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A U.S. visa program designed to temporarily admit religious workers from other countries may be letting jihadists into the country, security experts and religious leaders warn. The R visa program is for non-immigrant clerics and religious workers and allows successful applicants to stay in the U.S. for up to five years. They are then allowed to apply for a permanent residency under their R-1 status. But some critics say the visa raises red flags and has long been abused by leaders with extreme views.

Thirty-one Democratic and Republican Senators are asking the Department of Homeland Security to maximize the use of blue-collar outsourcing visas so U.S. companies can import more foreign workers instead of recruiting, training and paying unskilled U.S. workers. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Chris Coons (D-DE), John Barrasso (R-WY), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tom Carper (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Angus King (I-ME), Tim Scott (R-SC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Richard Burr (R-NC), Lisa Murkowski...

President Donald Trump called for a huge overhaul of the nation’s immigration rules to reduce the huge inflow of low-skill, welfare-dependent immigrants, but perhaps also to increase the inflow of productivity-boosting white-collar immigrants. In his Feb. 28 speech to the joint session of Congress, he declared: Nations around the world, like Canada, Australia and many others –- have a merit-based immigration system. It is a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet, in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens...

Wealthy Arabs are rushing to sign up for a U.S. program offering investors green cards for cash as they try to beat a crackdown on immigration by President Trump. Three companies in Dubai offering legal advice on immigration say they have witnessed a spike in demand for U.S. investment visas since Trump's travel ban -- now blocked by the courts -- on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. "We've received a greater number of inquiries and client enrollment since the commencement of the Trump presidency," said Preeya Malik, managing director at Step America, a firm that provides consultancy services on U.S....

“This is now standard practice in the technology industry.” US tech companies, and other companies with large IT departments, are having conniptions about President Trump’s immigration policies, particularly the leaked draft of an executive order that includes references to reforming the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers. In light of the 85,000 foreign tech workers allowed to be brought into the US annually under the H-1B visa program – a limit tech companies have been clamoring to raise – here’s a stunning forecast by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment of computer and information technology occupations is projected to...

For decades, H1B visas have been one of the cornerstones of the traditional IT outsourcing business model. In many ways, the possibility of legally sending workers to the US has allowed Indian firms to offer an enticing service: the client gets to work face to face with less expensive engineers that are authorized to temporarily work in the US, yet can also leverage a much larger team of offshore talent that is orchestrated by the on-site, visa-holding resources. The proposition is hard to beat: not only is it inexpensive, but the model can help solve time-zone issues thanks to a...

PITTSBURGH — A controversial government program allows wealthy foreigners to buy their way into this country. Some critics said it amounts to citizenship for sale. Action News Investigates has learned the program has Pittsburgh connections. Immigrants who want to live in the U.S. are forced to wait as long as a decade to get a green card. But a government program called EB-5 allows wealthy immigrants to jump to the front of the line if they can pay $500,000. The program has been hit with allegations of fraud and abuse, and now some in Congress say it needs to go....

Judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California are opening a new immigration route for foreigners, which would bypass the federal agencies’ sole authority to approve or decline foreigners’ immigration or entry into the U.S. The new route is created by the Feb. 9 decision which blocks the White House’s very popular reform of immigration rules. If upheld by the Supreme Court later this year, the new declaration would allow overseas foreigners — including those hostile to the United States — to hire lawyers to persuade judges to grant them visas, residency permits and eventually citizenship. That courtroom...

Shalabh Kumar, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, has been a strong defender of US President Donald Trump’s policies. He spoke to Rohit E. David about the controversy on the travel ban to US for citizens from seven countries, Indian fears over H-1B visas and whether Pakistan should be part of the travel ban list: There has been legal pushback on the travel ban by the Trump administration. Why do you defend this policy? It is a great move to protect the lives of US citizens. Radical Islamic terrorists have declared a war on the civilised world. There are many...

Customs and Border Protection told major US airlines Friday night that it is reinstating visas following a federal judge’s decision to temporarily halt President Donald Trump’s travel ban. CBP is “back to business as usual” prior to the situation that was in place before last week’s executive order, an airline executive told CNN. Airlines are expected as soon as Friday night to start removing travel alerts from their websites and getting messages out to customers to alert them about the change.

At least 100,000 visas have been revoked in a single week in response to President Trump's executive immigration order, a lawyer for the Justice Department revealed in court Friday. The number came to light in a Virginia courtroom as a federal judge granted the state's motion to join a lawsuit challenging the immigration ban that caused chaos at airports over the weekend. "The number 100,000 really sucked the air out of my lungs," said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represents two brothers from Yemen who were detained after arriving at Dulles Airport on Saturday and filed...

<p>More than 100,000 visas have been revoked since President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration and travel was signed on January 27, a government lawyer said Friday in a court hearing in Virginia.</p> <p>The number came in response to a question from the US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema about how many people have been affected by this order.</p>

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the U.S. government to allow people holding immigrant visas from seven majority-Muslim nations into the United States despite President Trump’s executive order banning them. In a temporary restraining order issued late Tuesday, Judge Andre Birotte Jr. ordered the government not to cancel any validly obtained immigrant visas or bar anyone from the seven nations holding them from entering the U.S. But it was unclear whether the order will have any effect. The State Department ordered all visas from the seven countries revoked on Friday, and the government has maintained that orders similar...

Still smarting over President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration ban, Silicon Valley now is bracing for his next likely target — H-1B visas that supply local tech companies with thousands of skilled foreign workers.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about “vetting” people coming in from the Middle East. In fact, however, it’s a much broader issue than that: it’s a need to vet people who come into the USA from anywhere. While any risk can theoretically originate anywhere, statistically, each region has different primary risks. From some countries, it’s a human trafficking and prostitution risk; from others, it’s a drug trade and organized crime risk. But of course the one most in the news is the terrorism risk, which originates primarily in muslim-majority countries (like the middle east) and...

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CAIRO — Across the Muslim world, the refrain was resounding: President Trump’s freeze on refugee arrivals and visa requests from seven predominantly Muslim countries will have major diplomatic repercussions, worsen perceptions of Americans and offer a propaganda boost to the terrorist groups Mr. Trump says he is targeting. Mr. Trump’s stance has been evident since the early days of his campaign, when he advocated a “complete and total shutdown” of all Muslims entering the United States. President Trump has since softened his language, casting his order on Friday as a way to keep terrorists, not Muslims, out of the United...

President Trump's order could mean that thousands of citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya may not be allowed to board flights bound for the US. Google has told the BBC it is concerned about the order and any measures which could block great talent from the US.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised not only to 'build a wall' to seal the southern U.S. border, but to make Mexico pay for it, at a cost of some $10 billion to $38 billion. Mexico on Thursday reiterated it's refusal to foot the bill. Yet, a market-based immigration policy allowing Central Americans who passed a background check to purchase work visas at market rates (instead of paying thousands to human smugglers) could generate revenues for the federal government in excess of $40 billion, or more than enough to pay for that wall. You can read the details in...

<p>President Donald Trump was expected to sign several executive orders restricting immigration on Wednesday, at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to several congressional aides and immigration experts briefed on the matter.</p> <p>Trump's orders were expected to involve restricting access to the United States for refugees and some visa holders from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, said the aides and experts, who asked not to be identified.</p>