The following additional items may be of interest to our readers:
Update on Visa Number Availability: The Department of State Visa Bulletin for July 2014 reflects slight forward movement for many categories but an almost four-year jump for the employment-based second preference, EB-2, for India, moving from 11/15/04 to 9/1/08. The Worldwide Family 2A category (spouses and children of lawful permanent residents) remains at 03/01/12. And, despite rumors that the EB-5 investor preference category for China would retrogress, that category remains current and is only expected to retrogress in September, if at all.
U.S. Consulates in Canada Limit Visa Processing for Non-Canadian Nationals: Due to increasingly heavy demand by Canada-based visa applicants, the seven U.S. visa processing posts in Canada are extremely limited in their ability to accept foreign national cases from other countries during the summer. The posts encourage such applicants to seek appointments elsewhere in the world, such as in the applicant’s home country. Emergency cases may seek consideration for scheduling an interview at a Canada post by visiting canada.usembassy.gov.
Difficulty Reaching the National Visa Center? Trying Calling During Off-Peak Hours: Attorneys and clients have reported their inability to contact the National Visa Center by telephone, reporting a busy signal when dialing NVC’s published contact number, (603) 334-0700. The NVC has confirmed that its phone lines are working properly but are operating at full capacity. NVC recommends calling during off-peak times: 7am to 10am (ET) and 8pm to midnight (ET). While the NVC has indicated that they will upgrade their phone system, that upgrade will not take place for the next several months.
New Report Analyzes H-1B Lottery and Finds Cap Disproportionately Hurts American-born Tech Workers: A report released by the Partnership for a New American Economy reveals that the existing H-1B visa lottery caps disproportionately hurt American-born tech workers by slowing job and wage growth in more than 200 metropolitan areas across the U.S. Relying on data from the USCIS, DOL, and the American Community Survey (ACS) to build a new model of causality, the report states unequivocally that cities whose employers faced large numbers of denials in the H-1B visa lotteries experienced considerably less job creation and wage growth for American-born computer workers in the two years that followed. Denying H-1B visas didn’t help the economies of America’s cities or their U.S.-born workers, according to the report. Instead, it cost their tech sectors hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in missed wages.