'Broken immigration': Lawyers body slams US Cong

Stressing that foreign expats have 'long contributed' to raising American living standards, a US association of immigration lawyers has slammed Congress for its 'failure' to reform the 'broken system' to meet the country's legitimate labour needs.

Due to existing caps on the highly-skilled H-1B visas, the domestic companies were facing the music as specialised job quotas were filled up on the first day of application itself, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) said.

"For most Americans, the beginning of April signifies the start of spring. For others, it means Opening Day of the baseball season. But for US employers, April first marks the day that US Citizenship and Immigration Services begins accepting new H-1B visa petitions for 2009," it said.

"And once again, America's companies will be left in the lurch as the sparse annual allotment of H-1B visas will be reached on the very first day," the association said.

Kathleen Campbell Walker, president of the AILA, said: "Unfortunately, this striking failure to support America's global competitiveness is not a poor April Fool's Day joke; it is the result of Congressional inaction and failure to reform our broken immigration system to meet legitimate labour needs".

Walker further asked in a statement "Since when did the saying 'If it's broke, don't fix it' ever make sense?"

Presently, the number of H-1B visas is capped at 65,000, plus 20,000

for graduates of US universities advanced degree programmes.

Once the cap is reached, the process shuts down for another 18 months, preventing many companies from hiring vitally needed workers.

Lauding foreign expats who come to US to work, Walker said: "Our history shows that immigrants have long contributed to rising US standards of living, and recent studies reflect a direct correlation between the use of skilled foreign workers and the creation of jobs for Americans.

"The H-1B non-immigrant visa category allows US employers to augment the existing labour force with highly skilled foreign nationals in fields like research science, engineering, systems analysis, accounting, medicine, and teaching," he said.

The statement further said: "H-1B workers are admitted to the United States for an initial period of three years, which may be extended for an additional three years. Further, H-1B employers must pay a competitive wage to the employee.

"USCIS has said that this year it will accept H-1B visa petitions over five business days, ending April seven, and then will run a lottery to select the 85,000 'lucky winners' from among the applications received," Walker said.

The AILA President added: "America is currently facing many economic challenges and Congress is missing a no-brainer opportunity to help by not pegging the cap to the needs of the economy and allowing employers to hire the skilled workers it needs."