DHS / US CIS Issues

Hi, cinta;
Thanks for your great information.
I am planning the next campaign based on this.
 
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Fee increase / Immigration Lawyers / RFEs / Security Checks

Another opinion from shusterman on RFEs:

7. USCIS Proposes Fee Increase for Immigration Applications

On February 3, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) proposed raising filing fees on applications and petitions for immigration and naturalization benefits by
an average of $55.

For example, the filing fee for form I-129 will rise from $130 to $185; I-131 from $110 to $165; I-130 from $130 to $185; I-131 from $110 to $165; I-140 from $135 to $190; and I-485 from $225 to $315 (Yes, an increase of $90!)

Imagine a family of four applying for adjustment of status based on an approved labor certification. They are required to submit an I-140, four I-485s, four I-765s, four I-131s
and four sets of fingerprints. Currently, the fees for the family would be as follows: I-140 ($135); four I-485s ($900); four I-765s ($480); four I-131s ($440) and four sets of fingerprints ($200). The total is $2,155. Under the proposed fees, this would rise to $2,890. And since the Immigration Service issues EADs and Advance Parole for one year only even though some service centers take three years or more to decide I-485 applications, it would cost the family another $1,360 each year to renew their EADs and Advance Paroles. All in all, the filing fees would amount to over $5,000.

Now, that's quite a chunk of change!

The government talks about encouraging permanent residents to become U.S. citizens. Under the proposed regulations, the cost of applying for naturalization will increase from $260 to $320, not to mention the fingerprinting fee which will increase from $50 to $70. As recently as 1985, it cost $35 to apply for naturalization, and the INS took your fingerprints for free. (Editor's Note: Compared with the filing fees in place when I started working for the INS in 1976, I remember thinking that the 1985 fees were outrageously high!)

One might think that huge increases in filing fees would be accompanied better service. In 2000, the Congress amended AC-21 to provide that the goal was to process applications for permanent residence in no more than 180 days and petitions for temporary status in 30 days. Has the agency met this goal?

Processing times have ballooned during the past four years. In Phoenix, the CIS office is currently processing I-485s submitted in April 2001. In both Houston and Harlingen, Texas, I-485s are backlogged to June 2002. Things are even worse at the Texas Service Center which is adjudicating I-485s submitted in April 2001.

Obviously, the security checks following September 11th have slowed the system to a crawl. However, one would never guess how much USCIS backlogs have grown by reading the agency's press release which accompanies its request for higher filing fees:

"In the area of customer service, USCIS eliminated the lines at many of its highest volume offices, introduced on-line options for application filing and case status updates, and established a bilingual, toll-free customer help-line."

In our opinion, before raising filing fees sky high, USCIS should first institute some simple reforms which would eliminate millions of applications thereby reducing the agency's workload and making it more efficient. Here are some suggestions: First, since it takes USCIS two to three years to decide an application for adjustment of status, why not make EADs and advance paroles valid for 2-3 years at a time? Second, the USCIS produces Requests for Evidence (RFEs) the way a winter blizzard produces snowflakes.
Many of these RFEs are unnecessary. Frequently, the information they request is either contained in the initial application or is superfluous. The government should study how to eliminate unnecessary RFEs. Finally, why must a multimillion dollar corporation which submits dozens of petitions with USCIS every year have to demonstrate their ability to pay each employee's salary over and over again? Is it likely that Microsoft, Intel or General Motors suddenly lost their ability to pay an employee his salary since they submitted their previous nonimmigrant or immigrant petition?

Improving the efficiency of the USCIS may make another fee increase unnecessary.

Persons wishing to comment on USCIS's proposed fee increases may do online by writing to rfs.regs@dhs.gov Put "CIS No. 2233-02" in the subject line. Comments must be
submitted on or before March 4, 2004.

We have posted the proposed regulations online at
http://shusterman.com/pdf/cisfees204.pdf

The regulations include a table of both the current and the proposed fees. We link to the official News Release entitled "USCIS Proposes Fee Adjustment to Improve Service" and a historical table of filing fees from fiscal year 1985 to the present from our "Filing Fees" page at
http://shusterman.com/toc-fp.html

Many of the RFEs are unnecessary


Note: A quick summary of immigration lawyers and organisations, who at least acknowledge the problems: AILA, Siskid, Angello Paparelli, Shusterman, Mathew Oh.
 
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Backlogs

View from Mathew Oh (www.immigration-law.com)

02/11/2004: USCIS Dilemma and Option to Reduce Vicious Circle of Backlogs

Ever since the legacy INS initiated Zero Tolerance Policy, the USCIS field offices have been intensively scrutinizing eligibility of petitions and applications. Apparently, the driving force behind this changed practice is the field offices' and adjudicators' fear factor for the potential liability for approval of defective petitions/applications. Accordingly, the USCIS has taken it as a policy or practice to double check the eligibility of petition or application immediately prior to adjudication of the petitions and applications. Delay of processing times exacerbates the situation. Lately,most of the I-485 applicants had to go through -fingerprinting process. Additionally, they tend to receive RFE in majority of cases, because of the passage of time, requesting the evidence that the petitioned job continues to exist. It does not end at the I-485 proceedings. Lately, I-140 petition has witnessed a tremendous delay to a level of even one year or longer. As related to this delay, the I-140 petitioners, even if they had already submitted such evidence, started receiving RFE from the Service Centers to provide upto-date evidence that the petitioner had a financial ability to pay the proffered salary. It appears that such RFEs are sent out immediately prior to adjudication of I-140 petitions. In some cases, such RFEs demand an extensive set of financial records and documents.
Without doubt, these RFEs should add a tremendous amount of workloads to the already exacerbating processing delays. In a way, it creates a vicious circle. One time, Nebraska Service Center adopted a practice allowing the petitioners or applicants to submit such evidence "proactively" such that the agency could save their workloads of processing of RFEs and Responses to the RFEs. The proactive supply of the required evidence should work if the petitioners or applicants are informed of the fairly accurate processing times of each type of cases. When the processing times are not predictable by the agencies themselves, it may not work well. However, it is submitted that it may be worthwhile for the USCIS to try the "proactive submission of evidence by petitioners or applicants" to alleviate the current on-going vicious circle of delays.
For the USCIS to launch the proactive evidence practice, they should prepare and release a well thought-out guideline carefully stipulating the type of evidence the applicant or petitioner should collect and submit to the agencies in different types of petitions and applications. We urge the USCIS to consider this option as soon as possible.
 
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Fee increase

Sample letter:

Guest Commentary: Opposition to Proposed USCIS Fee Increase, By Paul Parsons

The following letter was written by the State Bar of Texas Committee on Laws Relating to Immigration and Nationality in response to the proposed fee increase for USCIS applications. The comment period for this proposal has since passed.





March 7, 2004



Director

Regulations and Forms Services Division

Department of Homeland Security

US Citizenship and Immigration Services

425 I Street NW, Room 4034

Washington, DC 20536



Re: CIS No. 2233-02

Comments on Proposed Fee Increase



Dear Madam or Sir:



I am writing this letter on behalf of the State Bar of Texas Committee on Laws Relating to Immigration and Nationality to share our concerns about the recent proposed fee increases for the processing of immigration applications and petitions as reported in the Federal Register. The Committee on Laws Relating to Immigration and Nationality is comprised of lawyers, social service providers, and community members concerned with issues relating to immigration. The Committee studies current and proposed laws pertaining to immigration and nationality, and the impact upon the public arising from these laws. We make recommendations for improvements to our country’s immigration laws.

In January of 2004, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services proposed raising the application fees. We write to express our strong opposition to the proposed fee increases recently reported in the Federal Register. Almost a year ago Eduardo Aguirre, Jr., Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, told Congress that his agency would reduce the application backlogs to six months or less by 2006. A recent report from the General Accounting Office states that 6.2 million applications were pending at the end of September 2003, a fifty nine percent increase from the 3.9 million awaiting action two years earlier. This delay occurred despite a $160 million dollar allocation by the Congress to reduce these backlogs.

We are familiar with the tremendous backlogs that characterize the US Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS"), and oppose any further fee increases without a serious effort to first ease the backlogs and competently adjudicate applications currently pending before this agency. United States citizens and permanent residents who have paid for the adjudications of immigration petitions and applications filed for their parents, spouses, and children are not receiving decisions for several years on mostly routine applications. United States employers are forced to wait between six months to several years on applications filed to seek temporary or permanent status for key foreign personnel. In addition, voluntary agencies that provide assistance to indigent immigrants are tremendously concerned about the impact of these fee increases on lower-income indigent immigrants who find it very difficult to adjust their status or naturalize due to such high costs. A large number of immigrants served by these non-profit community based organizations will be discouraged from filing applications.

In the past, the predecessor INS agency, raised fees several times while promising to deal with substantial backlogs, but the increased fees have done nothing to alleviate these problems. According to the Federal Register, the amount of the fee increases are extremely high, increasing by over 25% for most applications, without a resulting enhancement in services. While the US CIS states that such an increase is necessary to meet the requisite cost of completing new and pending applications, a study by the General Accounting Office states that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services did not know the cost of completing new or pending applications or its own future administrative costs.

While our Committee welcomes Director Aguirre's pledge to substantially reduce backlogs and provide improved customer service, we have not observed any improved US CIS efforts. The backlogs grew longer during this past year. The CIS seeks further cost of living adjustments in the future. Without demonstration of the ability to reduce backlogs and provide appropriate customer service, such future fee increases without Congressional oversight seem irresponsible.

While our Committee shares your concerns regarding the quality of service and reduction of backlogs, it is unclear how the proposed fee increases will address that issue. Our Committee is further concerned with a differential and disparate impact of these fees on indigent immigrants. We recommend that the Service refrain from implementing any new fee increases until a specific plan is underway to appreciably reduce the tremendous backlogs now in place.

Respectfully submitted,

Paul Parsons

Chairman
 
GovExec

Immigration benefits backlog growing despite increased budget
allocations

From CongressDailyPM

The number of immigrants awaiting decisions--including citizenship and permanent resident
status--increased 59 percent in the past three years, and that despite $160 million appropriated in the
past two years to remedy the logjam, nearly 6.2 million applications were pending at the end of
September, according to a new General Accounting Office report.

"While Congress was funneling money to reduce the backlog, the backlog increased by merely 2.3
million cases," said a spokesman for House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc.

The GAO probe revealed that fees charged by Citizenship and Immigrations Services are
insufficient to cover the cost of processing applications--in part due to expanding security costs.
"The effect" of the disorder is that "CIS knows neither the cost to process new applications nor the
cost to complete pending applications," the report said.

In anticipation of President Bush's immigration overhaul--announced Wednesday and due in six
months--GAO recommended that Homeland Security Secretary Ridge direct CIS to study the fees
and determine how much money will be needed to remedy the backlog.

In an August interview with Government Executive, CIS Director Eduardo Aguirre vowed to
significantly reducing wait times and application backlogs for immigration benefits by increasing the
agency's efficiency through new information technology investments.

House Judiciary Chairman
 
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NOT EQUAL UNDER ANY LAW

From "www.ilw.com", Editor's comments.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables was written in the 1800s. Jean Val Jean's character epitomized the futility and the inhumanity of the medieval legal standard where a single offense, no matter how minor, doomed a person for life. Such an approach to offenses is not just inhumane but is actually futile in achieving a society ruled by law. The time-tested legal principle therefore is one of tailoring the punishment to the crime. Unfortunately, the passions that immigration gives rise to sometimes cloud the minds of our legal policymakers. As modified by IIRIRA, our immigration laws currently enshrine a "one strike, you're out!" doctrine. An example of the absurdity that results can be seen in today's case where a "criminal alien" faced two years in federal prison and mandatory deportation apparently merely for the offense of urinating in public. We would be better off by ensuring that the punishment is proportional to the crime even in the immigration context instead of having to relearn the lessons of the Middle Ages once again.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
New bill in Congress

When we all wake up, we will see similar bills for us.

World News > Immigration bill in Congress
expands family reunification


By Ela Dutt, Washington, Mar 12 (IANS) :

A new bill in the House of Representatives proposes to allow
permanent residents to bring their spouses to the US after six months
while their visas are being processed.

The bill, if passed, would also expand legalisation provisions for
illegal aliens.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Democrat from Texas along
with senior Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, ranking
member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the bill.

House Resolution (H.R.) 3918, entitled "The Comprehensive
Immigration Reform and Fairness Act of 2004", appears to be a
parallel move to the one made in the Senate Jan 21 when Senate
Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Republican Senator Chuck
Hagel introduced "The Immigration Reform Act of 2004".

The House resolution lays out its objectives as being to amend the
Immigration and Nationality Act to reunify families, permit earned
access to permanent resident status, provide protection against unfair
immigration-related employment practices, reform the diversity visa
programme, provide adjustment of status for Haitians and Liberian
nationals and for other purposes.

It makes it possible for permanent residents or Green Card holders as
they are generally called, to bring over their spouses, parents or
children under the K Visa.

"Right now a citizen's spouse or child waiting in another country for
visa processing can come in (to the United States) on a K Visa. This
bill would expand that to others, such as lawful permanent residents if
their spouse has been waiting more than six months in another
country," Nolan Rappaport, minority counsel on the House Judiciary
Committee, told IANS.

"The reason I chose to make it six months is because the Department
of Homeland Security has said it is hoping to make six months the
turnaround time for visa processing," Rappaport explained.

The House bill H.R. 3918 also chooses to make 245(i), a provision that
outlines how a person can become legal by fulfilling several
conditions, into a permanent provision of the Immigration Act.

"It seeks to make earned access to legalisation permanent,"
Rappaport said, making it possible for illegal aliens to legalise their
stay if they have been in this country continuously for five years, have
had good moral character, no criminal record, show English language
proficiency if they are between 18 and 65 years of age, and show
acceptance of the values of US culture if they are above 18, plus have
done 40 hours of community service.

H.R. 3918 also seeks to double "diversity visas," or visas that are
granted through a lottery. "This bill would double the 55,000 currently
to 110,000," Rappaport said.

"Last year when the State Department switched from letter to e-mail
applications, servers were overloaded in the last two days, so that
those who applied in these two days were rejected. H.R. 3918 says the
State must find a way to process these applications."

The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, an advocacy
body for Asian Americans' rights, had earlier lauded the
Daschle-Hagel bipartisan bill noting that millions of relatives were
waiting outside the US to come and join their families.

"Millions of US citizens and lawful permanent residents have been
waiting for years, sometimes over a decade, to be reunited with their
family members in the US," observed Karen K. Narasaki, president
and executive director of NAPALC.

Over 1.5 million of 3.5 million people caught in the family immigration
backlog are from Asian countries, according to NAPALC. As for
"earned" legalisation, currently, approximately one million
undocumented immigrants from Asian countries live in the United
States, NAPALC estimates.

NAPALC
 
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Rice

The National Security Advisor Delivers Remarks at The Mcconnell Center for Political Leadership
University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
March 8, 2004


[ ... ]


Q Building for the future, what changes would you suggest in our immigration policies, given the vulnerability of our homeland?

DR. RICE: Thank you. Well, we are making, I think, a lot of progress with our neighbors on the borders, with Canada and Mexico, to try to put in place a more effective system of border controls that can make us more secure, while still allowing the free flow of goods and services across the borders.

We do most of our economic activity with Mexico and Canada, and so you don't want a situation in which you have shut down these important avenues of commerce. And yet we learned on September 11th that people had gotten into the country who should not have gotten into the country. And my colleague, Tom Ridge, has developed a very effective set of programs with Mexico and with Canada called Smart Borders, where they are using technology, where we're about to put in certain biometric data that can help to identify who is coming across the border, and being able to clear -- pre-clear the products that need to go through so that you don't have a hold-up in trade. These are all extremely important things to do.

We believe that we can have immigration policies that are welcoming. The United States is a country that I think thrives because we have people from all over the world, and it thrives because people from all over the world want to come here. And we want people to continue to want to come here. I'm an academic. At Stanford, one of the great joys is to have students from all over the world. And they have to feel welcome here. They have to be able to get visas to get here. And so we are working to make sure that all of those very important principles are followed.

And so the President and his homeland security team, in conjunction with the State Department, I think made some very useful changes to our visa policies; Tom Ridge and his colleagues, some very useful changes to our border policy. And I believe we're making a lot of progress, and we just have excellent cooperation with Canada and Mexico. Really excellent cooperation.

[ ... ]
DR RICE /
NATIONAL SECUTITY ADVISOR
 
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CIS

DHS Anniversary discussion: GovExec Reporter ...


http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/inspanel.html

In the area of services, however, the merger into the Department of Homeland Security to this point seems to have done very little. Application backlogs, as Brenda said, continue to grow, and while the department wants to raise application fees this year, it would incur $110 million budget cut in the administration’s 2005 budget proposal. In other words, the budget for reduction of backlogs would go from $235 million this year to $140 million next year. And this prompted a number of immigrant rights groups earlier this week to put out a report card giving the administration an F for its work in the services area and lambasting it.

SHAWN ZELLER / GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE MAG
 
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The President

Is President Bush aware of the Backlogs???


Bush willing to allow more H-1B visas

Press Trust India

Washington, March 14: US President George W Bush has
expressed his willingness to issue 12,000 more H-1B visas to the
limit of 65,000 already reached.

At a private reception in Los
Angeles earlier this month, Bush
told Attorney Paresh Shah that he was
unaware about the fact that H-1B cases filed
in the year 2003 were being applied to the
year 2004 H-1B cap, India Post, an ethnic
Indian newspaper reported.

Bush told Shah that he was willing to review a
proposal to recapture approximately 12,000
H-1B visas into the current year's H-1B cap,
the report said.

This would allow the H-1B category to reopen
in this current fiscal year until the recaptured H-1B spots are exhausted.
 
Immigration lawyer's view

http://www.maggio-kattar.com/

Unprecedented USCIS Processing Delays

The demise of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its replacement by the
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was greeted with hope that INS'
notorious processing delays would be improved upon substantially so. In fact, processing
delays have gotten worse. For example, the filing receipt notice for an application for
adjustment of status to permanent resident filed with the USCIS Texas Service Center now
indicates that it takes 999 days to process the application only because the USCIS computer
program is incapable of printing a higher number. Supposedly, these delays in processing
"green card" cases in part are caused by the need for new security clearances; however, those
clearances are obtained within 15 days within the context of premium processing for L, H, and
O employment-based nonimmigrant visas. Perhaps more infuriating is the 15 months it now
takes for a permanent resident to obtain a reentry permit, a document that permits a
permanent resident to be outside the United States for more than one year. Just a few years
ago, applications for H, L, and O status were processed within ten to twenty-one days for
approximately $110, while those applications now take six months or more unless a $1000
premium processing fee is paid.


999 days
 
Databases

IDENT / IAFIS Database Integration by 2008!

The BAcklogs will be reduced by 2006 as per Aguirre!

Justice inspector general criticizes
immigration data checks




By Joe Cantlupe
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
3:53 p.m. March 2, 2004
WASHINGTON – A Mexican citizen convicted of raping and killing a nun
in Oregon two years ago easily managed to get into this country
because Border Patrol agents failed to check his past criminal records,
the Justice Department's Inspector General said Tuesday.
One of the problems is
that the immigration
service and the FBI
have two separate
fingerprint
identification
programs, and both
systems weren't
checked, officials said.
An inspector general's
report recommended
that officials work to
combine both the
IDENT, a fingerprint
system used by the
immigration service,
and IAFIS, the FBI's automated identification database.
The IDENT system, built in 1994, focuses mostly on immigration
violations. The more powerful IAFIS, launched in 1999, includes
extensive criminal background checks.
Too often, officials don't coordinate the information from each system,
according to the Inspector General's report.
The lack of coordination was tragically illustrated in a case involving
Mexican citizen Victor Manual Batres, who is now serving a life prison
term for the rape and murder of a nun in Klamath Falls, Ore., in
September 2002.
Months earlier, Batres, 35, had twice tried to enter the U.S. illegally, but
was detained by the Border Patrol in New Mexico.
On each occasion, agents returned Batres voluntarily to Mexico.
Because they didn't check both database systems, border patrol agents
were unaware of Batres' extensive criminal record involving California
and other states and previous deportations.
If they knew his background, Batres would have been held in custody,
officials said.
"The Batres case again illustrates the urgent need to integrate the
separate automated fingerprint identification systems," said Inspector
General Glenn A. Fine. "We continue to believe that the integration
project should remain a critical priority, and that full integration will
help avoid recurrence of cases like Batres."
Because the immigration service's IDENT database "is not integrated
with IAFIS criminal history files, it does not apprise Border Patrol
agents of aliens with serious criminal records," Fine's report said.
San Diego officials routinely use IDENT to make fingerprint checks of
suspected fraud among immigrants at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro
border crossings, officials said.
"IDENT has been around a long time and it's fairly routine," said a
Homeland Security Department official, who noted that only two
fingerprints are used for IDENT checks. The IAFIS system involves
"rolling 10 fingers" to obtain prints and "takes a much longer time so it
isn't used as much," said the official, who declined to be identified.
The Batres case was reminiscent of a 1999 foul-up involving the Border
Patrol and the lack of background checks, officials said.
In that incident, the Border Patrol voluntarily returned Rafael
Resendez-Ramirez from Texas to Mexico. At that time, officials were
unaware that the FBI and local authorities had outstanding arrest
warrants for Resendez for murder and other charges.
Shortly after Resendez's voluntary return to Mexico, he illegally
entered the U.S. again and committed four slayings before he
surrendered to law enforcement authorities.
Although Justice and Homeland Security officials are trying to upgrade
the IDENT and IAFIS systems, they estimate that the fingerprint
databases will not be joined until about August 2008, about two years
behind schedule, officials said.
The upgrade may cost between $600 million and $1 billion, according
to congressional testimony.
Once the FBI and immigration database systems are linked, it is still
uncertain what agency would run them, Fine said.
 
CIS

The view from the legacy INS employees:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/inspanel.html
MS. NEUERBURG: In introducing myself, I’m the council president for the legacy INS employees – as Steve said earlier, 18,000 employees. We deal with the benefits side. I do have law enforcement officers with me. We’re here today to talk about the anniversary – the one-year anniversary.


Well, as anything, there are always a lot of rough hurdles to get over. And we’ve had our hurdles. The backlogs are tremendous. As always, we don’t have enough people. We’re seeking friends in the congressional arena, and hopefully they’ll be able to allot us monies where we can employ more employees.

One of the concerns that we have that has come out of this one year with the Department of Homeland Security is the privatization. We’re afraid of that because that will take away the experience, if you will, of the INS employees and those who have been with the service in whatever capacity that they’ve been in to use their experience to further protecting the homeland security of this country.

We would like to say that we have the proposed regulations that have just come out and we’re working with those, and that’s been a year. I’ve been on the field service team and we’ve been instrumental in helping Homeland Security come up with some of the information and some of the concerns that we have in the legacy INS. And to be merged with legacy Customs and legacy Agriculture, it’s one face at the border, which I know you’ve all heard. Well, it’s taking some getting used to, if you will. It’s very hard for a legacy INS employee to go into a bag and see that there’s a false bottom, as is a legacy Customs employee to detect fraud in an employee coming across the borders. But we hope to protect the borders and to protect ourselves as citizens of the United States.

I can only tell you that, yes, there are backlogs. Yes, we’re having problems. And I look forward to answering any of the questions that you propose.
 
NAPALC

http://www.napalc.org/programs/immigration/resources/ CBO_meetings/2003_10_28_Notes.pdf

5. According to the latest information we have received, there is a huge backlog
of I-485s, Applications for Adjustment of Status, pending before the service
centers: California Service Center has 64,721 adjustments pending; Nebraska
Service Center has 316,118 adjustments pending; Texas Service Center has
111,530 adjustments pending, and Vermont Service Center has 127,817
adjustments pending. These backlogs result in years of delay in adjudicating
adjustments. What are the plans to decrease the backlogs and shorten delays?


A: USCIS has had to deal with a number of unfunded mandates in the past year,
including increased number of security checks on applications and petitions and
diversion of resources to special registration. The agency is currently reviewing
its budget for the coming fiscal year and revamping its backlog reduction plan to
meet current circumstances. The upcoming fee increase will cover the increased
cost of processing petitions and applications, including additional security checks
 
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DOL / LC / USCIS

The LC certification process: Abilitry to pay.
As this is DOL's responsibility, then why USCIS is issuing RFEs on WAges, Ability to Pay, etc.
Another point in the RFE issuance policy.

http://www.rreeves.com/pubnews/news_article.asp?aid=284&ver=

COLUMN ARTICLE - NEW TEST TO PROVE EMPLOYER’S ABILITY TO PAY WAGES
Posted on: 2/18/2004
According to a recent published decision from the Board of Alien of Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA), the Department of Labor (DOL) can consider the overall fiscal circumstances of the owner of a sole proprietorship when assessing its ability to pay wages. This important ruling enables small businesses that are owned by a single proprietor to more easily obtain approval for their labor certification applications.
As discussed in previous articles in this column, the labor certification process is necessary for alien workers to gain lawful permanent residence through an employer-sponsor for most occupations. Before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) may approve petition requests, the DOL must first certify to the USCIS that: (1) there are not sufficient U.S. workers, who are able, willing, qualified, and available at the time of the application for a visa and admission into the U.S. and at the place where the alien is to perform the work; and (2) the employment of the alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
According to the regulations, an application for labor certification must clearly show that the employer has enough funds available to pay the wage offered to the alien worker, and that the DOL may request information showing the ability to pay this wage. This recent BALCA decision involved a small farm owned and operated as a sole proprietorship. The DOL based its denial of the labor certification application on the fact that the business had experienced losses from $25,000 to $30,000 a year in the past few years, as reflected in the employer’s personal tax returns. Through an attorney, the employer argued that the DOL narrowly interpreted its tax returns and that the government should consider the employer’s overall fiscal circumstances, including its adjusted yearly gross income, in evaluating its ability to pay. The first BALCA panel affirmed the DOL’s denial, but on en banc review, the administrative board reversed itself and ruled that the DOL must consider a sole proprietor’s entire financial circumstances in considering its ability to pay the wage offered to the alien worker. This ruling bodes well for the thousands of small businesses operating as a sole proprietorship that demonstrate the need for immigrant labor.
 
President / USCIS

http://www.visalaw.com/04mar3/7mar304.html

News Bytes

Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Eduardo Aguirre has indicated that the Bush Administration does not intend to introduce legislation embodying the President’s immigration reform proposal. Aguirre stated that the purpose behind the President’s speech on January 7, 2004 was to outline broad parameters of the immigration reform debate and that it was up to Congress to form a detailed plan for immigration reforms. He added that as bills are introduced, the President will work with the sponsors. Many see Aguirre’s remarks as signaling the President’s intention to back away from his January proposal, which has drawn considerable criticism from members of his own political party.
 
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