Originally Posted by
CleanSock
Recommendations in the pdf.
Recommendation 1: Update the monthly Visa Bulletin. Later this year, State, in consultation
with DHS, will revise the monthly Visa Bulletin to better estimate immigrant visa availability for
prospective applicants, providing needed predictability to nonimmigrant workers seeking
permanent residency. The revisions will help ensure that the maximum number of available visas
is issued every year, while also minimizing the potential for visa retrogression.26 These changes
will further allow more individuals seeking LPR status to work, change jobs, and accept
promotions. By increasing efficiency in visa issuance, individuals and their families who are
already on the path to becoming LPRs will have increased security that they can stay in the United
States, set down roots, and more confidently seek out opportunities to build lives in our country.
Recommendation 2: Refine monthly allocation of visas. State will increase monthly visa
allocation totals during the first three quarters of the fiscal year to the degree permitted by law
in order to ensure that fewer numbers are left for the final quarter, thereby ensuring that visa
numbers issued are as closely aligned with statutory mandates as possible.
Recommendation 3: Improve numerically controlled immigrant visa appointments. State’s
National Visa Center will alter how numerically controlled immigrant visa appointments are
scheduled for the last month of the fiscal year (September) to provide sufficient time to evaluate
whether there may be potentially unused numbers. This change will allow for the scheduling of
additional cases when necessary in order to maximize the numbers of visas used, consistent with
the annual limits.
Recommendation 4: Clarify and expand protections for employment-based immigrants and
nonimmigrants. DHS intends to publish a regulation clarifying and expanding on the protections
afforded employment-based immigrants and nonimmigrants under the American
Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000 (“AC-21”), which was meant to increase
job flexibility for individuals who were coming to the United States to perform specialty
occupation services (H-1B) and those on the pathway to permanent residency. This regulation
will:
• Increase the ability of workers waiting for a green card to change jobs or receive
promotions by clarifying when individuals may change jobs or employers because such
employment is “same or similar” to the job that was the original basis for permanent
residency;
• Further increase job flexibility by enabling individuals whose employment-sponsored
immigrant visa petitions have been approved for more than one year to retain eligibility
for LPR status despite the petitioning employer closing its business or seeking to withdraw
the approved petition;
• Provide increased guidance on job flexibility provisions for H-1B workers seeking other H-
1B employment, including changing jobs or employers;
• Extend grace periods for certain nonimmigrant workers whose period of authorized stay
has expired, including because their jobs have been terminated, to better allow them to
obtain other employment without losing their nonimmigrant status;
• Clarify when H-1B nonimmigrants may begin working without required licensure;
• Provide increased guidance on the maximum period of admission for H-1B
nonimmigrants, including for those who are on the path to LPR status, and enable H-1B
nonimmigrants to recapture time spent outside of the United States;
• Clarify which H-1B nonimmigrants are exempt from the statutory cap to ensure that those
nonimmigrants who are contributing to U.S. research and the education of Americans
may remain in the United States; and
• Protect H-1B nonimmigrants who suffered retaliatory actions because they reported
labor violations committed by their employer.
