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In its first weeks the Biden administration has laid out an ambitious agenda, including broad-based immigration reform. Addressing immigration, never an easy topic in Congress, out-of-the-gate is a bold move that will generate intense debate. But theres an aspect of the immigration issue that should engender more bipartisan agreement access for U.S. businesses to the skilled and educated immigrants they need to be competitive.

Numerous studies over the years have confirmed an essential fact: Immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial than native-born Americans and have a high propensity to found companies. In 2019, one in four entrepreneurs was an immigrant. More than half of unicorns launched in the U.S. have been founded by people from other countries.

The ranks of CEOs, CTOs and VPs for engineering are filled with immigrants who came here as students or on H-1B or other visas.

In the Bay Area, close to 45% of tech companies have been founded by immigrants and more than half of all of technology workers are immigrants. A preponderance of graduate students in science and technology at Bay Area universities are immigrants holding F-1 visas.

The Trump administration actively suppressed immigration at every level not just undocumented immigrants but legal, high-skilled immigrants as well. Undoing that damage will be an important task for the new administration.

Take H-1Bs, the visa used by tech and other companies to fill high-skilled workforce gaps. In recent years denial rates have risen sharply. Spouses of H-1B holders, often skilled individuals themselves, were denied the ability to work. In June it was announced that the issuance of new H-1B and other work-related visas such as H-2B (for seasonal workers), J-1 (for work-study summer students) and L-1 (for intra-company executive transfers) would be suspended until 2021 due to the pandemic and unspecified threats to American jobs. An attempt was made, but later withdrawn, to terminate visas for students who were forced to take classes online when the pandemic forced campuses to close.

In October, a new set of rules was issued that sharply raised minimum pay thresholds for visa holders to levels unaffordable by most businesses, changed the lottery by prioritizing applications for the highest-paying jobs, and narrowed the definition of qualifying specialty occupations. This last rule also impacted current visa holders by applying the new standards to applications for renewal. The effect was to make continued use of the program impractical for most businesses.

Now, with pushback by businesses and universities, and a change of administration, the clock is being reset. A November lawsuit by the Bay Area Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others successfully blocked Octobers changes to the lottery and salary thresholds on procedural grounds, but earlier this month modified rules were issued after those deficiencies were corrected. The other Trump proposal to redefine who is eligible for a visa, however, was not published so has not gone into effect.

So where happens next? The new administration has the discretion to change how immigration law is interpreted and enforced, and almost certainly will. Administrative rules that have not been formally adopted can be rescinded, but rules already in place can only be changed through new administrative procedures, which will take time.

Comprehensive immigration reform is near the top of the legislative agenda. New policies and the bill sent to Congress should include measures to ensure that Americas doors are open to legal, high-skilled immigrants. These include protecting the right of spouses of H-1B visa holders to work, exempting individuals who hold advanced STEM degrees from numerical visa caps, eliminating country quotas for green cards, and enabling the number of H-1B visas to float to meet the market.

Selectively engaging skilled immigrants gives the U.S. a competitive advantage, allowing it to offset an ageing workforce, support business formation, and expand employment. The H-1B visa program, including any reforms, should be supported by on a bipartisan basis independent of other immigration issues. For now, businesses, current visa holders, and others who are planning to apply can expect more welcoming policies in the Biden administration than under its predecessor.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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The Biden administration will offer a more welcoming environment for skilled immigrants and H1-B visas - The Times of India Blog

President Joe Biden is throwing the kitchen sink at immigration reform. And thats good, because there is a lot to clean up.

Biden is working both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Not only did the president keep his promise to send over, on his first day in office, a proposed immigration reform bill for Congress to chew onand fight over for the next several months. He has also, in his first two weeks on the job, issued a slew of executive orders intended to fix some of what former president Donald Trump broke, tarnished, or sullied with his heartless, harebrained, and half-baked immigration policies.

I know what youre thinking. Youve seen this movie before. Well, maybe you havebut maybe you havent. Biden is trying something that seems familiar at first glance, but is at closer look quite a novel approach.

On the one hand, his immigration reform bill looks like past bills because its built around the same big-ticket item: a path to U.S. citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. Previous legislation has suggested that the path should be as long as 12 years, but Biden wants to cut it to eight. That idea alone is enough to keep Congress preoccupied, and feuding, over the next few months. Democrats will talk about lifting people from the shadows and giving them a chance to contribute further to America, while Republicans will talk about amnesty and upholding the rule of law.

But whats missing from the Biden bill are the kinds of sticks and carrots that formed the foundation of previous stabs at immigration reform. Where are the guest workers, to get the support of pro-business Republicans? Has anyone seen the employer sanctions that are usually in these bills to win over the votes of pro-labor Democrats who often oppose reform efforts because unions fear competition from newly legalized immigrant workers? What about the low-hanging fruit that usually attracts support from both Republicans and Democrats, i.e. increased border security?

These are the kinds of things that are usually consideredalong with legalization, regularization, amnesty, whatever you want to call itthe essential components of comprehensive immigration reform. They get included in legislative proposals so they can be haggled over and negotiated away and used as lures to attract support.

The fact that theyre not part of Bidens bill tells me one of three things. One, maybe the administration doesnt think the bill is going to pass anyway, and so the White House isnt bothering to include all the trimmings. Two, maybe the White Housewith an eye toward protecting vulnerable congressional Democrats who have to stand for reelection in 2022doesnt want the bill to pass, and this is all a show to placate immigration reform activists.

Or three, there may be some really smart people on Bidens team who understand that, in years past, it was those horse-trading items that often gummed up the works and kept immigration bills from passing. Leaving the sweeteners out may increase the chance the bill will pass because the sweeteners are often divisiveboth in Congress, and the public as a wholeand they ignite the special interests who then get into the sandbox and make the whole process of passing the bill more partisan, polarized, and poisonous.

Take, for instance, guest workers. Business interests say we need to bring in temporary foreign workers to do these jobs. That upsets and inflames organized labor which argues that foreign workers take jobs and drive down wages for U.S. workers. Now, the haggling over an immigration bill, which was supposed to be about securing U.S. borders and ports while giving legal status to some of the undocumented, becomes a pissing contest between labor and management, each of which is throwing money at their respective armies in Congress. Suddenly, both parties are awash in money, and they can only think about one thing: How do they keep the faucet turned on?

The core question that confronts his bill is this: Is this the best time to pass immigration reform legislation that adds some humanity and common sense to a system that can be unfair, unkind, unworkable, and unjust? Or is it the worst time?

People ask me all the time why we havent had a meaningful and comprehensive immigration reform billone that combines enforcement, employment, and legal statuspassed by Congress since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Ive just explained why: Theres no money in compromise. Theres money in conflict.

Biden knows all this. For 36 years in the Senate, he had a front-row seat to this circus. So with his immigration bill, he just sidesteps all that special interests bullshit on both sides, and makes what looks like a clean ask: U.S. citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in this country.

Instead of citizenship, Biden should have askedin his billfor the three things that the undocumented tell me they want: legal status so they cant be deported, the ability to travel across borders so they can go home and visit family members who got left behind, and the ability to get a drivers license so they can get back and forth to work. Thats it. Thats what the undocumented need and deserve.

But Biden has decided to go bigger. The core question that confronts his bill is this: Is this the best time to pass immigration reform legislation that adds some humanity and common sense to a system that can be unfair, unkind, unworkable, and unjust? Or is it the worst time? It may be that four years of Donald Trump turning immigration into The Hunger Games has made Americans crave a better and softer approach. Or it may be that, in the same way that thousands of Americans on Jan. 6 marched on Washington and hundreds of them stormed the U.S. Capitol, there is a large swath of Americans who are ready to fight against anything that looks like amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Isnt that rich? A bunch of lawbreakers suddenly preaching the virtue of upholding the rule of law. Stay tuned. You dont want to miss that.

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Biden Goes Big on Immigration and Dares GOP to Stop Him - The Daily Beast

Over the course of former President Donald Trumps administration, the team behind Migratory Notes worked hard to keep up with the biggest immigration news in the U.S. The newsletter kept followers informed about everything from immigration reform to family separations, packaged neatly under bold, concise subheads delivered to their email inbox.

The pace of changes, the executive orders, the rhetoric, was really unprecedented in the past four years, said Daniela Gerson, an assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge. She launched Migratory Notes in 2017 with Elizabeth Aguilera because of their deep mutual interest in immigration news.

Gerson said shes most proud of putting out what she described as the consistency and, at times drudgery, of a weekly report . Among the stories that do particularly well are handy guides that break down complex immigration laws and policies. When something new is shaping the lives of tens of thousands or even millions, its clear to us that journalists as well as local lawmakers, academics, and advocates are scrambling to understand, Gerson said. So when we published links to guides to topics such as immigration reform or return to Mexico or the travel ban, we always find lots of people click on them.

The pop-up newsletter, which rounds up the most pressing stories published about immigration, drew not only the interest of high-profile immigration journalists, but also of policymakers, academics, concerned citizens and lawyers.

And suddenly we had an audience, which kept us going, because what we kept hearing from people was how useful it was to them in their work, said Aguilera, who covers health and social services for CalMatters, a nonprofit newsroom based in Sacramento, California.

The project, which received financial support early on from the Emerson Collective, is now pieced together by a small team and written by Anna-Catherine Brigida, a freelance journalist based in El Salvador. It is approaching 5,000 subscribers who read from just about every state and more than a dozen countries. (Those interested in receiving the newsletter on Thursdays can subscribe here.)

Since President Joe Biden was inaugurated last month, he has signed several executive orders that take aim at his predecessors hard-line immigration policies. With the U.S. under a starkly different administration, Gerson and Aguilera spoke to Poynter in late January about the direction their rapidly growing newsletter is headed in next. The co-founders hope to build on the influence of Migratory Notes into concrete support for those covering the beat through town halls and research.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Gerson said they hosted a town hall for immigration reporters, and a few months before that conducted a survey of immigration journalists with Columbia Journalism Review.

Both of those pointed toward a real need for knowledge sharing amongst immigration journalists. Theres Education Writers Association, theres Kaiser Health News, theres the Center for Healthcare Reporting. Theres support for basically almost every other beat, Gerson said. Theres individual support for reporting on immigration issues, but theres no support organization for immigration journalists. In the four years of covering immigration journalism, we saw certain needs emerge and opportunities, and one was connection amongst immigration journalism and better knowledge-sharing.

Through a new partnership with Internews, an international nonprofit that works to form healthy media environments, the Migratory Notes team plans to build a knowledge-sharing network of immigration journalists. Their next town hall, on covering Central American migration, will be held this Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time. (Anyone interested in attending can register here to receive a meeting link.) As of Tuesday nearly 100 journalists have registered. The event will be the first in a series of virtual town halls for immigration journalists.

Another focus for Gerson and Aguilera is to research immigration news deserts, areas of the U.S. that Gerson said has particularly large numbers of immigration workers and essential workers but lack regular immigration news coverage. They want to figure out how they can support local journalists in these areas with training to cover immigration issues. They are looking for new funders to support the work of Migratory Notes.

What weve learned is that people are looking for even more support that we hope to be able to provide and thats by connecting people with one another, information sharing, and then looking at some of the needs that weve noticed as weve done Migratory Notes in terms of coverage areas and where people live, but maybe we dont see a lot of stories coming out or people dont go there very often, Aguilera said.

Well continue providing the resource that weve been providing, but figuring out what else we can do to support the people who really rely on it.

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They launched a newsletter to cover immigration under Trump. Now they're ready to expand. - Poynter

On his first day in office President Joe Biden gave Christian Martinez, and 650,000 others like him living in the U.S., a little space to breathe.

Through an executive order, the newly inaugurated president directed the Department of Homeland Security to preserve and fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The order solidified the reversal of a much challenged decision by the Trump administration to attempt to end the program in 2017.

Biden has since announced plans for more sweeping immigration reform policies that could see a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million people living without legal status in the U.S.

WASHINGTON>> It's taken only days for Democrats gauging how far President Joe Biden's bold immigration proposal can go in Congress to ac

Its a new ray of hope for the 20-year-old Martinez, who is among 5,250 other young people in Michigan shielded from deportation and allowed to legally work under the DACA program, according to the American Immigration Council. He and his parents, who moved from Mexico when he was three, live in Waterford with his two younger siblings, who were born in the U.S.

Throughout the Trump administration we had so many worries. I was constantly thinking about what I could do to take care of my siblings if my parents had been taken away, Martinez said. In the neighborhood where I live, week after week, we would see heads of families taken away and I always gave God thanks that my dad wasnt one of them.

Martinez was in his last year of high school in the Waterford School District when Trump first tried to overturn the program. He was just months away from going through his first renewal process to keep his status active. At the time, he worried it would be his last.

Christian Martinez was just three-years-old when he came to the United States.

While the federal government did continue to accept renewals for the DACA program, new applications were halted. The first new applications to be approved in several years were announced in early January, according to the Associated Press. A total of 171 new applications were approved from Nov. 14 to the end of 2020. More than 2,700 people applied.

NEW YORK>> The Trump administration must accept new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects so

Yumana Dubaisi, an immigration attorney and director of the Immigration Legal Department at the International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit, said her organization has seen a wave of new potential DACA applicants in recent weeks. The institute offers low cost and free immigration services to the southeast Michigan region.

People who didnt have the chance to apply before can apply now and thats a big win, Dubaisi said. People in these communities have lived in fear of the unknown and changed the way they lived their lives because of it. Theres constant fear of family separation, from being caught up in anything, like a misdemeanor.

The Trump administrations attempt to close down DACA was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal judges over the course of three years. Ultimately, the nations highest court ruled that the program wasnt ended properly followed by a federal judges ruling to completely restore the program in December 2020. That same month however, new legal challenges to DACA appeared in a federal court in Texas as nine states asked to end the program claiming it was unconstitutional. There was no immediate ruling for the case.

PHOENIX (AP) The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the program that protects immigrants who were brought to the country as children and allows t

Were hoping that this immigration reform will pass, and if its approved by Congress, the chances of these lawsuits and the potential of more lawsuits will be minimized to nonexistent, Dubaisi said. Were hoping that congress will take care of these 11 million people. I cannot begin to express the fear many of these kids have had, of being deported, of being separated from their families.

Dubaisi calls the potential new immigration reforms aimed at providing citizenship as long overdue. For Martinez, that sentiment can be felt in the apprehension underneath the new hope of DACAs comeback.

Were excited about DACA, but were anxious too. When I see my friends that are natural citizens can come and go wherever they want, I feel like theres a barrier between us, Martinez said. My mom really wants to be able to go to the grocery store or appointments by herself, instead of me having to leave work to drive her.

Christian Martinez, 20 of Waterford, poses for a photo in Clarkston after working his construction job.

More than anything else, he said, Martinez just wants the opportunity to actually visit the country hes been afraid he and his family could be deported to. Hes lost family in Mexico to the coronavirus pandemic, as have his other DACA recipient friends. His siblings have never crossed the border. They have an older brother, 24, who theyve never met and who Martinez hasnt seen in 16 years.

All of my DACA friends are excited, and happy. Were all really hoping well be able to travel soon, to at least see our family members tombstones, Martinez said.

The cities of Farmington Hills and Troy are opening warming centers to assist the public as temperatures will hover around 0 degrees, with the

Less than two months into the mass COVID-19 vaccination program, there are positive signs of getting more shots into more arms in Oakland Coun

The M1 Concourse motorsports club and raceway in Pontiac is preparing to bring on a new chief executive officer this spring.

Federal authorities are warning of scam artists using a ploy that claims to involve U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and officers.

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With hope and apprehension, DACAs Dreamers look to new era of immigration policy - The Oakland Press

Last updated on February 9, 2021, at 02:40 pm

Alabama Republican Congressman Mo Brooks introduced three immigration bills in the 117th Congress: the No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Act of 2021, the Arrest Statistics Reporting Act and the American Jobs First Act of 2021.

The No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Act would prohibit the distribution of Social Security benefits to undocumented immigrants who perform unauthorized work in the United States. Brookss office, in a press release, said that demonstrating their contempt for American law, undocumented immigrants often use fraudulent Social Security numbers to flout law that forbids undocumented immigrants from receiving Social Security payments.

About the No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Act, Brooks said:

The prospect of free government services and benefits is a giant magnet for illegal aliens. Congress should do absolutely everything in our power to eliminate that giant magnet. Thats why Ive reintroduced the No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Act. It would prohibit the distribution of Social Security benefits to illegal aliens who perform unauthorized work in the United States. The bottom line is, NO illegal alien should be rewarded with government benefits for breaking Americas laws.

The Arrest Statistics Reporting Act does two things. It would require that arrest reports already sent to the FBI by state and local governments include the best-known immigration status of the arrestee. Second, it would require the federal government to publish crime data related to undocumented immigrants in the FBIs annual crime reports. Brookss office said that this data will better inform the public and lawmakers about illegal alien crime and help lawmakers make better decisions needed to protect American lives.

About the Arrest Statistics Reporting Act, Brooks said:

Americas policymakers face an information gap that undermines our ability to make immigration policy decisions that protect American lives from the threat posed by illegal alien crime. Policymakers know that, in FY 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 103,603 administrative arrests. Those arrested had criminal histories including more than 1,800 homicide-related offenses, 1,600 kidnappings, 3,800 robberies, 37,000 assaults, and 10,000 sex crimes. But, federal crime data alone is insufficient. Many of the most heinous crimes, such as murder, rape, violent assaults, and the like, are prosecuted at the city, county and state level. Currently, Congress does not have access to city, county and state-level data on crimes committed by lawful immigrants or illegal aliens.

The American Jobs First Act overhauls the H-1B visa program that, according to Brooks, too often harms American workers. The American Jobs First Act is aimed directly at combatting American worker replacement like the Tennessee Valley Authority attempted last summer. As was widely reported, TVA planned to layoff at least 120 of its American technology workers with the intention of replacing them with lower-cost foreign H-1B guest workers.

The American Jobs First Act:

About the American Jobs First Act, Brooks said:

My American Jobs First Act will bring much needed reform and oversight to the H-1B visa program to ensure that U.S. workers are no longer disadvantaged in their own country. To end the allure of cheap foreign labor, the bill will require employers to pay any H-1B workers a minimum amount of $110,000. And to stop American worker replacement, my bill will require companies seeking H-1B labor to not have fired any American workers for at least two years without just cause and commit to not firing any workers without just cause for two years after. Commonsense H-1B reform measures like these, alongside ending the unfair Optional Practical Training (OPT) and diversity visa lottery programs, all serve to promote American interests when it comes to immigration.

Brooks was praised by groups seeking legislation to crack down on illegal immigration.

Congressman Brooks has established himself as a leader in Congress in fighting to end illegal immigration and to create a legal immigration system that better serves the interest of American workers, said Chris Chmielenski, the deputy director of NumbersUSA. With these bills, its clear that Congressman Brooks plans to take this fight to the 117th Congress.

RJ Hauman, the government relations director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said: Congressman Mo Brooks is once again leading the charge on protecting American workers and families at a critical time. These three pieces of legislation check a few of the most important boxes on immigration policy proper illegal alien crime data, no taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens, and finally reforming a deeply flawed guest worker program. We applaud him and urge every one of his colleagues to cosponsor.

With Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency, it will be very difficult for any of these bills to pass. Brooks represents Alabamas 5th Congressional District.

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Brooks introduces three immigration bills - alreporter.com