Musings on Immigration

Corporate Immigration Policies: A Survey Immigration is a key component of many companies forward-looking strategy for workplace competitiveness. American employers who currently hired foreign national workers, and those who plan to do so in the future, need to have a formal corporate immigration policy to ensure that they are competitive in the marketplace and can attract and hold top foreign talent. A US employer can legally hire foreign nationals under a variety of visa categories, but each visa category has one commonality--many of these foreign national employees want to remain permanently in the United States.  Just as important, given training and lost opportunity costs associated with departing "star" employees, most companies want to keep the foreign talent they have already sponsored for a work visa.  Give the lengthy waiting period for so many immigrant visa categories, many employees want to start as soon as possible on their "green card" proce...

This morning the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced newly proposed rules that will allow the spouses of highly skilled workers to work in the United States.   This came as welcome news to many eagerly awaiting Obama’s promise of comprehensive immigration reform, which seems to have stalled in Congress. Proposed changes in the regulations aim to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants to the United States, and, as Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker stated, to “unleash more of the extraordinary contributions that immigrants have always made to America’s innovation economy.”   Presently, spouses of these highly skilled workers are able to enter the U.S. to join their spouses but are not permitted to work.   DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that the proposed change will help keep America strong, enhancing our country’s competitiveness and supporting economic growth by attracting highly trained workers in science, technology and engineering ...