Aker/Gomez hearing on DV-2020 plaintiffs about to start. I'll tweet anything interesting I hear. 1
Judge Mehta has started the hearing. @ckuck is speaking and explaining to the judge that people who were issued the DV visas are seeing them expire and the government won't renew. 2
We're asking the judge to order @travelgov to give a report on how many visas issued, reissued & expiration dates. We also want a plan on how visas will be reissued. Finally, we want to know how govt will issue to dependents. 3
Judge asking our view on whether court can ask State to reissue a visa. @ckuck - Within equity, the court can order the govt to issue and REISSUE visas. Purposes of DV program will be thwarted if judge doesn't order the reissuance of the visas. 4
@ckuck Judge - For now, my answer is "maybe". Benton York, the govt lawyer now up - they haven't heard us bring this up before. Not prepared to address yet. Re class certification motion, the govt is going to take the position it's not timely. 5
@ckuck Judge Mehta wondering what's going to happen after tomorrow. He's not inclined to do anything until we know what new POTUS/AG will do. He'll wait on taking any kind of plan until he knows a bit more about that though he doesn't want to delay much. 6
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I’m learning some more about the Biden immigration legislation that will be introduced tomorrow. There will be sections on legalization, the border, refugees & legal immigration. There are about a half dozen bills passed in the House in the last Congress that will be in there. 1
There will be a broad legalization program for millions of immigrants who have been in the US for many years and it will resemble the 2013 comprehensive bill except that it will have a 6 year path to citizenship versus the longer one in that prior bill. 2
A lot of people with prior deportation orders and inadmissibility will have an opportunity to apply. 3
I've gone through the 185 page new H-1B rule changing the H-1B lottery to one that's wage based (though still a lottery of sorts). 1
The rule is final but doesn’t go into effect for 60 days. That means it will not impact the next H-1B lottery since the entry period will start before that date. 2
The new rule allows for ranking and selection based on OES wage levels (you can see the data at flcdatacenter.com). 3
One small thing I would like to see done very soon. Take the immigration sections of the Heroes Act (Covid relief) passed in May and separately pass that bill since McConnell stripped out that part. Here's my summary - visalaw.com/siskind-summar…
And add the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act. There is plenty more to do but those bills are specifically Covid-related and need immediate passage.
The HWRA is jointly sponsored by Senators Perdue and Durbin. It has 40ish co-sponsors almost equally divided between Ds and Rs. It provides green cards for 40K doctors and nurses and it won't be filibustered.
As predicted, the China provision is the main sticking point preventing possible inclusion of 1044/386 per country caps language in the omnibus bill. Several dozen advocacy organizations, including a number of Asian American groups, have come out opposing that language. 1
They are not taking a position on country caps - just the offensive paragraph. I know some groups supporting 1044 are trying to say the anti-Chinese language is symbolic & won't change things. Unfortunately, that's not true. 2
Fixing the language isn't that hard. But I understand Senator Scott is being obstinate and refusing modifications. 3
Happy that S. 386 has finally passed in the Senate and we're a step closer to ending nationality discrimination in the visa allocation system. 1
However, there are significant differences with the House version that need to be negotiated (including a China provision that is going to be viewed as controversial unless clarified). 2
President-elect Biden also needs to use executive actions to address the backlogs and has options available to him that will ensure there are NO backlogs for anyone with or without country caps. 3