First glance at the proposed RAISE Act.

RAISE = Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy

You can read the proposed legislation at Sen. Cotton's web page.

A couple of things caught my notice beyond the obvious things which are summarized, also by Sen. Cotton, here.

First, the obvious:

 - Diversity Visa (DV) program eliminated;

 - Refugees capped at 50,000 per annum;

 - Spouses and minor children still eligible to immigrate but not other extended family members;

 - New non-immigrant visa category, renewable every five years, for elderly parents;

 - Grandfathers pending immigrant visa cases for eliminated categories but only if applied for before the introduction of this bill and scheduled to travel within one year of the bill's passage;

 - Introduces a points-based system to replace current employment-based visa categories;

 - Makes naturalization of an immigrant conditional on the immigrant's sponsor having reimbursed any benefits received by the immigrant during the sponsorship.

There are a bunch of little editorial points, basically housekeeping and neatening-up the existing statute, plus replacing "Attorney General" with "Secretary of Homeland Security" in a few places where this should already have happened since INS (among other things) moved from DOJ to DHS.

CAA is agnostic about eliminating the DV visa.  It's probably served its purpose if its purpose was to, er, diversify the flow of immigrants to the U.S., given how long it's been running.  So declare it a success and move on.  Since immigrant communities now exist (shout-out to Minnesota!) from lots of places (shout out to Somalia!) where few-to-no immigrants used to come from, "chain" immigration from those places will undoubtedly continue, although significantly diminished due to the elimination of non-immediate relative visa categories.

The number of refugees the U.S. takes-in is at the discretion of the president, under current law.  Fifty-thousand is at the high end of the numbers the U.S. has tended to receive over time and, frankly, if there should be a time and situation where president decides a number exceeding that should be admitted then he or she can always ask Congress for a higher number that year (and or succeeding years), and make the case for it.  It's not like trying to pass a Constitutional amendment, and if the need is compelling perhaps even congressmen and senators can be persuaded.

Eliminating the family-based visa categories beyond spouses and minor children is a big deal.  It will drastically clamp-down on "chain immigration" over time, which I think is the point.  I think there's room for improvement on how it's implemented, purely on the basis of fairness, which I'll address below.

Something I noticed in the bill which I haven't seen commented upon elsewhere is changing the age for minor children from 21 to 18 years.  It's a fair point, we consider children in most respects to be adults and on their own, more-or-less, at age 18.  It also doesn't shut the door to the 18+ year-old children from applying for student visas and coming over when the rest of their family immigrates; in fact, that would make a lot of sense, assuming the families have the resources to support it.  They would then, as they finished their higher (and higher) education be free to apply to stay under the points-based system being introduced by this bill.  

For those cases where the families don't have the resources to put their children into colleges and universities, what I'd like to see is a conditional status created that would allow the 18-21 year-old children, assuming they were otherwise qualified, to enlist in the military or naval services so they could qualify for citizenship on their own efforts.  Just a suggestion.

The five-year renewable non-immigrant visa for elderly parents makes a lot of sense and I'm not going to rake it over here.  CAA has issued immigrant visas to plenty of people who would fit into this category.  It's certainly an interesting idea and open to debate.

The points-based immigration system designed to replace our existing employment-based petitions is a system similar to that used by both Canada and Australia, two immigrant-friendly countries much like our own in many respects.  There's lots of room for haggling over how the points might be allocated, but there's also no reason it couldn't be revisited in the future to adjust how points are earned.

The issue of grandfathering pending immigrant cases where the visa category is being eliminated touches a nerve for me.  The numbers of visas for non-immediate relatives has an annual numeric cap, apportioned by country.  There are some countries (Mexico and Philippines spring readily to mind) where the wait is decades long.  These are people who, dutifully complying with our laws, have been patiently waiting to legally immigrate to the U.S., sometimes literally dying before their "number" comes up.  The way I read the draft bill, the first cut-off is that they have to have filed their petition no later than the when this bill was introduced.  The second cut-off is that they have to be scheduled arrive in the U.S. no later than one year after (or the day before one year) after the bill is passed into law.

What I don't see is the elimination of the numerical limitation, so that those waiting all these years for their turn, actually get their turn.  Perhaps I missed it?

CAA is all about legal immigrants lawfully complying with our immigration laws.  So it goes down sideways for us on the implementing side of the equation to be breaking faith with those who have been earnestly attempting to comply with our laws.  CAA is a big fan of people who comply with U.S. immigration laws; CAA believes people who start out by complying with U.S. immigration laws are more likely to continue being law-abiding than people who begin by ignoring or violating our laws.  Just sayin'.

CAA would like to see those waiting to obey the law get their chance to do so.  Let the bill be amended to let DHS and USCIS estimate annually how many of the pending cases they can process, irrespective of what the annual numerical limit has been, and then let USCIS and the State Department process those cases, until the backlog is gone.  Finished.  Finito.  Fertig.

re: "Globe and Mail: "IRS bearing down on Americans in Canada" "

Fred Fry at Fred Fry International ("Citizen Journalist and Observer of Human Nature") discussed overseas tax liability for U.S. citizens.

Money quote(s):

"Many Americans both Conservative and Liberal are upset with how their Government is functioning at the moment. I know I am not happy with the idiocy that is going on and the lies being put forward that somehow, we would be able to continue spending the outrageous amounts of money that the Government is currently spending, IF ONLY rich Americans paid a little more. Even Americans living overseas cannot escape the long arm of the US Government, which has decided to extend the arm of the Internal Revenue Service, the dreaded IRS, into the pockets of Americans overseas, even those who have no link to the country other than to have been born in the US or born by US parents. Apparently, there are lots of them."

Quite a few folks are born abroad to one (or more) U.S. citizen parents; many of them (no idea of the percentage....) eventually go "home" to the U.S. to live, study, marry, work, what-have-you.

U.S. nationality laws are written so that the U.S. citizen parent(s) have to have at least some U.S. "presence" prior to the birth of their U.S. citizen children; this is intended to prevent an unending series of generations of overseas "Americans" who have only a paper connection with the United States.

Many U.S. citizens abroad do not bother to file income tax returns with the IRS; and in many cases (see Fred's account below) they are not required to do so. There's a threshold income amount below which filings are not required.

That being said, Fred learned one of the reasons why it's a good idea to comply with those IRS rules.

"I lived in Finland for three years while doing my MBA. Two of those years I filed a tax return. The third year I didn't because I didn't meet the minimum reporting threshold. It turns out that it was good that I did because a short while later I moved back to the US and applied for a GreenCard for my soon to be Finnish wife. One of the requirements was providing copies of my previous three years Income Tax Returns, or an explanation of why I didn't file."

Consular officers working the immigrant visa (IV) portfolio will doubtless have encountered this situation numerous times: the U.S. citizen expatriat whio has married a foreign national and now want to get his or her a "green card."

Well, DHS issues the "green card" once a legal immigrant has been lawfully admitted to the U.S. What was once "the U.S. Consular Service" has to issue him or her an immigrant visa first.

There are a number of administrative and legal hurdles to that, and the overcoming the presumption that an immigrant will become a "public charge" once admitted to the U.S. is overcome by a sponsor (usually the petioner spouse him- or herself) providing proof of sufficient income to support the immigrant. Thus the requirement for providing copies of the federal income tax filings.

"It is odd however, to see the amount of effort that the IRS is extending to track down money overseas the US thinks it can extort from Citizens, however unfair, while at the same time they do little to nothing to hunt down illegal aliens living within the US who are working without the legal authorization to do so, are conspiring with their employers to not pay/evade taxes (in some cases also committing identity theft) and are simply getting a free pass."

Good point!

9/26

re: "Obama Pays Ransom For American Diplomat"

Federale ("Federal Service Guarantees Citizenship") explains why this was not necessarily a good idea.

Money quote(s):

"(S)ubmission to Islamist and Pakistani tribal traditions have superceded international treaties that have been in effect for years. Not to mention the hundreds of years of customary law that granted imunity to diplomats. All this thrown under the bus to promote sharia law and the supremacy of Islam in the world.

This incident could have been easily ended by the U.S. informing the Pakistani government that their holding of Davis was what it was, an act of war. The U.S. could have seized a Pakistani diplomat in retaliation, cut off military and economic aid, stopped issuing immigrant and non-immigrant visas to Pakistanis, canceling all outstanding visas or expelling some or all Pakistani diplomats from the U.S. Anyone of these actions would have forced the Pakistani government to comply with international law"

At this point, I suspect that paying Wergeld was the least bad of the various options available.

NAM - Family Visa Waits Long

From my archive of press clippings:

New American Media


Family Visa Waits Long

Filipino Express, Posted: Feb 17, 2010

According to a recent report released by the U.S. Department of State, the number of family-based applicants on the waiting list for immigrant visa numbers as of November 2009 was 3,369,455, while the number of employment-based applicants was 130,509.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"These figures include the principal applicants or petition beneficiaries as well as their spouses and children entitled to derivative status. They do not include immediate relatives (spouse, minor unmarried children and parents of U.S. citizens) who are exempted from the numerical limitation."

&

"In some categories, the wait for applicants from the Philippines, India, China and Mexico will be decades.

U.S. immigration laws set an annual worldwide limit as well as a per county limit of immigrant visas issued. There is also a limit on each preference category."

USA-T - Our view on legal immigration: Congratulations, graduate. Now leave the USA. Limits on skilled-immigrant visas hurt the nation's competitivene

USA Today

Our view on legal immigration: Congratulations, graduate. Now leave the USA. Limits on skilled-immigrant visas hurt the nation's competitiveness.


Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, May 12, 2009

Around this time each year, thousands of foreign students graduate with science and engineering degrees from U.S. universities. Many are eager to stay in America and contribute to the U.S. economy.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"For years, Congress has limited the number of highly skilled foreign workers whom U.S. companies can hire under what's known as the H-1B program. Every April 1, companies — from high-tech to financial firms — file petitions to hire these individuals.

In recent years, the cap of 85,000 (including 20,000 set aside for those with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions) has been reached within days, sometimes the first day. Last year, about 78,000 of the best and brightest didn't make the cut. "

WP - U.S. retains global science, tech preeminence: study

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Post

U.S. retains global science, tech preeminence: study

By Will Dunham

Reuters

Thursday, June 12, 2008; 2:25 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States retains its global preeminence in science and technology, with a big boost from foreign students, scientists and engineers, a RAND Corporation report issued on Thursday said.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"(T)he United States remains ahead of its main competitors in Europe and Japan, according to the report from the nonprofit research organization requested by the Pentagon."

"The United States accounts for 40 percent of the global spending on scientific research and development, employs 70 percent of the world's Nobel Prize winners and boasts three quarters of the world's top 40 universities, the report said."

&

"The report urged the U.S. government make it easier for foreigners who have graduated from U.S. universities with science and engineering degrees to remain indefinitely.

About 70 percent of the foreign scientists and engineers who earn doctorates from U.S. universities opt to remain in the United States, the report said.

The researchers said a recent reduction in the cap on skilled immigrant visas could harm the influx of foreign science and engineering workers."