This is the auto response i received from
Cisombudsman@dhs.gov
Dear Mr. xxx,
Thank you for your inquiry and for bringing this issue to our
attention.
Please be aware that the Citizenship and Immigration Service Ombudsman
office (CISO) is dedicated to identifying systematic problems in the
immigration benefits process, and recommending solutions to the US
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The concerns you raised
in
your email will be considered as CISO develops recommendations to
improve the USCIS processes system. Again, thank you for contacting
Ombudsman office.
This is the letter i wrote:
Dear Sir,
I write to you, as one of the many skilled professional workers in the US. Our concerns regarding employment-based immigration have multiplied overnight due to the heavy and the highly unpredicted retrogression mentioned in the October 2005 Visa Bulletin published by DOS for all employment-based immigration categories (EB1, EB2) for India and China and EB3 worldwide.
According to this Visa Bulletin, the Visa Cutoff Dates are such that we would have to wait for another 6 to 8 years after having waited patiently for 1-2 years just for our labor certifications. The validity of our H1B visas is 6 years and beyond that we have to depend on yearly visa extensions, besides having severe restrictions, such as, we can't change jobs, can't visit our home country and so on. Our plight in this condition is beyond imagination!
I have been working here in the US for the last 4 years with a Software company and have been paying my taxes regularly. My employer has a permanent employment opportunity in the United States for which they have sponsored me for permanent residency to fill this position and it has been established that I am the most suitable candidate based on relevant professional experiences & skills and educational background. I have completed stages 1 and 2 of the Green card application i.e. The Labor Certification and the I-140. Unfortunately due to annual numerical limits on the employment based immigrant visa, and due to the heavy retrogression my permanent residency petition will be kept pending for need of visa numbers for an almost indefinite period of time, to the extent that I would be forced to return to my home country. In fact a many of us have already started planning on those lines! This would be very heart breaking for me as well as for my employer. Some are planning to move to more immigration friendly countries, for highly educated skill professions like Canada, UK, Australia, etc.
The other problem that we seem to face is, that our spouses, who are from our home countries, and are Highly educated and professionally qualified, cannot work here without a work permit. It feels extremely mentally degrading and depressing to them, to have to sit at home, inspite of having such wonderful qualifications in today's global economy. Until we can apply for our I-485's (The Third and final stage of the Permanent Residency / Green Card application) we cannot apply for work permits for them and hence they cannot work in the US.
The situation does not seem to have any end in sight if there are no immigration policy changes. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has done and is doing some commendable work in backlog reduction and PERM processing to expedite labor certifications, but this is meaningless if there are no employment based visa numbers available to successfully complete the immigration process.
There are many possible solutions to the problems we face today, such as,
1) Recapturing all the unused Visas for the past 10 years.
2) Increasing yearly quota of employment based immigrant visas
3) Removing the per-country visa limit or modifying it to suit the population ratio of each country.
4) Allowing I-485 and EAD filings even if visas are not available, and then processing I-485s per priority dates.
5) Counting Immigrant visa per primary applicant only, rather than counting for everyone in family
6) Making the immigration process independent of employer. Some of these measures are already mentioned in pending "Immigration Reform Bill".
As recently as last month, Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Craig Barrett, some of the country's foremost industry leaders, spoke on the matter of legal immigration and pointed out that America's immigration system needs fixing. These visionaries have recognized that the economic progress and standard of living can only be achieved and maintained through qualified and skilled immigrant labor. Mr. Greenspan also indicated in his last month speech that US needs skilled immigrants for proper economic growth.
The USA is called the "land of opportunity". On behalf of all the legal and skilled professionals from around the world, I request that we be given the well-deserved opportunity to file our immigration status in a timely manner by resolving employment based visa retrogression. I request you to please do whatever is there in your powers to ease out our immigration problems which have caused a great deal of pain and depression to our whole community.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
