Immigration Round-Up: Student Visa Processing; Border Restrictions; H-1B Wage Rules : Immigration Law Blog

Greater Schooling Teams Plead for Authorities to Pace Up Pupil Visa Processing

A number of schooling organizations, together with the American Council on Schooling, have submitted a letter to the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Safety urging sooner visa processing for worldwide college students earlier than the beginning of the autumn 2021 semester.

The teams requested that the Biden administration chill out earlier steering barring worldwide college students from touring and learning in the USA if their packages had been fully on-line and concern a written coverage exempting new college students from present journey restrictions. The teams urged that these strikes would assist kickstart the U.S. economic system, as faculties and universities rely financially on worldwide college students, who typically pay full tuition to attend faculty within the U.S. In 2020, larger schooling nationwide noticed a greater than 70% lower in new worldwide scholar enrollment, together with a greater than 90% lower in F-1 scholar visas for the month of August.

Whereas present worldwide college students can stay within the U.S. even when their packages are on-line, an present ICE directive bars new worldwide college students from getting visas if their packages are fully on-line. This poses an issue for college kids who enroll in faculties which have moved to distant courses because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many college students can’t full their coursework from overseas as a result of lack of entry to the web or main time variations throughout dwell courses.

At the moment, solely college students from the Schengen Space of Europe, the UK, and Eire are exempted from pandemic-related journey restrictions; advocates need this exemption expanded world wide.

Whereas the Division of Homeland Safety has not commented on this concern, a spokesperson for the Division of State issued a press release that U.S. Embassies and Consulates are “working to renew routine visa companies on a location by location foundation,” and that embassies processing nonimmigrant visa purposes are prioritizing scholar visas. Pupil visa candidates ought to test the web site of their closest embassy or consulate for present operational standing.

Canada and Mexico Land Border Restrictions Prolonged Via April 21, 2021

United States Customs and Border Patrol (“CBP”) has decided that the ban on non-essential journey throughout U.S. land borders and ferry journey with Canada and Mexico will proceed by means of April 21, 2021. The ban had been set to run out on March 21, 2021.

The directive, initially instituted because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has restricted motion throughout the U.S.-Canadian border to important journey – together with lawful cross-border commerce, journey for work in the USA, journey for medical functions or to attend academic establishments, and journey for emergency response and public well being functions – in addition to journey for U.S. residents, Lawful Everlasting Residents, and members of the U.S. Armed Forces returning to the USA, and another types of journey decided by the CBP on a case-by-case foundation.

Any enterprise journey will probably be topic to further evaluate on the border, and since CBP has broad discretion to examine vacationers, international nationals could count on further questioning about employment or enterprise actions in the USA. CBP will evaluate this directive subsequent month to see if one other extension is required.

Division of Labor Proposal Extending Delay of Regulation Growing PERM and H-1B Wages

The U.S. Division of Labor has indicated it should delay enforcement of a regulation that might have raised wage necessities for international staff working in specialty occupations in the USA. The brand new guidelines had been scheduled to take impact Might 14, 2021. The Division of Labor is in search of to delay the beginning date by 18 months and prolong the transition interval to the brand new wages to a few years.

The brand new wage rule, launched by the Trump administration, sought to restructure the present prevailing wage system and elevate wage minimums for a number of visa packages. The Division of Labor introduced it was delaying the efficient date by means of Might 14, 2021, with a purpose to give the Biden administration time to evaluate the regulation.

If the brand new wage guidelines in the end take impact, employers will nonetheless be topic to the Division of Labor’s present prevailing wage charges for the following two years. Nevertheless, the DOL could make modifications to the regulation and its efficient date because it evaluations public feedback on the proposal and conducts its personal evaluation of the proposed guidelines.

In case you have any questions on this weblog submit or another immigration issues, please be at liberty to contact me at wcmenard@norris-law.com or 282-544-0022.