FAIRNESS FOR HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS ACT

Posted by Norka M. Schell, Esq.
                http://www.lawschell.com/

The U.S. House of Representative has overwhelmingly passed the Fairness for High-Skilled Workers Act (H.R. 3012), a bill that should change the way employment-based (EB) green cards are allocated by eliminating country-specific quotas. 

If the bill becomes law, it will equalize the waiting times for EB permanent residence, which would result in significant advancement in EB green card availability for India and China and retrogression for certain other countries. The bill would also increase the country-specific quotas for family-based green cards.

The bill will not become law until it passes the Senate and is signed by the President.

Under the current law, no more than seven percent of the total number of EB green cards can be allocated to the natives of any single country. If there are more green card applications than immigrant visa numbers in an EB category for a specific country, the State Department determines a cut-off date for applications. A foreign national whose priority date is earlier than the cut-off date for his EB category and country of birth is eligible to apply for adjustment of status or immigrant visa.  A foreign national whose priority date is later than the cut-off must wait in a green card queue until more immigrant visas become available for his country of birth and preference category.

If the bill is enacted, the way EB green cards are allocated would change significantly. The seven percent limit per country would be eliminated in 2015. Instead of separated queues for each country each EB green card category, there would be a eventually a single queue for each employment-based green card.