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The UK Government has announced the figures for the permanent cap on non-European Union migration to the United Kingdom. In its bid to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands by 2015, the Home Secretary Theresa May announced a figure of 21,700 as the yearly limit on migrants entering the UK from outside the EU. However, this cap excludes the categories for "Tier 2" intra-company transfers. To learn more about the cap and its implications for employers, please continue reading at our collaborative blog, Global Employment Law.

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The Fresno Bee reports that some employers, particularly within the agriculture industry, will not use E-Verify, the federal electronic employment verification system, to authenticate new hires’ legal work status. Relying on figures provided by the federal government, the paper states that “[o]ut of thousands of businesses in Fresno, for example, only 179 use the program… although those numbers don't account for businesses that contract with personnel companies using the program.” Businesses cite two main reasons for their non-participation in E-Verify: (1) administrative burden; and (2) a shortage of available legal workers.

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President Obama, along with Senator Robert Menendez (D–NJ) and Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D–IL) and Nydia Velazquez (D–NY), is pushing for a vote this year on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act), The Wall Street Journal reports. The president has agreed to make calls to Republican lawmakers seeking support for the legislation.

Given the administration’s past lack of success in advancing immigration legislation, coupled with strong opposition from Republicans (some of whom oppose the path to citizenship the Act creates), many doubt whether this effort will gather enough votes to advance the bill. Supporters, however, believe that passage of the Act, compared to comprehensive reform, may be possible.

The DREAM Act (S. 729), which Senator Dick Durbin (D–IL) introduced in March 2009, has remained idle in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prior Senate votes on bills onto which legislators hoped to attach the DREAM Act have failed. As previously reported here, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unsuccessfully attempted to attach the Act to a defense spending bill on September 21, 2010. One week later, Senators Menendez and Leahy (D–VT) incorporated the Act into their comprehensive immigration reform bill (S. 3932), which, like the DREAM Act, remains in committee.

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United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that two decisions from its Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) will be binding precedent for the agency, i.e., USCIS must follow the decisions’ holdings when evaluating future petitions. AAO precedent decisions result from a collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. The two decisions are not new, having been decided in 2005 and 2006, but it was not until October 20, 2010, that both were deemed binding.

The first decision, Matter of Al Wazzan (pdf), affirms USCIS’s denial of an application to adjust status to permanent residence and holds that an employment-based petition must be "valid" initially if it is to "remain valid with respect to a new job."

The second decision, Matter of Chawathe (pdf), reverses USCIS’s denial of an application to preserve residence for naturalization purposes and clarifies the definition of employment by an "American firm or corporation."

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As noted by Daily News & Analysis, although the Indian government has removed the 1% cap on foreign worker visas for infrastructure projects, the requirement that employment visa applicants draw a salary in excess of $25,000 USD remains (see Part B of FAQs Relating to Work Related Visas Issued by India (pdf)). However, the salary requirement does not apply to: ethnic cooks; language teachers (other than English language teachers)/translators; or consular staff working in India.

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