their experiences with United States immigration services, provide support for workers currently having issues with the immigration system, as well as share possible strategies for improvement. The Immigration Voice website is also used to organize meetings and plan events. Active participation and discussion of members online has been key to Immigration Voice's success.

Immigration Voice

Founded	November 2005
Founders	Aman Kapoor
Type	Non-Profit Organization
Location	United States
Fields	Immigration Reform
Website	https://immigrationvoice.org

History

Budget Reconciliation Bill S. 1932

In November 2005, the United States Senate was in the process of passing budget reconciliation Bill S.1932. Budget reconciliation is the process used by the United States Congress to implement changes in budget policy. During this process Congress discusses and debates where government money will be spent, how much will be spent, and how to raise money to pay for that spending. A budget reconciliation Bill is the result of these discussions and contains Congress-recommended changes that are intended to ensure the governments financial goals are met.

Budget reconciliation Bill S.1932 initially contained two sections, sections 8001 and 8002, that contained immigration reforms for legal working immigrants. These reforms would help lessen the effects of retrogression and provide relief for those stuck in green card delays. The Senate passed this bill entirely, including sections 8001 and 8002, and it was sent to the House for approval. Once at the House Bill S.1932 was passed but sections 8001 and 8002 were excluded from the final bill. No statement was released by Congress regarding why these sections were excluded and many immigrants were left disappointed and confused. Some argue these sections were excluded due to pressure from some members of the Republican House who threatened to vote against the bill if it included immigration reforms. It is inconclusive why the Republican House voted against the bill, but many pro-immigrationists believed half a billion dollars was at stake and members of the Republican House did not agree with allocating that much money to immigration reform.

Immigration Voice Website Launch

In December 2005 Florida State University computer programmer Aman Kapoor launched the Immigration Voice website in response to the removal of sections 8001 and 8002 from Bill S.1932. Kapoor was, by law, obligated to remain at his computer programming job until his received his green card. In 2005 Kapoor was in his fourth year of waiting and had reached his boiling point. Immigration Voice became a platform for skilled immigrant workers, like Kapoor, to express their frustrations with the employment-based immigration system as well as brainstorm ideas and strategies that may help improve it. Kapoor hoped that there was power in numbers and that bringing together people in similar situations may be a catalyst for change. When Immigration Voice was formed there were over 500,000 skilled immigrants stuck in backlogs, unable to successfully immigrate to and work in the United States.

The Immigration Process

Employment-Based Categories

Before starting the immigration process foreign workers are divided up into employment-based categories based on their skills and qualifications. There are 3 employment-based categories: employment first preference (E1), employment second preference (E2), and employment third preference (E3). Workers placed in the E1 category are considered priority workers, and account for 28.6 percent of employment-based immigrant visas. Those placed in E1 are either persons with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, or multinational managers or executives. Those placed in E2 are considered persons of exceptional ability. These workers include professionals holding advanced degrees and those considered to have exceptional ability. Finally, section E3 includes skilled workers, professionals, and unskilled workers. Skilled workers are persons who work jobs that require at least 2 years of training or work experience. In addition to these categories, there are E4 and E5 immigrants. Immigrants in the E4 category are considered certain special immigrants and must be the beneficiary of an approved Amersian, Widower, or Special Immigrant. Those placed in E5 are applicants who must invest between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dollars in a commercial venture and create 10 or more jobs for those eligible to work in the United States, including both American citizens and immigrants permitted to work in the United States.

Labour Certification, I-140, and I-485

Attaining a green card as a high-skilled foreign worker is a multi-step process. After being placed into one of the employment-based categories outlined above[3] the foreign workers employer must file an application for labor certification from the United States Department of Labor. Labour certification is given to foreign skilled-workers who are coming to the United States to perform services that qualified American workers are unavailable to do or unwilling to do. If there are qualified American workers available to perform a job then labour certification will not be approved. Labour certification is based entirely upon the availability of work in the location the worker wishes to work. Most labour certification cases take 6-10 months to be approved, but there is no time guarantee for approval. Some cases may take longer depending on the number of cases pending at labour certification processing centres at any given time.

After successfully attaining labour certification the employer must then file an Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, also referred to as Form I-140. This, like labour certification applications, must be done by the alien workers employer and can only be filed once labour certification is approved. This form is used to petition for an alien worker to become a permanent resident in the United States, and is to be approved by the USCIS. Most cases take approximately 6 months to be approved, but like with labour certification, there is no guaranteed time and approval time depends on the number of pending cases already in queue.

The final step in working-alien immigration is the submission and approval of form I-485. Form I-485 is an application for adjustment of status to permanent residence and can be submitted alongside form I-140 or following I-140's approval. Form I-485 can only be submitted if the workers priority date is current. Priority dates is the queueing system used to keep tract of immigrant quotas, as discussed below.[4] Approval is dependent on employment-class, country of origin, and priority dates. An applicant is unable to apply for this last stage of the immigration process if their priority date has already passed.

The Issues

One of the issues Immigration Voice hopes to fix is to reduce the delays associated with successfully obtaining a green card, or permanent residence card. A green card is proof that the holder has the right to live in the United States, work in the United States, and travel and return to the United States without issue. However, green card holders are not considered legal citizens. Green card holders can not vote in federal elections, nor can they hold a permanent residence outside of the US. Attaining a green card as a high-skilled immigrant in the United States is a multi-step process, as detailed above.[5] Each step in this process can take from several months to several years to go through.

Delays are also partially associated with a cap that the USCIS has placed on how many green cards can be attained annually. There are currently limits on the number of employment-based visas that may be given per year, and they depend on the employment-based categories. There are 40,000 visas available to workers in the employment first preference category, 40,000 visas available to workers in the employment second preference category, and 40,000 visas available to workers in the employment third preference category, totalling 120,000 visas annually. There are an additional 20,000 visas available to those in employment fourth preference and employment fifth preference categories making the total number of employment-based visas available each year 140,000. In 2015 alone there were over 233,000 high-skilled worker visa applications submitted. Due to these limits on the number of visas available backlogs are consistently increasing. New applicants are often faced with wait times longer than 5 years before they receive their green cards. These wait times are often longer than the lifetime of the employee and the sponsoring entity, leaving high-skilled workers without jobs.

Green card processing times also depend on the country of origin of the seeker. The USCIS has also set a rule that green card quota's can not exceed 7% for any given country. This does not mean that a country is entitled to a maximum number of visa's each year, but rather that no country can receive more than that number. Those from India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines face longer wait times than those from any other country. Immigration Voice states this is problematic, as those four countries have the highest number of scientists, engineers, and technology workers. Immigration Voice state that "employability has nothing to do with birth" and that hiring workers based on nationality or country or origin is discriminatory." This view is shared by the LexisNexis Legal Newsroom who state that "this is tantamount to invidious discrimination."

Statistics - Immigration in the United States

United States Citizenship and Immigration Service Headquarters

In 2005, when Immigration Voice was founded, there were 1,122,373 legal immigrants living in the United States. The number of immigrants living in the United States has been on a steady uprise since 1970. As of April 2016 there are over 81 million immigrants living in the United States, an increase of over 79 million from Immigration Voice's earliest days.

High-skilled immigrants account for less than 3% of the American workforce, and less than 15% of all immigrants. 82% of male immigrants living in the United States are employed, in comparison to 73% of native born men. The amount of immigrants between 25 and 65 years old with a bachelors degree is 30%, only slightly lower as compared with the native-born 32%.

Contributions of High-Skilled Immigrants

Immigration Voice states that the contributions of high-skilled immigrants should not be overlooked, and that "high-skilled legal immigrants strengthen the United States economy and help maintain American technological superiority. Foreign workers have the potential to fill a gap in science, engineering, and math fields that is not being filled by American-born workers.

Silicon Valley's workforce is an example of the value that high-skilled immigrants can bring to the United States. Silicon Valley's workforce is one of the most ethnically diverse with foreign workers dominating the blue-collar workforce and accounting for more than a quarter of Silicon Valley's high-skilled workers. Foreign-born Chinese and Indian engineers run 29% of Silicon Valley's technology community, and are responsible for creating over 72,000 jobs and almost 20 billion dollars in sales. Foreign-born workers are starting businesses and generating jobs and thus wealth at the same speed as native-born American workers.

Controversy

Much of the debate surrounding immigration in the United States has been focused on illegal immigration. High-skilled legal immigrants have expressed dissatisfaction; claiming there has been too much focus on the 12 million illegal, unskilled workers. The contributions of high-skilled workers are often drown out by discussions of illegal immigration, and whether immigrants are taking jobs away from American workers.

Immigrants Taking Jobs

In the words of United States president elect Donald Trump immigrants are "taking our jobs. They're taking our manufacturing jobs. They're taking our money. They're killing us." This view is not unique to Trump; a poll done by Rasmussen in 2015 found that over half of respondents believe immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born workers.

Immigration Voice states that high-skilled foreign workers do not take jobs away from native-born American citizens. The United States Department of Labor is responsible for ensuring that the admission of alien-workers into the United States will "not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers." The labour certification process ensures that employment-based immigrants can only work jobs that are being refused or unable to be filled by native-born workers. High-skilled immigrants are not taking jobs away from American citizens, but are rather taking over jobs that can not be filled by native-born workers. High-skilled immigrant workers can not even apply for visas unless there is certification from the federal government that no American workers are available for their jobs.

Notable Members

• Neil Patel, member of Immigration Voice National Advisory Board, former policy advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney