BAD NEWS FOLKS !!!!!
EB2 will take 4 Years
EB3 will take 12 Years (damn !)



WASHINGTON: In a move that would benefit highly-skilled workers from countries like India seeking to stay in the US, the House of Representatives has voted to end per-country caps on worker-based immigration visas.

The bill (HR 3012) passed by the US House of Representative in a voice vote, from both the parties, completely eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas and raises the per-country cap from seven per cent to 15 per cent for family-based visas, all without adding even a single additional visa.

The current Immigration and Nationality Act generally provides that the total number of employment-based immigrant visas made available to natives of any single foreign country in a year cannot exceed seven per cent of the total number of such visas made available in that year, a result of which a large number of qualifies Indians in particular are rejected because of this anomaly in the existing law.

Supporters of this bill termed it as pro-growth and pro-job. Speaking on the floor of the House in support of the bill, Congressman Steve Cohen said the bill removes the so-called "per-country" limits from applying to employment-based green cards.

"Current immigration law provides 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants. The law, however, prevents any one country from receiving more than 7 per cent or 9,800 of the total 140,000 visas," he said.

"Because of this per-country limit, a country like India, with a population of 1.2 billion, is limited to the same number of visas as a country like Iceland, with a population of 300,000 and a lot of ice," he argued.

"This makes no sense and has resulted in decades-long backlogs for nationals from India, as well as China, and it makes it impossible for certain US employers to attract and retain certain essential workers they need to help keep America competitive. Indeed, from India and China there are many people trained in STEM areas that we need in our country to keep competitive," Cohen said.

He said that eliminating the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants would level the playing field and treat everyone on a first-come, first-served basis.

"Because the bill does not provide additional green cards, it does not address the current overall backlogs. And that's unfortunate. But the bill does treat people and those backlogs more equitably. To make sure that there are no unintended consequences, the elimination of the per-country limit is phased in slowly over 3 years," he said.

Congressman Jim Moran said that this bill is very important for the tech sector to grow and expand.

"We know how important technology firms are going to be in the global economy of the 21st century; but I don't think we fully take into account how important it is to continue to attract the best and brightest from around the world who, in fact, do want to go to graduate school here and do want to continue residing in the United States and to work here applying their talents and skills," Moran said.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said, "This bill will help certain Indian nationals, who now face a wait of 70 years to get green cards.

"... But because the bill does not address the scope of the backlogs, it will increase the wait time for many others. Under this bill, everyone seeking an employment-based third preference green card will have to wait 12 years. That may be more equitable, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem," he said.

 Let's do what we can and stop this bill. ......Otherwise your Green Card dream is gone down the drain..
10-12 years to get a GC ? oh my god !

I hope somebody amends it or stops in senate ! 

Most likely this will pass because it was passed with really high number in the house...

I doubt it will go thru senate.
This is walking backwards. They should focus on reducing the backlog. Make the tunnel wider not the road!
I was suggesting that they should implement country quota on H1B, they went complete south on that one.

 If you guys are interested this is how it works. 

http://www.house.gov/lucas/how-bill-becomes-law.shtml

This will surely help those with fake resume, fake project, fake company and waiting or applying for green card ! I am sure if they filter out all fake jobs from last past few years backlog will be cleared in few months.

This bill was passed by the Judiciary Committe in the House. The 1st step in the legislative process. This will proably go to the House for a full floor vote Jan 2012 since XMas & New Year time is right around the corner. After that it will goto the Senate and finally if everything goes smooth, to Obama's desk to make it the law of the land. There are quite a few Indian lobby groups raising thousands of dollars to pass this bill. Money talks and this bill has good chances of going all the way through. Not good for ROW.

 

Looking from my prespective, my employer has denied to do my eb2 visa and have to wait infinitely (  because me being from Nepal and  eb2 GC will come within a year and would be unfair compared to other in dian employees who are waiting in a long list ) and gave me some other  reason of not filing . if this law applies right away, they would actually probably agree to file my eb2. Seems like good thing to me. Please do not hate me guys.

@birey
I'd say you are victimized here and discriminated too. Your company should not treat you like this. No matter what, under the company laws and regulation your GC should have been already applied/processed. their reason poresented is a total BS. You can even sue them for this reason.

It's your right to talk to them. Dont hesitate. Talk to HR people /  manager about this.
By the way who told you about this whole crap. Is it your manager from desi consultant or private company?

My company was planning to file GC for me in summer of 2012 in EB2 category. Will this effect me?? By applying earlier like in Jan 2012, will i be able to avoid this 4 yrs of waiting?? anyone??or is it too early to ask...?

If this becomes a law 2011sep onwards will be affected.

This bill has already gone to Senate.So write to your senators. I have written what I thought to 5 senators.  My aim was either fail this bill or ammend this for EB2 and EB3 category to proritize those with US degrees.

Feel free to edit and add your points.
---------------------
Dear Senator 

I am writing to you regarding the Bill HR 3012 that was passed on Nov. 30 in house and now presented to Senate. The bill "Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011" if becomes law would eliminate per country limit for skilled and high skilled immigrants. The bill got overwhelming support in the house despite of having some serious flaws in it. I would like to present my views on why this bill should not be passed in its current form and would like to request you to consider following facts while discussing and amending this bill in the senate judicial committee.

- More than 85% of currently waiting in the queue for employment based visas are Indian and Chinese nationals. If this bill becomes law in its current form there would be more workers form just these two countries. This would adversely affect the US immigration and US industry as a whole as the immigrant US workforce will be more dominated by nationalities of these two countries and practically eliminates the US immigration and employment diversity.

- Another big flaw I see is that this bill does not try to mitigate any fraud that is prevalent in employment based immigration. US department of Labor currently just verifies the job positions and employee to check if they are appropriate for the position, but does not look anything about the legitimacy of the position. So it does not take much effort for an employee and employer to create a position that would effectively categorized as high skilled requirements and put themselves in the front of the queue. So to mitigate such kinds of fraud this bill needs to tighten the labor certified process for green card applicants and break the employer and employee relationship for any sponsorship. A high skilled immigration (mostly EB2 category) should include those who have advance degree (Masters or PHD) from recognized US universities and have genuine jobs on related field and not the one with foreign degree and fake resumes and fake positions pretending as high skilled workers. I think prioritizing cheaters and fakers in the long queue of backlogged immigration is another kind of 'amnesty'. So this bill needs to reconsider the eligibility for Employment Based preferences (popularly known as EB1, EB2 and EB3) and should prioritize green cards based on the employee personal achievements (like US degrees, Advanced degrees, US work experience etc) rather than employers created fake positions so that they can sponsor some cheap labor.

 

I would like to request you take considerations of above points on any judicial meetings on related HR 3012 bill.

 

Sincerely yours,

-------------

 

 

Stupid congress men and womens.... Be aware of INDIAN and CHINESE.

Why do't you grants GC to billions of INDIAN and CHINESE citizons and name this country 'INCHI' .

~T

@sammu2011 and Khairey,

My question is that what is the way to write to the senators? Is it via email? I found that we have to give our names and postal addresses to send emails to the senators. That way we have to disclose who we are. So is it okay to disclose our identity to the senators? I mean, will there be any consequences?

Sojho manche, I don't see any consequences by disclosing your identity to senators. Just be truthful about your visa status and express your opinions. I did write to two senators of my state as well.

Senator chuck Grassley Places hold on 3012.
Let's hope this bill doesn't pass.
Send emails to Senators in your state !

HOLD ON H.R. 3012
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise
to inform my colleagues that I am
placing a hold on H.R. 3012, the Fairness
for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.
This bill would eliminate the per-country
numerical limitations for employment-
based visas and increase the numerical
cap for family-based immigrants.
I have concerns about the impact
of this bill on future immigration
flows, and am concerned that it does
nothing to better protect Americans at
home who seek high-skilled jobs during
this time of record high unemployment

I just sent an email to my state's Senetor. Please do something from our end.....

I see someone from lamjung parewadada that's cool....

The emails you sent to senators are not scanned by Senators but rather their assistants. They get hunderds of such emails daily. If you are lucky they reach up to senators. That is why there are lobbyists.
If you have personal contacts to Senators you might be able to seek their attention.

 Check this link out this shows the process how it went and whats going to happen... 

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3012