Here we are, 10 days before the next Presidential Election and STILL we wait for something/someone to act on Immigration. We've been promised a WALL between the United States and Mexico by Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, and Comprehensive Immigration Reform within the first 100 days, if Hillary Clinton is elected President.  It has been FAR TOO LONG without action. It is our hope that you are knowledgeable about where each candidate stands with regards to Immigration and the need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

 

- The legal line for family based immigration stretches across decades depending upon what country the beneficiary is from, for instance, a U.S. Citizen who sponsors his biological brother from Mexico will have to wait over 19 years to be reunited with his brother in the U.S.

 

- If a foreign national graduates from a U.S. University with a Master's degree and then gets accepted under the H1B CAP and begins working for a U.S. technology company, who then after seeing the applicant's work ethic and knowledge in the field, decides to initiate the Green Card process, that applicant will more than likely have to wait anywhere from 5-11 years for an immigrant visa number depending upon what country they are from. As of the November 2016 Visa Bulletin, released October 2016, the Employment Based Preference Category for Foreign Nationals with an Advanced Degree from India has retrogressed to November 1, 2007. What this means is that the Department of State is only adjudicating those cases with priority dates on or earlier than November 1, 2007. The Priority Date attaches the day you submit the Labor Application to the Department of Labor. So, in our example above, if the foreign national student files the Labor Application in Year 2016, it is likely that he will not receive his Green Card until 2025, if not longer. All the while, his U.S. employer will have to file H1B extension after H1B extension in order to keep him work authorized in the United States while awaiting the Green Card.

 

- There are only a few ways in which to obtain a Green Card - Employment Based Sponsorship, Family/Marriage Based Sponsorship, Asylees and Refugees, VAWA, U Visas, T Visas,  and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS).

 

- The IRS provides ITIN numbers for those that are not able to obtain Social Security Numbers. Accordingly, an undocumented individual may apply for and receive an ITIN from the IRS. Yet, the ITIN document itself is not an acceptable document for Form I-9, Employment Verification Purposes. So...our current systems will allow undocumented immigrants to apply for ITIN's, receive them, obtain work illegally and pay taxes, but if they get caught, or the U.S. employer gets raided - it's a problem and they could face deportation.

 

- There are more than 11 million undocumented individuals living in the United States...what is the problem of providing them with some type of work authorization so that they may contribute to the economy and make a life for themselves in the United States without hiding in the shadows in fear of deportation. Voluntary deportation is not an option, if you think we experienced a severe economic depression, it would be much worse if we required all 11 million or even the majority of them to voluntarily depart the United States. There is no path, no legal line for the undocumented to get in - we need to create one!