Will 2013 finally be the year for
Perhaps few people are as intimately familiar with the 840-plus-page immigration bill as Rebecca Peters. The director and counsel for legislative affairs for American Council on International Personnel, Peters has been following the act since its conception and, should it pass in its current form, she says it has lots of good news for employers. Reform would “clear the backlogs” on those currently employed in the U.S., she says, who, at the present, work here but can’t be promoted, change jobs or even shift job locations.
“The green card provisions are some of the most positive and beneficial provisions in the bill,” Peters says. “We’re getting a lot of new green card numbers, which helps us keep people here permanently who employers already likely have on their payroll.”
But she acknowledges the current reform isn’t perfect, and it certainly isn’t free. “There’s a lot of fees in this bill” for companies, she says, in addition to the slew of them already in place.
“We already have an application fee on the
Still, the ACIP backs the reform as a whole, saying it contains several needed steps. Peters points to a provision that could completely change university-level recruiting; it allows for “dual-intent” for those seeking both to be educated and to work here. Essentially an F-1 or student visa could be used directly to seek citizenship. As the law stands now, companies have more to deal with if they recruit a foreign national straight out of college.
“Under our current law, you cannot take a student directly to green card; you have to go through the H-1 visa first as a stepping stone,” Peters says. “Because students are not allowed to come to the United States and have the intent to immigrate.”
