They decide for whatever reason that the benefits of citizenship (voting rights, potential for government employment, ability to bring their families here) are not worth the costs, starting with the $675 application fee. If you are an expert in marketing, as is Harvard Business School’s John Quelch, this fact presents a unique opportunity to view the issue through the lens of pricing strategy in the public sector.

This is a timely issue because immigration officials are thinking of raising application prices for citizenship from the current $675. The last time prices increased, in 2007, applications dropped 50 percent.

Let’s consider citizenship a U.S. product offered in competition with other countries. This country, made strong by immigrants-become-citizens, has an interest in attracting bright and hard working people to our shores. But 90 percent of our 8 million target customers annually aren’t buying the product. A business facing this same issue of underwhelming demand would consider a range of options to boost sales including price cuts (the idea of a price increase would be laughable), better marketing of benefits, promotions, loans, and, in the case of educational products, scholarships.

What should the U.S. do?

“Should the rest of us care?,” Quelch asks on his Harvard Business Publishing blog. “Should we, as a nation of immigrants, subsidize the cost of processing applications in an economic recession to motivate more qualified but resource-strapped residents to apply? Would our democracy benefit if more legal residents joined the ranks of voters, became fully engaged in community life, and put down stronger roots? How can we quantify these benefits to justify a price below cost? Or should we leave the price as is but market the benefits of citizenship more effectively?”

[source: bnet]

Looking ahead to next year, it has become increasingly important that concerns about the economy not deter lawmakers from ensuring that reforms to attract and retain highly educated, highly skilled foreign nationals are included in comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Illegal immigration issues have dominated the debate, but the reality is that without addressing our broken legal immigration system, we will short-change ourselves in the long run. Keeping the United States a welcoming place for talented students and workers from around the world will be crucial to our economic recovery and our future ability to innovate, compete, and thrive in the global economy.

In an economic downturn, the temptation to lower the blinds and close the doors is strong. But in an age when work can be sent to other countries with the click of a mouse such an approach simply will not work. Many studies, and the experience of countless U.S. companies, have shown that hiring talented foreign workers boosts innovation and drives job creation. It also supports local economies. Foreign-born professionals buy cars and houses and pay tuition for their kids. At our universities, they teach our students, helping us develop our own talent pool for the jobs of tomorrow, and they collaborate with our faculty in the sciences, medicine, and other important fields. Turning away people with the skills our country needs denies us a much-needed resource to support our economic recovery. No country can be an island in the global economy – not even one as large as the United States.

Talented people from other countries often first come to the United States as foreign students. By the time they graduate from our colleges and universities, they have spent years investing in acquiring the best education in the world, generally in fields like engineering and the sciences, where they make up half to two-thirds of the graduate students. Some of these foreign graduates want to contribute their skills and knowledge in the United States, but increasingly they are going home or to other countries instead because our immigration system makes it too difficult for them to stay – even though it is in our interest to help them do so.

To keep them, and to attract other highly educated workers from other countries that U.S. employers need to fill key positions, we must do two things. First, the enormous backlogs and wait times that plague the green card system must be addressed, and there must be a better path to greencard status for those foreign graduates of our colleges and universities who wish to stay in the United States and whose talent and skills are important to our economy. Exempting from employment-based greencard quotas foreign students who receive a U.S. master’s degree or higher; eliminating the per-country limits that impede, in particular, Indian and Chinese professionals; and providing additional employment visas for backlog relief would constitute major steps in addressing this problem.

Second, we must maintain and improve the H-1B temporary visa system, the primary way for skilled foreign nationals to pursue employment in the United States. Today, H-1B visas serve as a way station for those who really seek immigrant status but are stuck in the long greencard line for 6 to 12 years. Fixing the greencard system will take pressure off the H-1B system, but we will still need a system that can accommodate temporary, high-skill workers. At the same time, where abuses exist with H-1B visas they must be addressed. We must realize it does not make sense in a global competition for highly educated and talented workers to turn away these individuals, many of whom will go to work for companies in other countries that directly compete with our own.

Any effort to address the question of what kind of immigration system the United States needs must begin with an understanding that the mobility of individuals and ideas across borders has profoundly changed. People today possess myriad options for study, employment, and life in countries across the globe. Many nations are aggressively recruiting high-skilled foreign professionals and students, adjusting immigration and work laws to create incentives for them. People, like technology and information, are crossing borders with unprecedented freedom and flexibility. Our immigration laws and visa policy must catch up to these new realities, and must support a climate that encourages the contributions of foreign talent. In the global economy, our future depends on it.

About The Author
Marlene M. Johnson is executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators in Washington, D.C.

Stuart Anderson Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy, served as Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning and Counselor to the Commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service from August 2001 to January 2003.

A bill signed into law last week by US President Barack Obama will allow wealthy Irish people to get greencard to live in the United States in second homes provided they invest in projects that will provide 10 jobs in a high unemployment area.

The little-known programme, known as EB-5 regional centre programme, is a highly beneficial permanent residence option for the wealthy individual, according to Ron Klasko, who is chairman of the EB-5 committee of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association.

The programme requires an investment of at least $500,000 (€336,000) in a high unemployment or rural area in a commercial enterprise that will employ 10 full-time US workers. The investor has to be able to document that the funds are legal, but does not have to be involved in day-to-day management.

Under the law, the permanent home obtained by the Irish investor is conditional for two years and can be made permanent upon satisfying the US Customs and Immigration Service at the end of the two years that the investment proceeds have not been withdrawn, and that the jobs have been created.

“What are the chances of a wealthy Irish national being able to spend his retirement years in the US? Surprisingly the chances may be very good using a vehicle entitled Regional Centre EB-5,” Mr Klasko’s website says.

“Although many people, especially from Asia, have found the $500,000 price tag to be a small price to pay for the US green card visa, for the ability to retire in the US and for the ability to have their children educated in the US, the programme has received a lot less publicity in Ireland.”

His company, Klasko, Rulon, Stock and Seltzer, with offices in New York and Philadelphia specialising in immigration law, said the visa programme allows the Irish retiree to work or not work as he pleases, to live anywhere he wants to in the US, to travel in and out of the country as frequently as he wishes, and to get greencard for his spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21.

He must invest a specified amount of money, $500,000 to $1m, in a US government-approved regional centre and the investment must be for a period of at least five years.

Read the full story at Independent

How is the visa pie dived up?

A quick review of the congressional allocation of employment visa numbers will be helpful for the analysis of these I-485 inventory numbers. Section 201(d)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allocates an annual minimum of 140,000 visa numbers for employment-based immigrant visas. Although there are 140,000 employment visas available for worldwide usage, each country may not take more than 7% or 25,620 of the annual visa quota.2 Furthermore, each of the five employment visa preference category is subject to the following limits:3

First (Priority Worker): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus unused numbers from the fourth and fifth preferences.

Second (Advanced degree professionals or exceptional ability aliens): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus unused numbers from first preference.

Third (Skill Workers, Professionals and Other Workers): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus any numbers not used by the first and second preferences. “Other Workers” may only receive up to 10,000 of the visa numbers.4

Fourth (Certain Special Immigrants): 7.1% of the worldwide quota or 9,940.

Fifth (Employment Creation): 7.1% of the worldwide quota.

What is the big picture like?

Generally speaking, there are no big surprises regarding the big picture. There are altogether 233,816 I-485 adjustment applications as of August 25, 2009 pending adjudication before the USCIS, of which 4,050 belong to Eb-1, 74,932 to Eb-2, and151,231 to Eb-3. In terms of geographical distribution, 26,170 cases come from China, 111,296 from India, 12,481 from the Philippines, 8,415 from Mexico, and 74,914 from the rest of the world. Visa numbers remind very tight for the most popular preference categories including Eb-2 second preference and Eb-3 third preference. As expected, the countries which have triggered the per-country cap in recent years are suffering a multi-year backlog of visa numbers. These countries – China (Mainland), India, Mexico, and the Philippines – all have their own I-485 inventory tables. While all countries are struggling in the Eb-3 preference category, China and India are also having a huge backlog in the second preference category. The “other countries” are also looking at a multi-year wait in the third preference category, with a dismal priority date of June 1, 2002 in the October 2009 Visa Bulletin.5 The Eb-1 Priority Worker category remains current for all countries.

Putting the numbers in perspective

There are different ways that these inventory numbers can be useful and analyzed. The following are some interesting observations:

These I-485 inventory numbers represent only the immigrant cases that are filed within the U.S. only. The USCIS indicates that about 15% of the immigrant visas are processed through overseas consular processing. Hence, the actual numbers of applicants for an immigrant visa are actually higher.
There are still 6,170 I-485 applications pending from April 2001, plus another 500+ cases from 2000 and the first three months of 2001. Many of these cases were likely filed under or in anticipation of the INA Section 245(i)6 provision. However, the impact of these cases has dissipated over the years. The most current Visa Bulletin shows that only India’s Eb-3 category has a cutoff date in April of 2001.
The notion that Eb-2 cases are faster than their Eb-3 counterparts still holds true for now but may begin to change soon. While all countries are backlogged under Eb-3, all but two countries are current in Eb-2. China and India have respectively 18,365 and 39,972 I-485 applications pending in the Eb-2 category due to visa backlog. (See Illustration 1 below) In fact, China has three times more Eb-2 cases than Eb-3 cases. The worldwide I-485 inventory table with all pending cases7 shows the number of pending Eb-2 cases was trailing Eb-3 until 2008; the year 2008 has 4,235 pending Eb-2 cases vs. 540 pending Eb-3 cases. Similar trend is also present in the India table, where the number of pending Eb-2 cases first surpassed Eb-3 in the year 2005.8
The number of pending “other workers” cases is proportionately low, with only 1,520 pending I-485s worldwide. One can draw the conclusion that the majority of intending (employment-based) immigrants are skilled workers and professionals.

[read the full story at ilw]

About The Author

Paul Szeto, Esq. is a former INS assistant district counsel in New York City. A winner of the AILF’s Edward L. Dubroff Memorial Award for outstanding writing in the field of Immigration and Nationality Law in 1994, Paul is now in private practice in Edison, New Jersey, focusing on Immigration and Nationality Law. Paul Szeto can be reached at info@szetolaw.com.

It is not uncommon for a greencard holder to return to the Philippines after working for several years in the US without having naturalized or become a US citizen. Because of the years they’ve put in work, these greencard holders become beneficiaries of certain Social Security benefits and receive payments for several years prior to their return to the Philippines. Upon their decision to return, some intentionally fail to notify the Social Security Administration or SSA of their move back to the Philippines for fear of losing their payments. While others, who are otherwise eligible for Social Security benefit payments are unaware that when they return to the Philippines and lose their “lawful permanent resident” status, such Social Security benefit payments may be suspended and lost.

For the former, or those who know about this rule try to hide the fact that they’ve moved back to the Philippines and do not bother informing the Social Security Administration. One message for them is that they must be aware that they have the responsibility to inform SSA of any change of address even if their payments are being deposited directly to your bank. Those who are already in the Philippines can write to the SSA of the US Embassy. If you continue to receive benefits knowing that you are no longer eligible, you can get into a lot of trouble. You can be made to return payments made. In most cases, the money has already been spent.

Also, a greencard holder should know that he/she is subject to a 25.5% alien withholding tax unless it can be proven that he/she was a US resident. This is done by showing evidence that he/she has maintained his/her US resident status and has not abandoned it. Once a copy of the greencard is shown, then he/she is qualified for a refund. Such refund is applied for by filing an Internal Revenue Service return within 3 years of the date the return for the year in question was filed or within 2 years of the date the tax was paid, whichever is later.

Finally, with respect to your alien taxes withheld from your benefits, regardless of your status as permanent resident, you can still claim for a refund by filing a return with the Internal Revenue Service, which will determine any liabilities or credits based on your return.

Determining whether you are still eligible for Social Security benefits can be complicated. Do not try to determine on your own or think you can find a way around it. You must seek the services of a competent attorney in your area – one who is knowledgeable in Social Security claims.

Atty. Michael Templo is an attorney admitted to practice law in New York State and Federal Courts and is a partner at Templo & Templo http://www.templolaw.com with offices in New York, USA and Makati City, Philippines. Atty. Templo specializes in US Immigration matters. Atty. Mike Templo is also a host for the weekly show “Crossing Borders” which airs every Thursday at 10:30PM on ANC and 2:30PM on TFC crossingborderstv.multiply.com.

The discussion above is not intended as legal advice, and cannot be relied upon for any purpose without the services of a qualified professional. For your comments and questions, Atty. Templo can be reached at info@templolaw.com or log on to www.templolaw.com.

[source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/views-and-analysis/10/20/09/social-security-benefits-lawful-permanent-residents-living-rp-atty-mike-]

These special adjustment programs are limited to individuals meeting particular qualifications and/or applying during certain time frames.

For information about the categories below, see links to the left under “Other Ways to Get a Green Card.”

• Amerasian Child of a U.S. Citizen
• American Indian Born in Canada
• Armed Forces Member
• Cuban Native or Citizen
• Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
• Haitian Refugee
• Indochinese Parole Adjustment Act
• Informant (S Nonimmigrant)
• Lautenberg Parolee
• Legal Immigration Family Equity (LIFE) Act
• Person Born to Foreign Diplomat in United States
• Registry
• Section 13 (Diplomat)
• Special Immigrant Juvenile
• Victim of Criminal Activity (U Nonimmigrant)
• Victim of Trafficking (T Nonimmigrant)

For information about the special categories below, see under the “Family,” Working in the U.S.” and “Humanitarian” links to the right.

• Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act (NACARA)
• Green Cards Through Special Categories of Jobs

Includes:

• Afghan/Iraqi Translator
• Broadcaster
• International Organization Employee
• Iraqi Who Assisted the U.S. Government
• NATO-6 Nonimmigrant
• Panama Canal Employee
• Physician National Interest Waiver
• Religious Worker
• Green Cards Through Special Categories of Family

Includes:

• Battered Spouse or Child (VAWA)
• K Nonimmigrant (includes fiancé(e))
• V Nonimmigrant
• Widow(er)

Source: USCIS

Filing Fee :