Someone posted the following comments of someone on IV forum:
I have to weigh in at this point. If what they are saying is that the State Department computers have to wait for new software in order to implement recapture or reinterpretation, that’s just silly. Until very recently, those calculations were done by hand. Charlie Oppenheim has already said that recapture would result in all EB categories becoming current.
As a practical matter, the USCIS simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to approve more than perhaps 120,000 (I’m being generous here) EB AOS applications per year. If the remaining quota jumped overnight from the 60,000+ visas remaining in this fiscal year, plus 250,000 recaptured numbers to 310,000, there is no way the USCIS, even with the help of the overseas consulates, could use those up any time soon. Add another 140,000+ on October 1st. I’m sure that they would have plenty of time to refine their calculations in the years it would take the USCIS to use those up.
This explanation of technical difficulties carries a strong odor of bullshit. If something was going to happen, it might have been delayed because of all of the hype.
Here is IV’s response:
Thanks for sharing. It seems this guy wrote this and directed it at our messages. So let us respond as fairly as possible.
First of all, based on this write-up we believe that this person doesn’t know much about how advocacy works. We think that anyone talking about Admin fix for recapture just doesn’t seem to know what they are talking about. So we think most of this is an unrealistic number-throwing exercise to somehow make a show that someone is in the know.
Healthcare.gov was close to a billion-dollar project. We don’t need to remind anyone about the “technical difficulties” associated with it. “Technical difficulties” are possible and can delay announcements, and they did as we are told by the Administration. Some people will smell what they want to smell. We are honest in sharing the developments and don’t have to explain it to this guy the least. For others, as we shared earlier, this is what the Administration told us and this is what we shared with our members. If this guy has a problem with the term “technical difficulties”, then it sounds more like their personal problem.
And lastly, this post seems to suggest that the Administration delayed making a public announcement because somehow people came to know there was going to be a public announcement, which is meant for the public? We must admit that we have read many weird things online but this whopper tops them all. We can share this with confidence because we have been told the real reason for the delay, and this is not it.
At one time this guy said nothing was supposed to happen on Monday. Then he seems to suggest that the Administration delayed because of IV. If you talk to him, ask him, which one is it?
Let me put a few things into perspective. In the past, I worked as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill for a major financial institution. We spent the better part of a year, and tens of thousands of dollars, successfully inserting a provision into a major immigration bill that was signed into law. I know what is involved in getting Congress to amend the law and getting agencies to change their policies. It is heavy lifting.
CompeteAmerica has an army of lobbyists. They have spent more than One Billion Dollars on immigration lobbying efforts (including recapture and reinterpretation). Their lobbyists have personally visited all five hundred and thirty five members of Congress multiple times to push for reforms. They have met with agency officials many, many times to push for administrative reforms. They have met with White House officials to push for reforms.
Now, don’t you think it is a bit presumptuous of a small volunteer organization to claim credit for the heavy lifting done by CompeteAmerica?”
Doesn’t the first paragraph here seem to imply a pay-to-play situation that is illegal in the context of lobbying? We never ask or suggest our members to engage in illegal activities like pay-to-play. We ask you to please not follow anyone if they suggest you to engage in pay-to-play or any other illegal activity.
We think that the rest of this narrative is all over the place so we will make an effort to adequately address the rest of this post.
For the information of our members, Compete America is a coalition and Immigration Voice is member of this coalition. See here: http://www.competeamerica.org/2011-members/
We think it is a false statement that “Compete America has spent One Billion Dollars on immigration lobbying efforts”. Not even close. We think that even Compete America will reject that statement 🙂
Compete America’s top priority is to increase H-1B visa numbers. Because the work of the coalition is associated with skilled-immigration, IV is one of the members of this coalition. But our priority is different – IV’s priority is eliminating EB green card backlogs to improve the quality of life of backlogged immigrants. Like any other advocacy coalition, this coalition has partners/members with different priorities in the same space, which is normal.
Without a doubt, money is important to run an advocacy organization, for conducting events, and push for agenda/bills, but money is not everything. If money could buy Congress to pass bills then why is the H-1B bill not already passed? For over 10 years companies have been lobbying for Congress to pass a bill to increase H-1B visas. It is difficult to keep a score of the number of champions of the H-1B visa bill. If Compete America has spent a billion dollars, then why hasn’t the H-1B visa bill not passed, because as this narrative said, seemingly someone “successfully inserting a provision into a major immigration bill that was signed into law” which to us sound like a bribe of “tens of thousands of dollars”. If Compete America “has spent more than One Billion Dollars on immigration lobbying efforts (including recapture and reinterpretation)”, then why is recapture not done yet? Why is reinterpretation/dependents count not fixed? Don’t some genius lawyers keep posting that recapture and dependents count fix is slam dunk Admin fix? Then why is it not done even after spending a billion dollars? It is reported that in the last election cycle, each candidate spent close to a billion dollars on the election. Is increasing H-1B visa more expensive than the Presidential election? Why would that be when Compete America “has personally visited all 535 members of Congress multiple times”?
Let us also share other pertinent information with the members. Why don’t you search online for any company or immigration law firm that is advocating for employees being able to change jobs while waiting for a green card, get EAD/AP at I-140 stage, and employer not being able to withdraw approved I-140, getting access to your immigration paperwork/file and ability to file AOS when the VB dates are not current. Let’s see how many such companies or an immigration law firm you are able to find. We don’t think that you can find more than a handful of companies/law firms talking about these fixes but these fixes will not appear on their priority list. Rather how many people heard on the USCIS conference call that immigration lawyers were commenting and suggesting USCIS to not let immigrants change jobs or get EADs after I-140?
It is public knowledge that Compete America opposed Warren amendment #1532 in the Immigration Reform bill of 2013 (S744) because that amendment would have given certain basic freedoms to skilled immigrants. We have differences with groups that oppose Warren amendment type of fixes. We know that there are companies that have advocated opposing our Admin fixes designed to free skilled immigrant workers from the clutches of employers and lawyers. So we think that anyone suggesting that Compete America is doing the heavy lifting for these Admin fixes for immigrants and EB backlog aren’t telling the truth, not even close. Adding more people to the system/backlogs is not the same as working to address the problems of existing immigrants in the backlogs.
It is also important for people to know the truth about our work. IV has also met with all 435 House offices and 100 Senate offices, many times over. And we can surely tell you that we did not spend a billion dollars. We have also been fortunate to share our fixes with the DHS and White House staff, which is why our fixes made into President’s Executive Action on Immigration. Why else do you think the fixes end up in the final package? Who else asked for these fixes? Companies/Lawyers? Can you imagine companies or lawyers asking to free up skilled immigrants from their clutches?
We would like to share with our members that in the last 6 years, Immigration Voice members have organized over 15+ large advocacy events in Washington with over 3000+ Congressional meetings in DC and many more in the local districts. We have always honestly advocated that skilled immigrants must be able to live free from the clutches of their employers. We believe that in a system when immigrants have fewer rights to change employer, such an employee-employer relationship where the employee is bound to the employer for a long period of times (spanning decades) often leads to lower wages or exploitation of employee, creating incentives for bad employers to hire immigrants over US workers. So the system creates an environment of exploitation of immigrants on H-1B and L-1 visa, and it puts US workers at disadvantage in the marketplace, discriminating against US workers.
The current system makes non-immigrant and pending immigrant application employees dependent on employers for a long time, often exceeding over a decade. The long backlogs make pending immigrant petition employees as probationary as a summer intern and as capable as an accomplished veteran. This combination of a bonded but highly productive immigrant employee is so attractive to employers that it makes the native-born talent uncompetitive in the job market. So in the best interest of US workers and immigrant workers, it’s important to level the playing field and have no one in the American labor force be indebted to one employer for a long time.
In our Congressional meetings, we try to share this with every office. And we honestly advocate for a system in which immigrants are free to change employer with as much ease as others in the labor pool so that there are no wrong incentives for bad employers to hire immigrants over US workers. Like any other movement in human history, we also seek freedom so we can live up to our full potential so most immigration lawyers can no longer nexus with employers to exploit unsuspecting immigrants when they come in. It’s clear that the problem runs deep in this very complex system. And we have to have an honest conversation if we want to fix the problem. We believe that the current immigration system is rigged by a handful of large tech companies that try to enforce silo-monopoly over tech labor and it puts a fancy label of “high-skilled immigration” on this silo-monopoly system. But as we have witnessed, there is great invisible power when people organize themselves to speak up to demand a more fair system. That is why there is greater awareness in many Congressional offices and they are aware of what goes on in the trenches when immigrants live at the mercy of their employers who often exploit them because it is far more difficult for an immigrant employee stuck in a green card backlog to change jobs without putting their pending/ongoing green card petition at risk of being revoked.
We believe that existing limits on the freedom and job mobility of employment-based immigrants make the American economy less dynamic. Immigrants should not be constrained in their career choices while working and contributing to the U.S economy. Rather, the system should encourage immigrants to work where they will provide the U.S. economy with maximum benefit. Not silo-monopoly, but market forces are the only effective way to achieve that objective. We ought to want to unleash the full potential of immigrants for the benefit of all society, rather than forfeiting much of the potential economic gain for society so that specific or selected existing employers can harness some lesser percentage of the benefit for themselves.
Clearly, this is a complex issue. That is why we ask our members stuck in backlogs to see through the bullshit posted online and make up your own mind to understand who is on which side. It’s no secret that we have never been big fans of immigration lawyers because we believe (which is why it is also our policy position) that most immigration lawyers and most employers are part of nexus that promotes and protects a system of exploitation of immigrant employees and a system of discrimination of US workers. We did mention this in our comments that we submitted to the Administration/DHS in our response to the RFI and we make it a point to share this position with every Congressional office every time we meet.
We ask our members to not be intimidated by immigration lawyers. We think that the legislative priorities of companies, immigration lawyers, or their Advocacy organizations are different from our legislative priorities for employment-based fixes. We would caution our members so you are careful when looking at solicited or unsolicited advice about advocacy from any immigration lawyer. Because the more and better-informed people are often, the more successful people.
Thank you
Immigration Voice
