March 30, 2015
Washington, D.C. – The Council for Global Immigration (CFGI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) commend President Obama and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for acknowledging the value of L-1Bs to U.S. economic growth by releasing guidance last week that aims to clarify how decisions are made about the visas.
“By releasing this guidance, USCIS has shown a commitment to addressing the shortfalls of our current employment-based immigration system with a more reasonable approach to L-1B visas,” said Lynn Shotwell, Executive Director of CFGI. “While we are taking a careful look at the guidance, we are encouraged to see that USCIS took several of our recommendations for how to make the L-1B category more usable for employers, items we have advocated for years and recently highlighted in our response to the administration’s request for information on visa modernization.”
Shotwell noted that this new L-1B guidance, combined with the announcement last month that certain dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders will soon be eligible to work in the United States, indicates progress toward creating a U.S. employment-based immigration system that begins to better ensure America can compete for global talent. However, U.S. employers agree there is still much more to be done.
CFGI and SHRM recently released a new guide to the U.S. employment-based immigration system, which includes employer-endorsed solutions for improving the current system. The guide can be found here .
