Senate-Passed Bill Would Remove Per-Country Limits on All Employment-Based Immigrant Visa Categories; Includes Controversial Provisions

Feb 13, 2020 | Investor Visas

On December 2, 2020, the U.S. Senate passed its version of H.R. 1044, the “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020.” The Senate version of the bill now returns to the U.S. House of Representatives. If the Senate version passes in the House and is signed into law by the President, it would remove the per-country limits on all employment-based immigrant visa categories, among other things. Since Congress is scheduled to end its session shortly, chances for passage in the House are unclear.

The bill includes several controversial provisions, such as an annual limit on the number of immigrants who could adjust from H-1B status to that of permanent resident and a bar on those affiliated with the military forces of the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese military.

Details:

Related Posts:

Could the China EB-5 Visa Waiting Line for FY 2021 (October 2020) Be About 8 Years For a New Case?

By:  Bernard Wolfsdorf A silver lining exists for some immigrants due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. With most U.S. consulates closed or limited to emergency visa processing, there will be many more employment based (EB) immigrant visas available in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 which starts on October 1, 2020. The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that if the full quota of family-based visas is not used in any fiscal year, then the unused numbers are added to next year’s employment-based immigration quota.  The October 2020 Visa Bulletin indicates that the employment-based quota will be 261,500 – almost double the usual annual quota. This is all-time high – as opposed to the usual 140,000 visas. With U.S. Consulates operating at minimum capacity together with Presidential Proclamations suspending most family-based immigrant visas – there has been a huge “spillover” of at least 120,000 visas available in FY 2021. EB-5 gets 7.1% of those.  So, in addition to the normally allocated 10,000 visas, the EB-5 category will get at least 8,566 extra visas for a total of around 18,566 visas. These additional visas, together with future unused visas resulting from the November 21, 2019 Modernization regulations that increased the minimum investment to $900,000 for Targeted Employment and Rural areas, could […]

Time to Feast: EB-5 Visa Outlook in FY 2024

A denial of removal of conditions on an EB-5 case usually occurs because the jobs were not created, but a denial can also occur because of the source or path of funds, or fraud or misrepresentation.  I-829 denials are a daunting setback for EB-5 investors because the applicant and their family have usually been settled in the US for many years.