This is probably the best provision on legal immigration in the U.S. Citizenship Act (Biden bill). It would make family-sponsored immigration functional and realistic for the first time in many decades. 
At the same time, it effectively increases the family-sponsored cap from the FB floor of 226,000 to the cap of 480,000 by ending the requirement to deduct immediate relatives from the cap.
It also increases the EB cap, though not by nearly as much😡, from 140K to 170K and recaptures the 225K unused EB green cards since 1992. That would help with backlog reduction, but not dramatically. Demand would still far exceed supply
It removes from the FB cap the F2A category for spouses and minor children of LPRs by classifying them as immediate relatives, freeing up almost 90K additional green cards for family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
This is only the outline text. But I don't see anything in here that would preclude all backlogged legal immigrants in the US from qualifying for the pathways to citizenship for Dreamers, farm workers, and others.
Biden bill will end EB country caps and increase family based country caps to 20%. There's a typo that says that EB would go to 20%, but they are clearly repealed later.
Spouses and children of H-1B workers could receive employment authorization and most children would be protected from aging out while the petition is pending.
This is nearly as important as the V visa for family-sponsored applicants. Guaranteeing that students on OPT don't lose their status makes the H1B cap far less important. That's huge!
A permanent end to endless wait times! Max wait time will be 10 years. It won't matter much for EB since all of those cases will disappear under the path to citizenship, but it will help many family-sponsored cases.
This is a nice nod to Cato's state-based visa idea, but it has almost no explanation of what this is. The cap makes it seem like it's an EB-5 spinoff. But it could be almost anything.
Exempting STEM PhDs is nice, but all this provision would do, if the cap is binding, is force immigrants to unnecessarily get PhDs. What's the point of that? Just make it a master's degree.
Flexible EB cap, yay, but wait... they can only *lower* the cap. No authority to *increase* it during times of low unemployment. Very bad. And it plays into the protectionist nonsense that Biden rejected just last year when he denounced the visa bans. Skilled workers create jobs!
Big oversights: 1) No exemption for derivatives of legal immigrants. The derivatives gobble up half the cap and will take half of it for FB now that F2A is uncapped. That was in some early reports about the Biden plan, who would oppose it?
2) Nothing improves the process at all for seasonal agricultural or nonagricultural workers on H-2A or H-2B outside of the Pacific territories. These programs are the main way for employment-based migration by lower-skilled workers.
3) This is the only provision for year-round lower-skilled workers. Employers already don't use all the EB green cards b/c the permanent labor certification process is horrible and far too expensive when you're hiring someone for $12.50/hour. Year-round work visas are needed.
Another positive: The diversity lottery would increase by 25,000. Why not more?
Overall, if the final text holds, the pathway to citizenship would benefit both illegal AND legal immigrants, clearing away the EB backlog. The V Visa changes and other FB reforms means that the FB backlog will not be a major issue going forward
Despite Biden saying he supports seasonal workers, there's no H-2B cap relief. There's no H-2A streamlining. There's nothing at all for year-round temporary workers. That's a big loss and a sign that they won't make it bipartisan.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
