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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced steps on Monday to prevent the fraudulent use of H1B visas, used by employers to bring in specialized foreign workers temporarily, which appeared to fall short of President Donald Trump's campaign promises to overhaul the program. Trump had promised to end the lottery system for H1B visas, which gives each applicant an equal chance at 65,000 positions each year. Lobbyists for businesses who rely on H1B visas, commonly used by the tech sector, had expected Trump to upend the lottery in favor of a system that prioritized workers who are highly skilled and...

"...What it means: This aligns with the administration's focus on reserving the temporary visas for very high-skilled (and higher-paid) professionals while encouraging low- and mid-level jobs to go to American workers instead. The new guidance affects applications for the lottery for 2018 fiscal year that opened Monday..."

President vowed changes to the high-skilled-worker program President Donald Trump ran for office promising changes to the H-1B visa program, which brings high-skilled foreign workers to the U.S. But come Monday, the government opens another round of applications using rules that have long been in place. Demand for the program badly outstrips the supply so, as in past years, the government will use a lottery to decide which companies get them. The visas are coveted by tech firms, who have unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to increase the cap, which is set at 85,000. The new visas become available each year in...

The Trump administration is making it tougher for millions of visitors to enter the United States by demanding new security checks before giving visas to tourists, business travelers and relatives of American residents. Diplomatic cables sent last week from Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson to all American embassies instructed consular officials to broadly increase scrutiny. It was the first evidence of the “extreme vetting” Mr. Trump promised during the presidential campaign.

NEW YORK (AFP) - At least four bands have been forced to cancel at South by Southwest after being refused entry into the United States, with some artists blaming President Donald Trump's policies. South by Southwest, the annual extravaganza of film, music and technology underway in Austin, Texas, has long been a launching point for bands seeking a break in the music industry. London-based United Vibrations, whose members include brothers Ahmad, Kareem and Yussef Dayes, said their authorizations to enter the United States were revoked. "We were looking forward to connecting with our brothers and sisters stateside to share our...

Leo Perrero still remembers the humiliation of losing his job. “All of you in this room will be losing your jobs in the next 90 days,” he was told, later recalling the experience before Congress. “Later that same day,” he added, “I remember very clearly going to the local church pumpkin sale and having to tell the kids that we could not buy any because my job was going over to a foreign worker.” Disney replaced Perrero using a little-known and oft overlooked provision of immigration law that allows big tech companies to replace their employees with foreign workers under...

Not posting since I am unsure if we can excerpt Time. The upshot is the EU has found that the US is in violation of Visa reciprocity from Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Cyprus, and Poland and wants to force US citizens to get Visas to go there.

SARANAC LAKE — Village police Wednesday arrested a snowshoe racer from India, whom the community wholeheartedly welcomed for this past weekend’s World Snowshoe Championships, after a local girl accused him of sexually abusing her. Tanveer Hussain, 24, of Kashmir, India, stands charged with first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. First-degree sexual abuse, according to New York law, means the perpetrator “subjects another person to sexual contact” without consent, in this case because the alleged victim is under age 13 and legally too young to give consent.

All case documents including video, audio, briefs, etc.. List of items available below: 02/09/2017 Published Order Denying Stay 02/09/2017 Unpublished Procedural Order 02/09/2017 Appellees' Notice of filing additional evidence in district court 02/09/2017 Daniel Escamilla Amicus Motion 02/09/2017 Daniel Escamilla Amicus Brief 02/09/2017 Redfin Corporation Letter Joining Technology Companies amicus motion and brief 02/08/2017 MongoDB, Inc. Letter Joining Technology Companies amicus motion and brief 02/08/2017 DiCentral Corporation Letter Joining Technology Companies amicus motion and brief 02/07/2017 Listen to audio recording of Oral Arguments 02/07/2017 GoDaddy, Inc. Letter Joining Technology Companies amicus motion and brief 02/07/2017 OneLogin, Inc. Letter Joining Technology...

Republican voters overwhelmingly approve of President Donald Trump temporarily halting the importation of refugees, even after a media firestorm falsely labeled it a “Muslim ban.” Rasmussen Reports filtered out media hysteria and asked likely voters: “The federal government has banned refugees from all countries from entering the United States for the next four months until there is a better system in place to keep out individuals who are terrorist threats. Do you favor or oppose such a ban?” A majority, 52 percent, favored the move, while 43 percent opposed it, and six percent were unsure. Men strongly approved of the...

LOOKING INWARD ON H1-B Indian IT firms must ramp up salary structures The odd thing about the H1-B reform Bill introduced in the US House of Representatives is the person who introduced it. Zoe Lofgren is the Democratic Party Congresswoman representing California's 19th Congressional District, an area that covers most of the city of San Jose. As any visitor to the city can testify, it is not a white-majority constituency. Indeed, a majority of the population in the area is of Hispanic origin, but almost a quarter of the population is Asian. For the most part, those are Indians particularly...

Trump’s executive order is so modest that the foundation of it is essentially existing law. That law was passed unanimously by both bodies of Congress in 2002. In fact, it garnered the support of 16 Democrat senators and 57 Democrat House members who are still serving in their respective bodies! Following 9/11, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which addressed many of the insecurities in our visa tracking system. The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously. The bill was originally sponsored by a group of bipartisan senators, including Ted Kennedy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein,...

The White House on Monday warned State Department officials that they should leave their jobs if they did not agree with President Trump’s agenda, an extraordinary effort to stamp out a wave of internal dissent against Mr. Trump’s temporary ban on entry visas for people from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Career officials at the State Department are circulating a so-called dissent cable, which says that Mr. Trump’s executive order closing the nation’s doors to more than 200 million people to weed out a handful of would-be terrorists would not make the nation safer and might instead deepen the threat. “These...

Why would the text of President Trump’s Executive Order suspending travel visas be readily available on CNN (HERE), New York Times (HERE), Wall Street Journal (HERE), but not on White House page (HERE)? I don’t think it’s accidental. The limiting Visa program was President Obama’s action, not President Trump. If you review the actual text of the executive order (copied below in full) what you will immediately notice is the order doesn’t specify ANY countries to be included in the Visa suspension (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). President Trump is not suspending visas from countries his team...

<p>The seven nations targeted for new visitation restrictions by President Trump on Friday all have something in common: They are places he does not appear to have any business interests.</p> <p>The executive order he signed Friday bars all entry for the next 90 days by travelers from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya. Excluded from the lists are several majority-Muslim nations where the Trump Organization is active and which in some cases have also faced troublesome issues with terrorism.</p>

America is a nation of immigrants and should be proud of it, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said as he criticised US President Donald Trump's decision to severely limit immigrants and refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries. "Like many of you, I'm concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump," Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page. "We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat ... We should also keep our doors open to refugees and those who need help. That's who we...

The Treadwell Plan: Simple Fixes for Immigration Security (Part 1) Dear readers, The following suggestions were composed after discussions with many highly experienced individuals with years immigration experience (both in and out of government). As I intend to reach the broadest possible audience I have tried to communicate these succinctly and without legal or technical jargon. Your responses are greatly appreciated. 1. Require biometric registration of all alien departures Remarkably, and likely unknown to many citizens, foreigners entering the U.S. are only fingerprinted upon entry. Exit records are unreliable and based on matching of biographical data to airline passenger records....

An estimated three quarters of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States are from Latin America. The rest come from all other corners of the world, including Europe. There are an estimated 50,000 Irish citizens living and working illegally in the United States -- a tiny sliver of the undocumented population, but a considerable number for a home country of just 4.5 million people. And the victory of President-elect Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election has raised concerns in Dublin over their future status. Trump signaled his intent to deport millions of illegal immigrants once...

GOP leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, have quietly ended an unpopular 2015 program to annually outsource another 198,000 blue-collar jobs to lower-paid foreign workers.

At least five of the Sept. 11 hijackers exploited a glaring hole in visa security to stay in the U.S. beyond their time — allowing them to board the planes and conduct their murderous attack. Fifteen years later, and despite a clear consensus on the need for improvement, that gaping hole remains. “In too many cases that’s still happening — they come in legally, but we don’t know if they’ve left, and if they haven’t left, we don’t know where they are,” said Tom Kean, former governor of New Jersey and chairman of the 9/11 Commission that looked into the...