skull.jpgMany dysfunctions within the immigration ecospace are disturbing, but some make my blood boil.  The conniption that brought me to this Howard Beale moment erupted after I belatedly read a Forbes online article, published last April, by Osha Gray Davis (“A Death in Juarez: How U.S. Immigration Policy Is Tearing American Families Apart“). The Forbes piece reported on two people murdered in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez and countless others living there in fear (just across from El Paso, ironically, one of America’s safest cities) while waiting for the completion of snails-pace immigrant visa procedures at the U.S. consulate.    

Sadly, Americans by now may be inured to the everyday nature of the drug cartels’ killing fields in Mexico, particularly in Juarez.  Last year, 15,000 people were slaughtered in Mexico — the direct or collateral damage from the drug wars. Juarez, with over 3,000 killings a year, has earned a macabre distinction as Mexico’s Murder Capital.  Just this month, two U.S. citizens, a mother and son from Kansas, died there when assault-rifle fire sprayed their SUV.

The situation has become so dire that even the Department of Homeland Security recognizes the importance of returning deportees to the interior of Mexico, far from Juarez, in order to “safeguard” the “the health, dignity, and well-being of undocumented migrants during the repatriation process.”

DHS solicitude for the safety of the deported is commendable.  But why does it not also extend to more deserving Mexican citizens who, as the parents and spouses of U.S. citizens, may be eligible to receive green cards?  Why is it official U.S. policy that these immigrant visa applicants are permitted to appear for their mandatory visa interview only at the U.S. consulate in this city of blood lust? 

The problem is not a small one.  The consulate in Juarez is “the largest issuer of [U.S.] immigrant visas in the world,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.  Neither is the waiting time trivial.  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman reports that half of the Mexican citizens seeking U.S. immigrant visas who require a waiver of inadmissibility, usually on a showing of extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen spouse or parent, must wait up to 12 months for a decision in their case.  Since a wait of even one day in Juarez may make the applicant a sitting duck for cartel violence, a year-long wait is simply unconscionable.  Worse yet, as explained below, if a waiver application is denied, the family separation may be for ten years or more.

This deadly form of Juarez red rover arises primarily from a failed experiment in 1996 at the instigation of Representative Lamar Smith — now Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — who championed the “unlawful presence” bar to reentry that became part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA).  The bar in most cases involves a decade-long ban on readmission to the U.S. (unless an extreme-hardship waiver is granted) for persons who entered illegally or overstayed the time period granted by the government.  The ten-year bar (like IIRAIRA’s three-year and permanent bans on returning) is triggered only after the overstayer or EWI (one who “enters without inspection”) has left the United States.  Thus, what might otherwise be a one- or two-day game of consular Russian Roulette in Juarez (as immigrant visa and waiver processing are completed) becomes a one- or ten-year-long exposure to cartel carnage for the 50% of extreme-hardship waiver applicants who are not granted expedited review or are denied a waiver.

As a 2011 law review article (“The American Dream Deferred: Family Separation and Immigrant Visa Adjudications at U.S. Consulates Abroad“) argues persuasively, the “choice” facing U.S.-citizen spouses, parents and children of either separation from a loved one for up to ten years (if the waiver is refused) or relocation of the family to a narco-state (my wording) is a Morton’s fork on which no one should ever be forcibly skewered:

This form of collective punishment is anti-family and can send ripple effects throughout American communities, from home foreclosures to an increase in single parent households. It is a drastic penalty to impose considering unlawful presence in the U.S. is a civil violation that has gone largely unenforced for many years. It also discourages families from participating in the legal immigration process due to the risk of a potentially devastating separation. After more than ten years since the passage of the unlawful presence bars, it is now appropriate to look closely at their impact and examine whether they constitute sound public policy.

Although IIRAIRA and the administrative time required in the waiver adjudication process might seem to mandate this result, existing executive authority to administer the immigration laws readily allows for a suitable fix (until Congress can be persuaded to repeal the unlawful presence bars).  Here are various actions the Obama Administration could take to solve the problem:

  • Grant “parole in place” and expand the “technical-reasons” or no-fault-of-the-applicant forgiveness provision of Immigration and Nationality Act § 245(c) to allow persons otherwise required to attend an immigrant visa interview in Juarez to apply for their green cards through the adjustment of status process. This is the best option for non-willful overstays and Dream Act kids who EWI’d because the unlawful-presence bar would not be triggered and extreme-hardship waiver adjudication would be unnecessary since the applicant would not leave the United States; or
  • Adopt a policy to confer extreme-hardship waivers within the U.S. before the consular interview to all non-criminal Mexican applicants based on the dangerous conditions in Mexico and the overriding equity of the family relationship to a U.S. citizen relative.  This is similar to an old Immigration and Naturalization Service Operations Instruction and a precedent decision, Matter of Cavazos, which allowed comparable applicants to obtain green cards through adjustment of status despite inadmissibility; or
  • Shut down the U.S. consulate in Juarez until conditions in the city are safe.  (The State Department did close the Juarez post for a few days after two consular employees were killed last year.) State should instead designate alternative consular posts after negotiating with one or more friendly and safer countries to allow Mexican applicants eligible to apply for a hardship waiver to enter for the purpose of attending the consular interview.  This approach would be modeled after the “stateside criteria” and “third-country processing” arrangements with Canada and other nations in the 1980s for Iranians and other foreign nationals who could not travel to their country of citizenship or last residence because of the unavailability of consular facilities there.  It would require an agreement with the host countries to assure the readmission of any denied applicants through the grant of advance parole to reenter.  Denied visa applicants given advance parole and readmitted to the U.S. would then be eligible under current law for adjustment of status, if USCIS granted an extreme hardship waiver, or for prosecutorial discretion, if the waiver were denied.

As these options show, seemingly mandatory legislative procedures that lead to immigration deaths only appear necessary if the Administration is unwilling to look under the hood of the immigration laws to find more compassionate and life-saving alternatives. End the immigration deaths in Juarez NOW. 

newspaper stand.jpgThe Fourth Estate is under siege.  Newspapers try valiantly to maintain readership as advertising revenues plummet. Mostly free access to digital versions of print articles causes young and old readers alike to prefer Web-based media. The short-form writing of USA Today — embraced by readers in a hurry — and the public’s preference for color and graphics over text combine to weaken demand for the kind of in-depth reporting that wins Pulitzers.  Pressures mount to present a “balanced” report, even when one side of the argument is illogical or extreme.  Bloggers — some of whom may lack commitment to traditional journalism’s code of ethics — publish stories that scoop traditional reporters even if confirmation of the facts is rushed or ignored.

Immigration, perhaps more than any other subject, challenges professional journalists. The law is complex, obscure and difficult to understand and even harder to explain. Immigration procedures are varied and the decisions of courts and bureaucrats often seem arbitrary, inconsistent or otherwise inexplicable.  Stridency and bias on both sides of the immigration debate frustrate efforts to uncover the real facts. Deadlines and word limits make thorough and accurate reporting elusive.

There is reason, however, to be hopeful.  In 2010, the Atlantic Philanthropies joined with The New York Times to support journalism institutes that try to improve reporting on a variety of important topics, including immigration. One such effort, “The Changing Face of America – Immigration from the Ground up,” co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the UC Berkeley Law School, will soon present a five-day intensive for journalists.  Last year’s program is viewable online.

I spoke at last year’s event on the topic, “Jobs Americans Can’t (Won’t) Do. Balancing Labor Market Needs with Worker Rights.” As shown in the video below, I maintain that reporting on our nation’s dysfunctional system of immigration requires heavy lifting. I offered a case in point, the Department of Labor’s convoluted process of labor market testing which requires deep digging into legislative history and the discovery that bureaucrats have created political cover for themselves while perpetrating a cruel hoax on U.S. workers and the public.  

Another respected venue is the Institute for Justice and Journalism (IJJ) which has been offering fellowships to immigration journalists since 2003.  The IJJ’s Immigration in the Heartland web site offers a wealth of excellent articles.  The next IJJ program will be in April and will focus on the 2012 elections, with the deadline for applications on January 17.

Some reporters excel in immigration reporting — Miriam Jordan (The Wall Street Journal), Julia Preston (The New York Times) as well as Suzanne Gamboa and Amy Taxin (Associated Press) — to name a precious few. Others rise to the top through editorial writing on immigration, such as Lawrence Downes (The New York Times), among the best of all.  Many others have embraced the task with energy and passion by devoting themselves to reporting on immigration reform, such as Phuong Ly, who established Gateway California, “a nonprofit that helps journalists connect to immigrants,” and Julianne Hing of Colorlines. Probably the most courageous proponent of better immigration coverage by journalists is Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winner who outed himself as an undocumented immigrant since childhood.

As the 2011 Fellows gather at UC Berkeley in November for the second annual institute (also titled,”The Changing Face of America – Immigration from the Ground up”), immigration aficionados and the public can look forward to better and still better reporting on the complex and life-changing issues arising in this turbulent Nation of Immigrants. 

help wanted 2.jpgWith all the political hoo-ha about the need to prevent rascally businesses from employing unauthorized workers intentionally, the public ought not be faulted for assuming that the concept of “employment” under immigration law is clearly defined.  Sad to say, but the assumers give life to the maxim that when we consider facts not in evidence we make a derrière out of one another. I’m not suggesting that there is no definition of “employment”. Rather, the given definition — despite the incorporation of a glossary of interwoven and related terms — fails to offer enough nuance or clarity. 

[Stink alert!  We are about to venture into malodorous legalese. Hold your nose.  The journey will be worth it.] 

The relevant regulation, found at 8 CFR § Sec. 274a.1 (Definitions), provides:

(c) The term hire means the actual commencement of employment of an employee for wages or other remuneration . . . 

(f) The term employee means an individual who provides services or labor for an employer for wages or other remuneration but does not mean independent contractors . . . 

(g) The term employer means a person or entity . . .who engages the services or labor of an employee to be performed in the United States for wages or other remuneration. In the case of an independent contractor or contract labor or services, the term employer shall mean the independent contractor or contractor and not the person or entity using the contract labor . . . 

(h) The term employment means any service or labor performed by an employee for an employer within the United States . . . 

(j) The term independent contractor includes individuals or entities who carry on independent business, contract to do a piece of work according to their own means and methods, and are subject to control only as to results. Whether an individual or entity is an independent contractor, regardless of what the individual or entity calls itself, will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Factors to be considered in that determination include, but are not limited to, whether the individual or entity: supplies the tools or materials; makes services available to the general public; works for a number of clients at the same time; has an opportunity for profit or loss as a result of labor or services provided; invests in the facilities for work; directs the order or sequence in which the work is to be done and determines the hours during which the work is to be done. . . (Bolding added.) 

These definitions raise more questions than they answer. In the hypotheticals below, assuming that the individual in question has no legal right to engage in the specific actions noted, is the particular action prohibited “employment”?: 

1.      Self-employment?

  • Is a busker in a New York subway who does not solicit but accepts voluntary donations from passersby employed?
  • Does it matter if the busker puts his hat, upside down in front of him, in case anyone wants to make a voluntary offering?
  • Would an independent photographer, artist, architect or writer who produces a finished work for personal enjoyment be engaged in employment?
  • What if the individual later decides to sell the work in the U.S. — does the sale cause the individual to have engaged in employment?
  • What about a professional knife-thrower’s human target — is (s)he employed when standing still as the knife approaches?
  • What about an usher in the theatre who escorts patrons to their seats and is thus  allowed to view the performance for free?
  • Does it matter if the show is such a flop that the producers routinely give away free tickets?
  • Are the legions of voluntary interns who receive valuable experience and college credit but no monetary payment employed?

2.      The sale or rental of an asset?

  • Is a female employed if she sells one of her eggs in the U.S.?
  • How about a male who is paid for his sperm at a Los Angeles clinic — is he employed?
  • If the female was born abroad possessing the usual full complement of eggs, is her acquiescence for a fee in the removal of one or more eggs an act of employment?
  • What about a male in the U.S. for several years, whose semen was presumably created while he lived here, engaging in employment when he is paid by the sperm bank?
  • Does it matter if the sperm bank offers him a cup, directs him to fill it, leaves a copy of Playboy in the private donation room and pays him an honorarium — is this employment?

3.      U.S.-based “virtual” efforts (with servers located abroad and work saved “in the cloud”)? 

  • What about a Silicon Valley blogger who accepts paid advertising — employment, yes or no?
  • What about a math genius living in Connecticut who accepts a prize to solve a puzzling theorem with his laptop — employment?

4.      The active management of an investment in the U.S.?

  • How about the owner/manager of a motel — employed?
  • How about the owner of an optometry shop who gives eye exams and engages American optometrists to work with her — employed?

5.      The present exchange of promises assuring action in the future?

  • What about the exchange of  mutual promises – is it employment today if an employer promises to hire a worker and the worker agrees to render services for wages, with the work to begin next week?
  • What if one of the parties reneges — is it still employment as of the time when the promises were made?

6.      The operation of a U.S. business that creates jobs for Americans?  

  • What about a full-time student who invents the next Facebook-type free app in his Harvard dorm room and hires software developers, knowing that some day an IPO will make him a billionaire — is the present intention to profit in the future enough to constitute employment?
  • What if other students, say, two twin brothers, gave the student inventor the idea for the app — are they employed if they sue and recover damages or settlement proceeds for their idea — is the payment for the idea employment?
  • What if the free app requires users to agree to Terms of Service that make any valuable user-produced data, photos or designs the property of the student app inventor — does the retention of ownership rights constitute “other remuneration”?

7.      The payment for or receipt of valuable benefits?

  • Which of the foregoing individuals or entities that make payment of money “employers” in the United States?
  • Which of them must complete a Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) when they “hire” any of the foregoing “employee[s]” in the U.S.?
  • Which of them are committing  felonies for “harboring” an unauthorized worker (since the harboring statute includes employment as a prohibited act)?
  • Which of the foregoing recipients of the noted benefits have failed to maintain lawful immigration status and therefore are ineligible for prosecutorial discretion and deferred action or are removable (deportable)?
  • Which of these recipients of benefits are thereby ineligible to receive a green card through the adjustment of status process?
  • Are any of the reasons for adjustment ineligibility “technical” in nature or not the “fault” of the individual (no-fault and technical reasons are forgiveness provisions that allow the grant of a green card even if the person is otherwise ineligible)? 

My point is not to model a law school class by using the Socratic method and reductio ad absurdem arguments.  Instead, it is to illustrate that the immigration regulations in their present form do not offer the guidance needed to cover many everyday (and some unusual) situations. 

With so much riding on the correct interpretation, the government must take a hard look at the current, clearly inadequate regulations, and issue proposed rules that allow the public to comment on new, more transparent guidance.  In the absence of new regulations, the immigration agencies — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — should follow the lead of IRS and offer a voluntary settlement program to businesses and individuals who seek to come back to the sunny side of the immigration law. 

Thumbnail image for frowning child 2.jpgA recent televised debate revealed an immigration fault line within the GOP. Texas Governor Rick Perry’s many challengers for the Republican presidential nomination railed against his decision to extend in-state tuition rates to undocumented college students, brought to the U.S. as children, who graduate from the Lone Star State’s high schools. His initial reply:

“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.”

The line stung many conservative “activists [who] hear ‘you have no heart’ as a dog whistle for ‘you people are racist,’ which obviously enrages them,” according to Steven Duffield, a former staffer to Sen. John Kyl who oversaw the writing of the 2008 Republican platform.  Within days Perry, while still defending the Texas tuition law, apologized:  “I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate.”

The relevant questions are not really whether conservatives lack the same missing anatomical feature as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz or whether racism drives opposition to college tuition support for children brought to America illegally by their parents.  Rather, the fundamental issue is whether a legitimate principle animates the opposition. 

One voice reliably opposed to immigration, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which claims to espouse “low-immigration, pro-immigrant policies,” suggests that we need to get beyond “weepy sentimentality” and instead focus on hard-headed realism:  

The case of in-state tuition for illegal aliens who arrived here as children is a case in point. These are clearly the most sympathetic illegal immigrants, which is why advocates have been exploiting their stories in the quest for a general amnesty.

Our hearts tell us to make accommodation for children who were brought here illegally at a very young age and who know no other country (in-state tuition specifically is just a stalking horse for amnesty for these young people in the form of the so-called DREAM Act). That is a noble and proper sentiment.

But our heads tell us that all amnesties reward lawbreaking and serve to attract more illegal immigration. It is for this reason that amnesties must be avoided and why the push for “comprehensive immigration reform” has failed repeatedly, and will continue to fail.

Curiously, however, Krikorian and others of like mind did not repeat that “all amnesties reward lawbreaking,” when the Internal Revenue Service decided this month to waive interest, penalties and audit exposure, and accept only one-tenth of the employment taxes otherwise owed by employers who participate in its “Voluntary Settlement Classification Program.” Known as the VSCP, the program is an amnesty for businesses that may have wilfully treated employees as independent contractors, thereby avoiding Social Security contributions and taxes.  Nor did Krikorkian and his ilk object when the IRS twice granted wealthy tax cheats amnesty in the form of immunity from civil and criminal prosecution who voluntarily revealed the existence of untaxed off-shore bank accounts and paid back taxes.

When scofflaws flout their tax obligations yet are thrice forgiven by the IRS, Krikorian ought to be complaining to high heaven that federal coffers are unjustly deprived of needed revenue and that these tax amnesties “serve to attract more illegal” behavior.  His CIS colleague, Steven Camarota, has certainly shown no reluctance to allege (no matter how inaccurately) that undocumented immigrants hurt law-abiding taxpayers, but is likewise reticent when IRS announces serial amnesties that benefit businesses and the wealthy and make fools of law-abiding Americans who comply with the tax laws.

On a scale of culpability, tax cheats line up nearer to mobster Al Capone, convicted of federal tax evasion, whereas DREAMers, who want no more than to gain a college education, are truly innocent and should be shown “hospitality” because we may well thereby be entertaining “angels unawares.”  Instead, the federal government repeatedly forgives tax violators with nary a peep heard from the anti-amnesty crowd.

Even more alarming, this week a federal judge, appointed by Republican President George H. W. Bush, upheld portions of a vile Alabama law that requires schools to investigate the immigration status of kindergarten through 12th grade students, notwithstanding the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision which struck down a Texas statute barring undocumented immigrant children from primary and secondary school.  In recalling Plyler, a Washington Post editorial, “Targeting Schoolchildren,” zeroed in on the damage that legislatively inscribed hatred of the other (and their children) will cause:  

In turning the schools into immigration registrars, Alabama’s new law flies in the face of good sense and settled law. The Supreme Court has specifically prohibited such registration schemes by the states aimed at immigrants, legal or illegal. And, in a ruling almost 20 years ago, it conferred on undocumented students an unfettered right to a public education through high school.

The court did so for sensible reasons. It noted that there is no legal precedent in America for punishing children for the actions of their parents. Writing for the court in a 1982 decision squashing Texas’s attempt to exclude illegal immigrants from public schools, Justice William Brennan said, “It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime.”

Apparently, Alabama didn’t get the message. By forcing schools to collect and report data on the immigration status of students and their parents, the state will frighten kids away from attending school.

True to form, CIS heralded the Alabama ruling: 

This decision further helps the legal landscape, generally speaking, for states and localities beating open-borders and leftist warfare by litigation. It improves the prospects of other laws recently enacted in other states withstanding vicious legal attacks.

CIS is quick to bandy the “open borders” epithet (I’ve been falsely dubbed an “open borders type” in a CIS blog post last summer).  But this self-styled “non-partisan” screed-poster that accuses opponents of the anti-kids Alabama law as “leftist,” and Republican presidential contenders who oppose DREAMers, ought to wake up and realize that the biblical remonstration to “suffer the children” did not mean to torment them. 

cheese wedges.jpg[Bloggers Note:  Today’s offering is a Guest Post by Nici Kersey, who recounts memories as a child and their lasting impact, even on her practice of immigration law.  For a similar recollection of government handouts from my childhood, click here.]

Government Cheese

by Nici Kersey

My first memory of “the government” involves government cheese.  My great-grandmother always had the stuff in her refrigerator, and I thought that it was (after White Castles) the best food ever invented.  At four years old, I had likely only been exposed to a few types of cheese:  cheddar, mozzarella, Velveeta(if that counts), and government.  I had a clear favorite.  When I requested it at the grocery store, my mom told me that it wasn’t something you could just buy, and I became convinced that it was a rare and very special thing, right up there with love and happiness.

Of course, as I grew up (or at least got older), I learned more about the government, and it is now my job to “deal” with the government on a daily basis.  Most of these dealings are via  paper filings only.  Speaking with government representatives over the phone is not a daily occurence, and it is rarer still to have in-person interactions.  (Unless you count my daily interactions with my husband, who serves in the U.S. Army.)  I have attended a handful of interviews and appointments at the USCIS office on the north side of Atlanta.  While most of these experiences have been palatable, none have left me as satisfied as I was as a four-year old after eating that government cheese.

Just as the government “cheese” wasn’t real cheese – but instead a highly processed “cheese product” — the immigration “service” isn’t renowned for its service.  Instead, it provides customers with lengthy processing times, delays, non-answers, and, often, disappointing decisions.

Because I had come to expect disappointment, I was pleasantly surprised during a recent series of interactions with the government.  (I had become so accustomed to eating the government cheese that I had all but forgotten the many other cheese options that the cows, goats, sheep, and apparently even cats of the world have made possible.)

My (pro bono) client was another Army wife.  She had entered this country as a fiancée years ago, married the guy who had filed the petition on her behalf, and later divorced.  They did not file a green card application.  She then married the U.S. citizen/soldier, and they worked to immediately file the requisite green card paperwork.  It was denied because the only way for someone who entered in K-1 (fiancée) status to obtain a green card is through marriage to (and, according to the USCIS examiner, petition by) the K-1 petitioner.  ICE initiated removal proceedings against her, and then I got involved. 

In large part because of my client’s status as an Army wife, the government treated her with fairness, respect, and (compared to other similar cases) a good deal of speed.  ICE agreed to place her under an order of supervision rather than in a detention facility, so she was able to go home and resume her normal life.  (She had to be home for a designated window of time each Sunday for a phone call from an automated ICE system, and she was not able to drive without a license because I forbade her from doing so, fearing an arrest.)  I have not asked her how much cheese she ate during her period of supervision.

We went to court twice.  The first was for a Master Calendar Hearing, and the judge agreed to fast-track the case, assigning us an individual hearing about a month later (whereas others were being assigned almost a year in advance).  At the individual hearing, the government attorney did not argue against my client’s adjustment of status, and the judge granted it.  We were lucky to have a new case on our side (Matter of Sesay) that more-or-less mirrored my client’s situation; it held that, so long as the foreign national who entered in K-1 status married the petitioner (and the marriage was bona fide – real cheese rather than “cheese food,” if you will), she was eligible to adjust status, regardless of whether the marriage was in tact at the time of adjustment.  She is now awaiting her green card, which should arrive in the next week or so. 

My description of the case may make it sound simple; it wasn’t.  But at all points during the process, our interactions with the government went smoothly and ended well.  And it all happened fast!  We did not have to wait for the government cheese to age, and it turns out that it is best eaten young.

A recent announcement by ICE to exercise discretion in removal cases has about half of the country in uproar.  But it makes sense to focus on the situations in which the foreign national is more deserving of removal (where serious crimes are involved, for instance) instead of spending valuable court and preparation time on Army wives.  There are downsides to the discretion:  it is not likely to occur quickly, and it does not offer much in the way of a resolution/peace of mind for those who are on the favorable side of the discretion.  But it marks a step toward functionality.  And I’ll take that kind of processed “cheese food” over the likely alternative (deport everyone/no cheese at all) any day. 

global workersWith the President’s supporters pleading for action, Barack Obama at last has pivoted to jobs.  “Pass this bill [the American Jobs Act]” has become his oft-shouted mantra. Surprisingly, however, career bureaucrats within the Departments of State and Homeland Security apparently haven’t read his September 8 speech to Congress and instead are taking affirmative steps to prevent job creation.  Examples of this misbehavior are abundant across all work visa categories, as this blog has shown. 

For the sake of illustration, however, let’s get granular and consider the latest trends in visa refusals for a single category, the L-1B  “intracompany transferee” visa, available to workers within a global firm possessing “specialized knowledge.”

The problem has become especially acute with the recent flood of L-1B petition and visa denials involving citizens of India, thus raising the concern that the Indian refusals may be founded on unlawful bias, such as citizenship status, national origin, or race discrimination, or, upon the counterintuitive Congressional and media claims that the inbound dispatch of L-1 workers contributes to the claimed offshoring of jobs. 

American businesses count on L-1B workers to design and develop innovative products, fulfill contracts and manage important projects on which U.S. jobs for American workers depend.  With global competition accelerating, a significant delay in granting L-1B visa benefits to a deserving candidate, such as by a consular officer’s unexplained return of an approved petition to USCIS for readjudication, a burdensome, boilerplate USCIS request for additional evidence, or an outright denial by either agency — any one or all of these actions can lead to the loss of American jobs to employees of our competitors abroad.   

For those unfamiliar with this nonimmigrant category, the L-1B intracompany transferee classification, together with the L-1A for executives and managers, has been around since 1970.  The L-1B allows a U.S.-based business to transfer workers from the employ of a foreign affiliate that is under at least 50% common ownership or control with the U.S. petitioner in the combined global enterprise.  The visa applicant must have been employed for at least one year abroad by a foreign affiliate out of the last three years, performing in a job involving specialized knowledge, and must seek to work for a related entity in the U.S. in a like capacity. Individual petitions for L-1B visa classification are submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Regional Service Centers (RSCs), which forwards their petition approvals to a U.S. consulate or embassy abroad where the consul interviews the L-1B visa applicant.  Consular officers also interview “blanket” L-1 visa applicants from larger companies to determine whether either of the alternative definitions of specialized knowledge apply and an L-1B visa should be issued.

A few years back, larger global enterprises could instruct their candidates (specialized-knowledge professionals with a relevant college degree) to apply directly at a U.S. consular post abroad under an approved blanket L-1 petition as long as he or she had gained only six months’ worth of specialized knowledge, rather than the one year minimum required now, which in either case is still a comparatively brief period required by statute. 

The term “specialized knowledge” has had a tortuous and tortured history within the legacy immigration agencies.  The trend as late as 1988 had been to interpret the term very strictly, culminating in a case, Matter of Sandoz Crop Protection Corp., which equated specialized knowledge with a level significantly above even “proprietary” or “patented” knowledge:

The petitioner’s proprietary interest must be such that the knowledge required is clearly different from that held by others employed in the same or similar occupations. Different procedures are not a proprietary right within this context unless the entire system and philosophy behind the procedures are clearly different from those of other firms, they are relatively complex, and they are protected from disclosure to competition.

A petitioner’s ownership of patented products and processes or copyrighted works, in and of itself, does not establish that a particular employee has specialized knowledge. In order to qualify, the beneficiary must be a key person with materially different knowledge and expertise which are critical for performance of the job duties; which are critical to, and relate exclusively to, the petitioner’s proprietary interest; and which are protected from disclosure through patent, copyright, or company policy.

Later that year, however, a policy memorandum from legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), clarified that this interpretation of specialized knowledge was “more restrictive than Congress or the [INS] intended” and instructed adjudicators to apply the new clarification so that the L-1B would be “more flexible and useful to international businesses”: 

The problem stems from using a too literal definition of the term “proprietary knowledge” wherein the knowledge must relate exclusively to or be unique to the employer’s business operation. Using this narrow interpretation of proprietary knowledge excludes numerous employees of international companies who were intended by Congress to be accommodated under the L classification.

Since the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT 90), “specialized knowledge” has required (consistently with the 1988 INS clarification) either “special knowledge possessed by [the applicant] of the petitioning organization’s product, service, research, equipment, techniques, management, or other interests and its application in international markets,” or “an advanced level of knowledge or expertise in the organization’s processes and procedures.”

In addition, in the preamble to the proposed regulations implementing IMMACT 90, the former INS acknowledged that “the intent of [IMMACT 90] as it relates to the L classification was to broaden its utility for international companies.” Two INS Headquarters memos, in 1994 and 2003, and a 1994 State Department cable to the post in Madras (now Chennai), India reaffirmed the IMMACT 90 expansion of L-1B specialized knowledge. The 1994 State Department cable is significant because — as shown below — the very same Visa Office and consular post are at the epicenter of unlawful, revisionist and newly restrictive interpretations of specialized knowledge: 

Consuls should satisfy themselves that the applicant possesses knowledge that is not general knowledge held commonly throughout the industry but is truly specialized. The [Visa Office] notes this should not be construed to mean that an individual’s expertise must be narrowly held within the company. The fact that the knowledge is held widely within the sending entity does not preclude it from being specialized.

With respect to the issues of remuneration of L-1 employees, there is no requirement (as for H-1Bs) that an individual be paid the prevailing wage. [Consular officers] must be satisfied that the applicant will not become a public charge. Beyond that, it does not appear to [the State Department’s Visa Office] that the applicant’s compensation may be addressed by [Consular officers].

Nothing of legal substance has changed since the IMMACT 90 Congress legislated an expansive interpretation of the specialized knowledge eligibility criteria, save for rogue (and now off-message) actions to restrict L-1B approvals, especially if the applicant is an Indian citizen. 

The trouble began in earnest with a 2004 Visa Office cable described as “clearly of greatest significance to the Indian Posts,” and then with the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), which published a 2008 non-precedent case involving an Indian software engineer, followed by USCIS adjudicators at the RSCs who have relied on that case to issue unwarranted L-1B RFEs and petition refusals, and by January, 2011 changes of heart by the State Department’s Visa Office (relying on the same AAO case) and the consular posts in India.

More recently, however, the USCIS Office of Public Engagement (OPE), responding commendably to stakeholder concerns, held a May 12, 2011 Listening Session on the L-1B category.  The OPE’s notes understate the intensity of complaints voiced during the call: 

An overwhelming majority of stakeholders asserted that the existing regulatory definition of “specialized knowledge” and USCIS policy memoranda which relate to this issue are fine as written, and there is no need to issue any new policy memorandum. Some stakeholders provided feedback indicating that the definition of “specialized knowledge” should be interpreted more broadly than is currently being practiced at the Service Centers. Stakeholders noted that USCIS is interpreting the definition too narrowly as evidenced by the Requests for Evidence (RFE) and denials which are being received by many petitioners for this category. One stakeholder stated that it appears that USCIS has made a change in its interpretation in recent years without any change in the law. . . .

Next Steps

USCIS will provide additional guidance and training to USCIS officers adjudicating L-1B petitions.

If the USCIS has indeed offered “additional guidance and training to USCIS officers adjudicating L-1B petitions,” the lessons have not been learned.  Job destruction by way of L-1B denials at the RSCs continues unabated, notwithstanding the President’s jobs campaign.  The same can be said of the consular posts in India where, especially since March, employers and immigration lawyers have witnessed a steady increase in unwarranted L-1B refusals. 

Applicants have reported that interviews — lasting but a few minutes — are perfunctory, supporting documents are ignored.  Consular officers are prejudging the case (often filling in the L-1B visa refusal notice at the start of the interview), and concluding that any passing reference to a company other than the petitioner warrants the unjustified conclusion that the knowledge must not be specialized. Moreover, notwithstanding the 1994 State Department cable, consuls are asking irrelevant questions about wages paid, while disregarding the value of supplemental stipends for housing, food and travel in the U.S., and ignoring the instruction that specialized knowledge may be held widely within the foreign affiliate (“[the] fact that the knowledge is held widely within the sending entity does not preclude it from being specialized”).

The State Department defends its high Indian refusal rate by suggesting that the posts in India receive more L-1B applications and approve more L-1B visas than any other U.S. consulates or embassies worldwide.  Neither State nor USCIS has explained, however, why “specialized knowledge” is simply far more difficult to establish for citizens of India than for nationals of any other country, and why an outdated set of L-1B eligibility standards applies much more to Indians than to other visa applicants.

In the absence of clear answers by State or USCIS to these apparently discriminatory and unlawful practices adversely affecting Indian applicants and their petitioning U.S. employers, the task of revealing the truth and redressing wrongs must turn to another government agency or the media.  Within the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (OCRCL) is endowed with explicit legal authority to investigate.  All that is required to initiate an OCRCL investigation is for disadvantaged parties to file a well-documented complaint alleging that invidious discrimination has occurred or that the cherished, constitutionally-derived (5th Amendment) civil liberty — due process of law — has been violated. 

While some Indian L-1B aspirants may pray to the “Visa God,” they and others can also seek and hopefully receive more immediate relief by pursuing the OCRCL’s decidedly terrestrial solution. 

Today, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist savagery of September 11, 2001, the nation pauses to remember the fallen and reflect on how our country has changed in the decade past.  PBS and The New Yorker offer worthy contemplations on the changes since 9/11 and today, and two immigration lawyers, Cyrus Mehta and Jonathan Montag, on opposite coasts, ponder the immigration aftermath of the tragedy. (My own writings not long after the event are here, here, here and there.)

Amid the many reflections, Twitter has been even more abuzz than usual.  One exchange of tweets caught my eye. Michelle Malkin, anti-immigration commentator on Fox News, argued with a fellow who maintained that none of the 9/11 hijackers were undocumented immigrants. She posted a link and got him to admit that although all of them had entered legally, three had overstayed their visas. She ended the exchange with this coup de grâce: 

Michelle Malkin

@michellemalkinMichelle Malkin 

[@TweepNameOmitted] You are willfully blind to the nexus between lax immigration enforcement & homeland security. Shame.

 

Few objective observers would deny that immigration enforcement and homeland security are linked, or that too lax an enforcement regimen could well threaten our country’s safety. But a fundamental question remains. Has the federal government properly achieved the right balance in the middle between the extremes of super-enforcement — a hermetically sealed country that would atrophy without external refreshment — and a breezily open-door approach that allows the bad to enter with the good?  Has it balanced immigration enforcement with immigration benefits?

My answer would be mostly “no.” The problem originated with Congress’s effort to try and fix things.  It placed the benefits-conferring function of the abolished Immigration and Naturalization Service within the Homeland Security Department when it should have remained under the Attorney General at Justice.  No adjudicator can focus on eligibility for benefits when the mission and message of homeland security is that if there is the slightest, even phantasmagorical, doubt, keep people out.

Thus, we see the penchant for adjudicator rejection by any means necessary at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and at U.S. consular posts abroad of worthy immigration-benefits requests.  It matters not if the means are pretextual, circuitous, dilatory or disingenuous. Any boilerplate Request for Evidence, Denial, Refusal or Revocation based on spurious grounds will do.  The Congressionally-induced and media-generated perception of pervasive fraud as a straw-man for delay and refusal likewise will suffice.  Hypocrisy, thus, is salved by the false ointment of feigned patriotism. 

Real patriotism, in my view, would bear in mind these anti-Malkinesque messages, also found on Twitter:

USConsulate Chennai

@USConGenChennaiUSConsulate Chennai

#Obama: We remember that among the nearly 3,000 innocent people lost that day were hundreds of citizens from more than 90 nations. #911 

USConsulate Chennai

@USConGenChennaiUSConsulate Chennai

#Obama: As a nation of immigrants, the United States welcomes people from every country and culture. #911 

 

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for liberty_usa_stamp.jpgIn other words, we as a nation must heed the “Call to Courage” and “Reclaim . . . Our Liberties,” as the ACLU reports.  Yes, of course, we must perform all manner of security checks, fully and efficiently, thoughtfully scrutinize all immigration benefits requests for compliance with law in good faith, and keep out the dangerous and undeserving. 

But never tie the tourniquets so tightly that you cut off our limbs. The torch-bearing Lady Liberty, who lights the Golden Door, must never become an amputee.

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Tool Belt.jpgThe dog days of August are behind us, yet the economic doldrums persist.  Unemployment remains unchanged and unacceptably high at 9.1%. The White House forecasts that it will stay there through the New Year and then likely drop only a tenth of a percentage point for all of 2012. 

Congress returns this week to Washington. Vituperation in lieu of legislative action will soon begin. The media kerfuffle over the timing of the Obama-Jobs speech enraged most citizen observers. Meantime, pundits are asking about the content of the President’s speech:  Will he go large to appease dispirited Progressives?  Or, will he propose modest measures that “the Left [won’t] understand” in the hope of winning bipartisan support. 

American politicians and special interests seem to have forgotten the “vigorous virtues [of self-reliance, personal responsibility, industriousness and a passion for freedom],” as David Brooks, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, observes. Brooks argues, convincingly, that as a result of this forgetfulness (I would call it blind and callous indifference) a “specter [is] haunting American politics: national decline.”

The descent, however, is not inevitable.  It can be reversed.  A largely unseen, silent, law-abiding yet shackled group within our midst embodies all of the vigorous virtues. They are the sojourners from abroad who are yoked to the constricting terms and conditions of a U.S. employer’s work visa petition. These hard-working souls are prohibited by law and dubious agency interpretations from using their ideas, talents, capital and energy to start companies and hire American workers.

Fortunately, no act of Congress is required to unleash these innovators, entrepreneurs and job creators and empower them to work their magic. 

The White House already knows it possesses the authority through executive action in immigration matters.  The Administration’s recalibration of its immigration enforcement priorities has evoked little public outcry.  Disinformation, however, is spreading but failing to gain much traction.  The “Backdoor Amnesty” dog has no legs and won’t hunt.

If unauthorized immigrants with positive equities warrant legitimate administrative relief, as they clearly do, why not reward the more deserving foreign citizens who have patiently waited and played by the rules?  

The President should therefore continue trying to jump start job-creation and allow the next generation of Apples, Googles and as yet unimagined supercompanies to take root in American soil and thrive. The White House’s early steps “to Promote Startup Enterprises and Spur Job Creation” have been criticized, however, in this blog and elsewhere, as overly narrow and unhelpful. These missteps are not failures.  They are merely invitations to persist, as the iconic American innovator, Thomas Edison, reminds us (“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”).

Here then are my suggestions to President Obama for administrative reform of the legal immigration system, as presented to attendees at an outstanding event convened on August 31 in Los Angeles by January Contreras, the USCIS Ombudsman (“Listening Session to Explore Small and Start-Up Business Immigration Issues“):

  • Instruct U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to rescind the January 8, 2010 “Neufeld Memorandum” on employer-employee relationships and replace it with a regulation expressly allowing immigration self-sponsorship by owner-entrepreneurs in a broad array of work visa categories for employment on company premises and at customer sites.
  • Instruct USCIS and the State Department to issue — on an expedited basis — replacement or initial regulations interpreting the following laws in the expansive and job-creating spirit that Congress intended: The Immigration Act of 1990, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, and the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000. These regulations should, e.g., broaden eligibility for all categories of the L-1 Intracompany Transferee visa, particularly for start-up operations, function managers and specialized knowledge personnel.
  • Instruct USCIS to focus on improving the quality of adjudications by improving the corps of adjudicators who make employment-based immigration decisions:
    • Impose stricter hiring requirements, including the minimum of a relevant bachelor’s degree (if it takes that to receive an H-1B visa, the same should apply to grant one), strong writing and analytical skills.
    • Cause the Small Business Administration to provide training to adjudicators on the characteristics, contributions and challenges of small businesses and startups.
    • Review performance metrics and institute sanctions for improper issuance of Requests for Evidence, Notices of Intent to Deny and Revocation notices, while rewarding positive behaviors.
  • Instruct USCIS to grant nonimmigrants in lawful immigration status the benefits of “parole in place” and open-market work authorization upon submission of proof that they will open a business, buy a home, hire U.S. workers or devise an innovative technology, good or service.
  • Instruct USCIS to allow beneficiaries of approved employment- or family-based immigrant visa petitions whose place in the visa queue is backlogged to apply for adjustment of status (thereby entitling them to open-market work permits until they reach the front of the visa line and can receive green card approval).
  • Instruct USCIS to allow Premium Processing of employment-based Administrative Appeals Office appeals and all Motions to Reopen or Reconsider along with the tolling of unlawful presence penalties and the grant of employment authorization during the pendency of non-frivolous filings.
  • Instruct the Labor Department to add entrepreneurs and investors to the pre-certified Schedule A labor certification exemption, and allow an entity owned by such individuals to self-sponsor for green card status.
  • Instruct USCIS to publicize its 2008 Notice prohibiting internal retaliation against small businesses, define “retaliation” broadly and pursue violations aggressively.
  • Instruct USCIS to eliminate the Directorate, Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS), and instruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to exercise all investigative and enforcement functions involving alleged immigration benefits fraud and immigration-related national security concerns.
  • Instruct ICE to investigate only those small business violations based on articulable and reasonable cause that a violation of the INA has occurred. Stop the guilty until proven innocent approach currently in use. 
  • Instruct USCIS to appoint an Associate Director who reports directly to the Director and who is solely responsible for promoting and facilitating the grant of employment based immigration benefits and reporting actions by USCIS personnel that impede, impair or deny the grant of such benefits to deserving parties. This Associate Director would also have authority to intervene under the Homeland Security Act when the State Department takes actions that unreasonably interfere with or deny immigration benefits to startups and small businesses.
  • Require strict compliance by all immigration agencies with the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and the small-business-impact analysis required under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, and phase out the practice of issuing guidance by policy memorandum.
  • Instruct and empower the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy to review and recommend changes to DHS, DOL and DOS rules that adversely affect job creation, entrepreneurship, investment and innovation by small businesses and start-ups.

As we await the President’s address to a joint session of Congress, many anticipate that at least one proposal will be to rebuild our nation’s existing infrastructure — the roads, bridges, waterways, and rails.  Let’s hope he also includes legitimate administrative fixes to our creaking and crotchety LEGAL immigration infrastructure.  American citizens looking for jobs deserve nothing less. 

scalpel.jpgI think that . . . there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem . . . We have a cancer–within, close to the Presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding, it grows geometrically now because it compounds itself. 

[John] Dean [recapping] the history of the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up for . . . President [Nixon]. March 21, 1973

Perhaps only slightly less virulent than the Watergate variety, a cancer is spreading within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The malignancy began with the persistent refusal of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to fulfill its Congressionally appointed police mission under the Homeland Security Act (HSA). Beginning in 2003 ICE routinely turned a deaf ear to the pleas of USCIS adjudicators to pursue suspected immigration-benefits fraud. Frustrated that fraudsters were going unpunished, USCIS similarly ignored the HSA and created a unit, now elevated to a Directorate, known as Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS). 

The HSA’s walling off of immigration-benefits adjudication (a task Congress assigned to USCIS) from immigration enforcement (the shared province of ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP]) reflected a conscious legislative decision.  Hearings in the late 1990s laid bare the longstanding problems of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) whose conflicting missions of enforcement and benefits had generated decades of immigration dysfunction. 

Afflicted with selective amnesia, however, Congress failed to rebuke ICE or USCIS for crossing the prescribed lines.  Instead, federal lawmakers fueled the mission-creep by larding FDNS with anti-fraud fees paid by businesses seeking immigration benefits for H-1B and L-1 workers.  The result has been that FDNS, staffed with 700 officers and an untolled number of private investigators, has conducted tens of thousands of “site visits” at business organizations and religious institutions throughout the country. 

An August 24 New York Law Journal article, co-authored by Ted Chiappari and me, available here, describes what can go wrong when FDNS site visits (which really should be called what they are, governmental investigations) are structured in a way to create merely an impression that the integrity of the immigration-benefits adjudication process is safeguarded when, in reality, the requirements for a meaningful and fair investigation are ignored.  As one truth-telling FDNS officer explained to the DHS Office of Inspector General (p.15): 

Congress has been told by FDNS that there is a bunch of fraud, so Congress is asking for the proof. [Headquarters] HQ FDNS is asking the field to find the fraud so it can be shown to Congress. And I sense HQ FDNS’ frustration with the field because we aren’t finding it…. Some of the leadership personnel have never been adjudicators, so they are completely out of touch with reality.

So why, then, do I liken the activities of FDNS to a spreading cancer?  Here goes:

  1. Free Radicals.  FDNS, like the free radicals that damage healthy organisms, takes aggressive actions without regard to the well-being of the functioning corpus politicus.  FDNS has not published a notice in the Federal Register allowing public comment on how it conducts investigations of the H-1B and L-1 visa categories and has never undertaken a Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis to determine the impact of these investigations on small businesses. 
  2. Vulnerable Victims. FDNS through its unannounced site visits invades the premises of unsuspecting and unprepared petitioning organizations. These on-site interrogations, akin to fishing expeditions, are not based on probable cause that a violation of the immigration laws has occurred; nor are they supported by a judicial search warrant.  FDNS provides no prior notice of the investigation to attorneys whom the agency knows are representing the sponsor or the foreign beneficiary.  The records FDNS asks to inspect and the individuals it seeks to interrogate are often, quite legitimately, at other locations; yet the investigators do not allow an opportunity to summon the records or the persons or reconvene at a later date.  Instead, its officers merely write a report that outlines “suspicious” circumstances. 
  3. Voracious Behavior. Like a spreading cancer, FDNS breaks down healthy structures. Its investigative techniques flout existing USCIS regulations which prescribe that if the agency desires additional information or testimony it must send a written request for evidence or schedule an interview at a USCIS office.
  4. Toxic Effects. Like a cancer, the growing influence of FDNS is debilitating the adjudication process by impairing customer service, speed of adjudication, and predictability of outcome, as last year’s internal revolt at the California Service Center and the ongoing opposition of USCIS adjudicators to headquarters policies reflect. FDNS has arrogated to itself a policing function, rightly the role of ICE under the HSA, that is at cross purposes, just like at the old bipolar INS, to the core function of USCIS — the rendering of a decision, based on the evidence of record, to approve or deny a request for a particular immigration benefit.
  5. Surgery and Radiation.  While cancer as yet has not been cured, medical science often succeeds in causing a state of remission.  Doctors typically do this by means of surgery and radiation. So too with FDNS.  Congress or the President should excise this alien growth from the benefits-adjudication process. It should also apply irradiation prophylactics to prevent a recurrence of anti-fraud tumors within USCIS.   To the degree that purgatives are required to remove harmful impurities and maintain the health and integrity of our U.S. immigration system, they should be exclusively of the ICE-y variety.

John Dean’s words about Watergate and its cancerous effects could just as readily be applied to the pernicious behaviors of FDNS:  “We have a cancer . . . that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding, it grows geometrically now because it compounds itself.”  Just as Watergate posed a threat to constitutional government, FDNS is dealing a body-blow to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”  Cut it out.

Man in a Business Suit With Post-it Notes All Over Him.jpg[Blogger’s note:  Sincere thanks go to my colleague and friend, Karin Wolman, for giving me a writing respite during my summer vacation.  Karin’s latest guest post, like her prior ones, available here and here, critique USCIS policy changes that make it less likely that deserving workers, entrepreneurs and investors will receive the employment-based immigration benefits Congress intended in enacting the Immigration Act of 1990. As President George H. W. Bush predicted (incorrectly, it turns out) in his signing statement:

  

[The 1990 Act] will encourage the immigration of exceptionally talented people, such as scientists, engineers, and educators. Other provisions of [The 1990 Act] will promote the initiation of new business in rural areas and the investment of foreign capital in our economy.

As the National Journal recently reported in an article discussing the discovery of internal hacking of management emails occurring at the USCIS Texas Service Center, “‘insider threats ‘” continue to threaten the initiatives of USCIS leadership. The National Journal‘s piece focused on technology and security threats from agency insiders. I suggested in a recent post, however, that perhaps the greater threat to progress in embracing the President’s pro-jobs and innovation agenda is adjudicator resistance and internal insubordination.  Karin Wolman’s post below also highlights the type of internal resistance to change that is emblematic of the dysfunctions of government authorities in the immigration ecosphere.]

Guest Post: USCIS Entrepreneur Initiatives – Do They Really Help?

By Karin Wolman

The most important thing to know about the DHS Press Release and press conferenceof August 2, 2011 on Initiatives to Promote Startup Enterprises and Spur Job Creation, the published USCIS Fact Sheet of the same title of August 3, 2011, the USCIS FAQ Regarding Entrepreneurs and the Employment-Based Second Preference, and the related Entrepreneurs Stakeholder Engagement conference call of August 11, is that all these initiatives are largely window-dressing, despite excited coverage in the Wall Street Journal. They represent no substantive changes in the Service’s occasionally contorted interpretations of the law.

For all the lip service to the Administration’s laudable goals of helping entrepreneurs spur the growth of new businesses, for now, USCIS is not changing any of its interpretations of law. The Service is not in any way relaxing its insistence on the US sponsoring company having to demonstrate a “right to control” the foreign worker, and offers no policy guidance loosening the Service’s unduly restrictive definition of who can considered an “employee” under the Immigration & Nationality Act, per a Donald Neufeld memorandum of January 8, 2010, (“the Neufeld memo“) – which does not have the force of law, nor even regulation – nor will they instruct officers to restrict that memo and its definitions to the H-1B context. There is no policy guidance loosening the Service’s narrow, literal-minded geographic reading of the phrase “national in scope,” with respect to job creation as a benefit to the United States under the EB-2 National Interest Waiver. There is no promise of a path for E-2 Treaty Investors to transition to permanent residence. In fact, these initiatives for entrepreneurs herald no real increase in the availability of anytype of visas for employee-owners or owner-directors, either of foreign-owned startups under the H-1B or O-1 visa category, or E-2, or EB-2 green cards for entrepreneurs under the National Interest Waiver, or for director-owners of privately held multinational companies under the L-1A or multinational manager or executive visas.

The attitude embodied in the January 2010 Neufeld memo is an obsession with a “right to control” the H1B worker, a single factor weighted far more heavily than all other factors combined. It has prompted a relentless drive among adjudicators to pierce the corporate veil at will, and to start by assuming that all owner-beneficiary scenarios are somehow “fraudulent.” Its treatment of any employee with an ownership stake as ˜not a real employee’ is deeply damaging to all manner of entrepreneurial businesses seeking visa benefits for their workers.

The Neufeld memo on its face does not apply to the O-1 visa, nor to L-1 or multinational manager immigrant visas “ those categories were never intended to be unavailable to owners who happen to be employees of the US business – but the Service has become enamored of applying its new, narrow definition of “employee” across all visa categories. To date, USCIS offers no concrete authority for combating persistent misapplication of the “right to control” standard at the individual case level, except for a non-binding suggestion that it may be possible for an owner-employee to demonstrate “control” over his or her employment by a Board of Directors.

The Neufeld memo has spread throughout all areas of employment-based visa adjudications, encouraging adjudicators to zealously apply a restrictive interpretation of the “employer-employee” relationship drawn from the Darden[1] and Clackamas[2] cases. These cases on which the Service relies for its definition of “employee” did not involve immigration law at all; they related to the definitions of “employee” with regard to eligibility for ERISA pension benefits and to applicability of access requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In relying on those cherry-picked Supreme court decisions, USCIS elected to ignore an array of long-standing precedents providing guidance on the definitions of the employer-employee relationship that were specific to immigration law, and which had been followed by the agency for decades[3], as well as more recent Supreme Court case law[4]. The legal deficiencies in the Neufeld memo and its strained definition of “employee” are numerous, but they are laid out in magnificent detail in the American Immigration Lawyers Association memo to the director and chief counsel of USCIS of January 26, 2010, so I will not attempt to recreate or paraphrase those arguments here (the AILA memois 24 pages long). This paragraph is intended as a mere CliffsNotes®-style summary of some major flaws in the Neufeld memo, for those unfamiliar with its contents and AILA’s response.

When asked during the August 11 Stakeholder Engagement call on Entrepreneurs if there will be any attempt to clarify or limit application of the Neufeld memo to H-1B adjudications, Service representatives ignored the question and offered no response. However, during the California Service Center Stakeholder Engagement call of Wednesday, August 10, USCIS representatives explicitly said that the Entrepreneur initiatives do not represent any substantive changes in USCIS interpretation of the law, regulations, and applicable legal standards. They intend to stand by their current interpretation of who can be an “employer” under the Immigration & Nationality Act, tacitly acknowledging that they have no plans to scale back inappropriate mission creep of the Neufeld memo into the realm of O-1s, L-1s, and beyond.

The definition of “employee” urged by the Neufeld memo is based on a factually false assumption that owner-directors seek to start a business in the US for the main purpose of getting themselves a visa, rather than to realize a business goal. It contradicts decades of specific, on-point guidance in precedent cases acknowledging the difference between a company and an individual; but most importantly, it seeks to disallow visa eligibility for entrepreneurs on every scale. The notion that if a worker has an ownership stake in a business, then any visa petition by that business on the worker’s behalf is a fraud, is not just an erroneous premise: it is inherently hostile to a broad array of new and startup-phase businesses, small businesses, privately-held multinationals, companies with partnership or employee-shareholder models for growth, and any company in which a foreign national has a hand in funding, starting or expanding the US business. As a matter of visa policy, this is economic suicide.

At the very moment in our history when the U.S. economy most desperately needs the services of those individuals willing to put their own money, as well as their time, effort, skills and intellectual capital, into starting and growing US companies, USCIS adjudicators are dreaming up an ever-expanding universe of reasons to say ‘no’ based on the size and age of a business and on the “right to control” the foreign worker. USCIS agency leadership has admitted it has no plans to rein them in, and does not even intend to issue guidance explicitly limiting application of the Neufeld memo or its definition of who is an “employee” to H-1B adjudications, which was its ostensible purpose when published. This makes their well-publicized “entrepreneur” initiatives ring hollow.

So, what could USCIS do to offer concrete improvements? Without making any changes to the statute or the regulations, USCIS could enhance visa opportunities for entrepreneurs and owner-directors by retracting some of its more onerous and tortured interpretations of law. Here are a few good places to start:

A) withdraw the Neufeld memo,

Or, at the very least,

B) issue an H-1B policy memo and officer retraining, limiting application of the Neufeld memo and the “right to control” definition of an employer-employee relationship to H-1B adjudications, and clarify that this narrow definition does not apply to O-1s, to L-1s, or to multinational managers;

C) issue an EB-2 policy memo and officer retraining on the second prong of NYSDOT for National Interest Waivers, noting that creation of a substantial number of jobs for US workers in even one location could be deemed to offer significant prospective benefit to national interests of the United States, if, for example, those jobs are in manufacturing, or in industries that have suffered significant layoffs in the past two years in the state or region where the business is located, or in industries where the US has lost significant market share to foreign competitors. Each of those provide a real, substantial benefit to our nation that could be documented with quantitative evidence.

 

[1] Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318 (1992)

[2] Clackamas Gastroenterology Associates, P.C. v. Wells, 538 U.S. 440 (2003)

[3] Matter of Aphrodite Investments Limited, 17 I&N Dec. 530 (Comm. 1980), Matter of Allan Gee, Inc., 17 I&N Dec. 296 (Acting Reg. Comm. 1979), and Matter of M–, 8 I&N Dec. 24 (BIA 1958, AG 1958)

[4] Raymond D. Yates, M.D.,P.C. Profit Sharing Plan v. Hendon, 541 U.S. 1, 124 S. Ct. 1330 (2004)