US Immigration News

A report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Homeland Security (DOH) has claimed that US immigration staff find it difficult to assess whether applicants for L-1B visas have 'specialized knowledge'.

L1 visas are intra-company transfer visas which allow international companies to transfer a member of staff, who has worked for them for at least one year in the last three years, to work in the US from its operations elsewhere.

There are two distinct L1 visas;

There has been a huge increase in the number of unaccompanied children arriving on the United States border with Mexico. President Obama has declared this 'an urgent humanitarian situation' and has asked Congress for $160m in funding to provide accommodation and other types of support for the children who have come into the US from Mexico and Central America.

A poll suggests that the defeat of House of Representatives majority leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary election was not, as the press initially reported, caused by his support for immigration reform. The defeat was caused instead by Mr Cantor's personal unpopularity, the poll shows.

Mr Cantor's defeat was greeted with incredulity in Washington. He was a high-flier in the Republican Party and was expected to replace John Boehner as speaker of the House when Mr Boehner retires. Now his political career is over.

The victory of a right wing, anti-immigration candidate in a primary election in Virginia may spell the end for the hope for immigration reform in the US for the next few years.

In November 2014, elections will be held for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Before those elections are held, the Democrats and Republicans must decide who their candidates will be. They do this by way of primary elections.

Democratic leader in the US Senate, Senator Harry Reid, has suggested that the Republicans in the House of Representatives (or 'the House' as it is known) should pass immigration reform before August 1st 2014 but, because they say they don't trust President Obama to apply the law correctly, they should stipulate that the law will not come into force until 2017, after Mr Obama has ceased to be president.

Campaigners for immigration reform in the US have met Democratic senators in Washington to discuss tactics.

The Democratic senators have urged the campaigners to spend the summer putting as much pressure as possible on Republican members of the House of Representatives to try to force them to support comprehensive immigration reform before Washington closes for the summer recess.