Will this be our last April Fool's Day rush for H-1B visas? Maybe!  With comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, you may finally get the relief you need to hire foreign nationals with certainty and, if we are lucky, speed.  On the other hand, we may end up with more hurdles to jump and even longer processing times.  Read on to learn:

 

Please read the full "In The Know" for these updates.

If these outlines look familiar it is because ACIP advocated many of these same ideas during the comprehensive immigration reform debates in 2006-2007, and they are included in our 2013 Principles for Immigration Reform. I’m often asked what is different this time around? My answer is that it certainly “feels” different. There is more energy, more consensus and a greater understanding of the reasons (political, economic and humanitarian) why we need to fix our immigration system. 

Happy New Year! I hope you had a relaxing holiday surrounded by family and friends.

The pomp and circumstance of the presidential inauguration is a few weeks away, but today is the changing of the guard in Congress.  Eighty-seven men and women will be sworn-in for the first time.  They face tremendous challenges – the remainder of the fiscal cliff, gun control and immigration are at the top of the list – but like New Year’s resolutions the beginning of a new congress offers the possibility of a fresh start and a chance to get something done.

October 2012

 

Did you watch the debate last night? In Washington, we have parties to watch these. I’ll leave it to the pundits to decide who won and who lost, but I will give you my thoughts on how the debate circled around immigration without ever discussing it. Both candidates spent a great deal of time talking about the need to get the economy growing. Neither mentioned that they both have supported STEM visas as one way to stimulate such growth. The candidates also were asked whether there is too much or too little government regulation. I was waiting for one of them to draw the connection between these issues – to explain how reasonable, consistent and transparent regulations give employers the certainty and confidence to hire today and to plan for their workforces of the future. As we are all too painfully aware, the lack of predictability in our immigration system is a drag on your organization’s ability to get the job done. This damper on productivity ultimately harms all Americans. Perhaps they’ll draw these connections in future debates.