Important Pending Legislation and New Regulations

The House Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved two bills that are key to the interests of the immigration community. If passed, H.R. 2277 and H.R. 2278 will permit the spouses of certain nonimmigrants in the U.S. (namely L-1 intracompany transferees and E-1/2 treaty traders/investors) to apply for work authorization. In addition, H.R. 2278 also reduces, to six months, the amount of time required for L-1 managers and executives to be employed abroad to six months. The Department of State has suggested that slightly less than 15,000 spouses will benefit from the passage of this legislation, though its effects will be substantial.

If approved, these bills will help members of our immigrant population surmount obstacles that might otherwise prevent them from accepting employment here in the states. More specifically, often these international assignments either require dual-career couples to remain apart for the duration of the nonimmigrant’s stay or result in some financial difficulty, given that the nonimmigrant spouse will be required to remain unemployed. Decisions such as these prevent an U.S. employer from recruiting adequately skilled workers for some important assignments. This legislation, then, would help attract the best candidates for these international assignments.

Once the House returns from its August recess, it is expected to consider this legislation for a full House vote.

Healthcare Workers

A bipartisan effort is being made to pass the Rural and Urban Health Care Act, which re-establishes the H-1C visa group, while expanding its availability to include not only nurses, but also clinics, nursing homes, assisted living centers, skilled nursing facilities, and employers of nurses employed in the home. This legislation also increases the number of J-1 waivers available to foreign doctors (to 40 waivers per state), while permitting a state to carry over its unused waivers into the next year. As a result, this Act would drastically increase the number of skilled healthcare workers currently available.

Department of Labor Regulations

On August 3^rd, in an effort to minimize its backlog, the Department of Labor ("DOL") issued its conversion regulations for Reduction in Recruitment ("RIR") applications. The Department’s new rule states that: only in those cases filed before the enactment of these regulations, where SESA has not yet entered a job order, and only if the labor certification application ("labor cert") was filed under standard recruitment procedures can the application be converted to an RIR case. However, in order to receive the benefit of these new regulations, evidence of the recruitment effort must have already been submitted to DOL by the employer. As this conversion will not result in the immigrant’s loss of his priority date, these new regulations are expected to increase the efficiency with which DOL is able to process this type of labor cert application.