Temporary worker programs

This is a main reason why the H-2A visa is only used by about 4 percent of the 1 million-plus agricultural workforce, despite the lack of an annual cap.

The next president must contend with these discrepancies if he or she wishes to dissuade employers from hiring undocumented foreign-born workers. In addition, the H-2A and H-2B visas require that the immigrant worker be tied to one employer, which leaves open a path for exploitation. Employers can be tempted to provide substandard living and working conditions because they know the worker cannot complain or they risk losing the only job for which their visa is applicable.

In a true hallmark of a confusing and often backwards legal immigration system, both foreign and American workers have the potential to be abused under the various forms of an H visa. For example, there are rules in place for all three H visas that require employers to prioritize Americans before filling the job with a foreign worker, and to pay their foreign workers a prevailing wage.

However, enforcement of these rules is very limited, and most employers are taken at their word unless an audit is conducted and a violation uncovered. Real-world enforcement is not a priority under the current system, drawing fire from both sides of the aisle. Finally, it is worth noting that while the law contends that temporary categories are distinct from permanent migration options, in reality many nonimmigrant workers end up staying in the country for several years and eventually getting a green card, particularly in the H-1B category.

If employers would rather hire someone permanently in the first place, it makes little sense to spend time and resources on costly and slow bureaucratic steps to hire a worker for a temporary program, once again encouraging employers to hire undocumented workers.

While Clinton and Trump differ widely on immigration policy, both have pledged to address the issue in their first days of office. Please reference the specific guidance on the visa category for which you are applying for more details on documentation required for derivative spouses.

There are several steps in the visa application process. The order of these steps and how you complete them may vary at the U. Embassy or Consulate where you apply. Please consult the instructions available on the embassy or consulate website where you will apply. While interviews are generally not required for applicants of certain ages outlined below, consular officers have the discretion to require an interview of any applicant, regardless of age. If you are age: Then an interview is: 13 and younger Generally not required 14 - 79 Required some exceptions for renewals 80 and older Generally not required.

You must schedule an appointment for your visa interview, generally, at the U. Embassy or Consulate in the country where you live. You may schedule your interview at any U. Embassy or Consulate, but be aware that it may be difficult to qualify for a visa outside of your place of permanent residence. Wait times for interview appointments vary by location, season, and visa category, so you should apply for your visa early.

Review the interview wait time for the location where you will apply:. Check the estimated wait time for a nonimmigrant visa interview appointment as a U. Embassy or Consulate.

A wait time listed as " calendar days" indicates that the Consular Section is only providing that service to emergency cases. Please check the Embassy or Consulate website for further information. You will need to provide the receipt number that is printed on your approved Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, Form I, or Notice of Action, Form I, to schedule an interview. Review the instructions available on the website of the embassy or consulate where you will apply to learn more about fee payment.

L visa applicants included in a L blanket petition : You must also pay the Fraud Prevention and Detection fee and may need to pay the Border Security Act fee. Select All Fees to learn more. Review this important pamphlet before applying for your visa.

Review the instructions on how to apply for a visa on the website of the embassy or consulate where you will apply. Additional documents may be requested to establish if you are qualified. All visa applicants, except H-1B and L, will generally need to show proof of compelling ties to your home country to demonstrate your intent to return after your temporary stay in the United States.

Examples of compelling ties include:. During your visa interview, a consular officer will determine whether you are qualified to receive a visa, and if so, which visa category is appropriate based on your purpose of travel. You will need to establish that you meet the requirements under U. Ink-free, digital fingerprint scans will be taken as part of your application process. They are usually taken during your interview, but this varies based on location.

After your visa interview, your application may require further administrative processing. You will be informed by the consular officer if further processing is necessary for your application. When the visa is approved, you may pay a visa issuance fee if applicable to your nationality, and will be informed how your passport with visa will be returned to you.

Review the visa processing time , to learn how soon your passport with visa will generally be ready for pick-up or delivery by the courier. A visa allows a foreign citizen to travel to a U. A visa does not guarantee entry into the United States. See Extend Your Stay on the U. You must depart the United States on or before the date indicated on your admission stamp or paper Form I, unless your request to extend your stay is approved by USCIS.

Failure to depart the United States on time will result in you being out of status. Under U. Under this stream, candidates provide in-home care to children, elderly persons 65 years of age or over and people with disabilities, a chronic or terminal illness. Caregivers provide care on a full-time basis minimum of 30 hours and normally 40—44 hours per week. These can be nannies, caregivers, nurses, and home care workers.

Employees are required to have at least 1 year of work experience as a nanny or nurse, a secondary education diploma, and English or French skills at a level sufficient to communicate in everyday life.

Employees also should get an LMIA provided and paid by an employer and a work permit. After having worked for two years, they can apply for permanent residence. Applicants under the academic stream must complete at least one graduate school, have teaching experience at a university and practice experience in scientific research.

The program legislation includes a numerical ceiling, but that cap has regularly been adjusted by Congress in response to employers' assertions about their labor needs. The ceiling started out at 65, in the mids and went up to , around Today, it has been brought back down because of the slowdown in economic growth and job creation. These are significant ranges that have changed rather regularly over a short span of years.

President Bush's proposal that the initial temporary work visa be for three years, renewable for another three years for a maximum of six years, is similar to the H-1B program. The current programs and Bush's proposal differ, however, in that Congress recently eased the rules for H-1B visa-holders to adjust to permanent status.

People at the six-year point of the H-1B program now have a much smoother route to becoming permanent residents if they choose to stay. The Bush plan, as presently outlined, has no route to permanent residency.

Taken together, although current programs have some features in common with the president's proposal, their actual numbers are small. Even H-1B, at its peak, was , annually. The other temporary programs number about 30, each per year. Thus, at any one time, there are likely to have been no more than , temporary work visas granted per year.

Even aggregating the numbers to take into account extensions of visa eligibility, there are not likely to be any more than one or 1. What President Bush has proposed would be at a very different, far greater order of magnitude than anything the United States has done before. There are common issues and threads that emerge from past experience.

Perhaps the most important is that our experience with temporary programs — both historically and at the current time — has been that temporary workers tend to contribute to establishing lasting migration networks. Stated differently, migration is not simply an economic process. It is also a social process. The lesson of past programs is that, whatever kind of temporary worker approach might be legislated, a flexible design is much more likely to succeed than a one-size-fits-all formula.

Encouraging temporary status through incentives for workers to return to their home countries is likely to be effective for some temporary workers. In this connection, the incentives that President Bush suggested regarding social security payments to them in their home countries when they become eligible are new and interesting.

However, there must also be ways over time to earn permanent status in the United States.