Business and the Workforce

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  • Litigation

USCIS’ Unlawful Denial of H-1B Petitions Spurs Class Action Lawsuit

This nationwide class action lawsuit challenges U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ pattern and practice of arbitrarily denying H-1B nonimmigrant employment-based petitions for market research analyst positions filed by United States businesses.  

All Business and the Workforce Content

  • Fact Sheet

Facts about Farmworkers

May 13, 2009
AgJOBS is a bipartisan, compromise bill that is the result of years of negotiations among farmworkers, growers, and Members of Congress. Get the facts on Farmworkers.
  • Special Report

Today's Immigrant Woman Entrepreneur

January 5, 2008
Immigrant women entrepreneurs are rapidly making their mark in the U.S. business sector, in every region of the country and across a large range of industries. Today, immigrant women of the post-...
  • Fact Sheet

Immigration and the Elderly: Foreign-Born Workers in Long-Term Care

August 1, 2007
Aging populations and the growing need to provide long-term care to the elderly are among the leading demographic, political, and social challenges facing industrialized countries, including the...
  • Fact Sheet

Dollars without Sense: Underestimating the Value of Less-Educated Workers

May 1, 2007
A recent report from the Heritage Foundation is one in a long line of deeply flawed economic analyses which claim to estimate the contributions and "costs" of workers based solely on the amount of...
  • Special Report

U.S. Immigration Policy in Global Perspective: International Migration in OECD Countries

January 3, 2007
The United States possesses a number of competitive assets in the global war for talent: most notably, its huge and flexible labor market and an abundance of leading-edge multinational corporations...
  • Research and Analysis

Competing for Global Talent: The Race Begins with Foreign Students

September 1, 2006
By Jeanne Batalova, Ph.D.
  • Research and Analysis

Building a Competitive Workforce: Immigration and the U.S. Manufacturing Sector

August 1, 2006
Shortages of skilled labor constitute the foremost challenge confronting U.S. manufacturers who face growing competition from manufacturers in Asia, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Demand for...
  • Special Report

Guest Workers Program with a Path to Legalization

April 1, 2006
As we have seen in the last month, segments of the United States media, policy leaders, and populace continue to be obsessed with the issue of undocumented immigration to the United States. Turn...
  • Fact Sheet

No Way In: U.S. Immigration Policy Leaves Few Legal Options for Mexican Workers

July 1, 2005
Current immigration policies are completely out of sync with the U.S. economy’s demand for workers who fill less-skilled jobs, especially in the case of Mexican workers. While U.S. immigration...
  • Fact Sheet

The Economics of Necessity: Economic Report of the President Underscores Importance of Immigration

May 1, 2005
Although immigration is crucial to the growth of the U.S. labor force and yields a net fiscal benefit to the U.S. economy, current immigration policies fail to respond to actual labor demand.
  • Litigation

Visa Programs for High-Skilled Workers

On behalf of AILA, the American Immigration Council, in cooperation with counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, filed a FOIA lawsuit against DHS and USCIS in July 2010 seeking the public release of records concerning agency policies and procedures related to fraud investigations in the H-1B program.
  • Litigation

Lawsuit on Visa Bulletin, Adjustment of Status

On July 17, 2007, the American Immigration Council was poised to file a lawsuit alleging that the federal government’s refusal to accept tens of thousands of applications for green cards (and discouragement of thousands of other workers from even applying) violated federal statutes, regulations and policies, as well as the U.S. Constitution. Many of these applicants had waited in line for years and were following the government’s rules to obtain a green card. The suit would have argued that the government must comply with its own regulations and policies and accept these adjustment of status (“green card”) applications.
  • FOIA

L-1B Adjudications FOIA

In May 2012, the American Immigration Council filed a FOIA request seeking records issued by USCIS and/or DHS, or used by USCIS and/or DHS, from January 2008 to the...

  • FOIA

H-1B Fraud Investigations FOIA

On behalf of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the Council, in cooperation with counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, filed a FOIA lawsuit in July...

  • Blog

The Artificial Intelligence Industry Thrives on a Global Workforce

November 1, 2019

At a time when skills related to the burgeoning field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are in very short supply, the U.S. government is making it harder to recruit highly trained professionals from...

  • Blog

USCIS Implemented New H-1B Wage Level Policy Without Providing Sufficient Guidance to Its Staff

October 1, 2019

Newly released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rolled out a major policy change impacting petitions for...

  • Blog

US Visa Policies Prevent Tech Startups From Hiring Foreign Workers

September 17, 2019

Tech startups are engines of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Yet U.S. visa policies may be preventing startups from hiring the highly skilled foreign professionals they need to...

  • Blog

USCIS Visa Petition Denials on the Rise

August 16, 2019

Legal immigration channels to the United States are continuing to suffer under the Trump administration. These restrictions are having an effect on employment-based immigration—particularly...

  • Blog

Immigrants and Their Children Founded Almost Half of All US Fortune 500 Companies

July 30, 2019

From the highest levels of corporate America to virtually every level of the labor force, immigration creates new jobs in the U.S. economy. The businesses founded by immigrant entrepreneurs...

  • Blog

30,000 More Seasonal Worker Visas to Become Available After a Bipartisan Push

April 19, 2019

In a welcome immigration-related development, the Trump administration has proposed increasing the annual allotment of H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers. As employers have long...

  • Blog

Why It’s Critical to Take a Closer Look at Foreign-Worker Petitions Data

April 11, 2019

American businesses rely on foreign-born workers in many industries and the country’s immigration system has channels specifically dedicated to employment-based immigration. The Trump...

  • Blog

USCIS Hits H-1B Cap Within Days, Showing America Needs Foreign Workers

April 8, 2019

As another H-1B season comes to an end, one thing is clear: the demand for educated foreign workers is as high as ever. The annual H-1B cap was reached within a mere 5 business days. U.S....

  • Blog

‘We Just Heard Screaming.’ ICE Arrests 280 Workers in the Largest Immigration Raid in a Decade

April 4, 2019

The scene outside a technology repair company in Allen, Texas on Wednesday was bleak. In the aftermath of an immigration raid, family members gathered to make phone calls, connect with attorneys,...

  • Blog

How Can U.S. Blue-Collar Industries Thrive Again?

March 29, 2019

For the first time in two decades, the U.S. workforce has more jobs than people willing or able to fill them. Labor shortages are impacting almost every field in the country. But employers are now...

  • Practice Advisories

Whom to Sue and Whom to Serve in Immigration-Related District Court Litigation

May 28, 2020
This Practice Advisory addresses who is, or who may be, the proper respondent-defendant and recipient for service of process in immigration-related litigation in district court.
  • Blog

Exchange Visitor Program Faces Uncertainty as US Opens but Embassies Remain Closed

May 20, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has affected day-to-day life for everyone, including foreign nationals who planned to participate in the U.S. Department of State’s Exchange Visitor Program. These...

  • Blog

Essential Workers Are at the Heart of a Diversifying Working-Class America

May 15, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of essential workers in keeping America up and running. First-responders, medical staff, meat packers, and domestic, hospitality, and...

  • Blog

Government Takes Surprising Position to Preserve H-4 Work Permits – For Now

May 13, 2020

A long-running lawsuit over a rule allowing certain spouses of highly educated H-1B workers to work in the United States took an interesting twist. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS),...

  • Blog

As Coronavirus Fatalities Rise, Trump Sends Immigrant Meatpackers Back to Work

May 1, 2020

The coronavirus presents a clear and immediate danger to America’s food supply. Meatpacking plants in particular have taken a huge hit. To mitigate the loss of production, President Trump signed...

  • Press Release

Trump’s Immigration Ban Does Not Keep Us Safer or Solve our Economic Challenges

April 22, 2020
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration to the United States. The order applies to many individuals currently outside the United States who do not yet have immigrant (permanent) visas.
  • Blog

USCIS Consistently Denies H-1B Petitions. This Lawsuit Argues It’s Misinterpreting the Law.

April 17, 2020

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been denying many H-1B petitions by misinterpreting the law. On April 16, 2020, the American Immigration Council and partners filed a...

  • Blog

Coronavirus Travel Restrictions Leave Some J-1 Exchange Visitors Stranded

April 16, 2020

Individuals participating in the J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program were faced with a difficult choice in the hours after President Trump issued travel restrictions to Europe: leave their program...

  • Press Release

Class Action Lawsuit Seeks to Challenge USCIS’ Unlawful Denial of H-1B Petitions Filed by American Businesses

April 16, 2020
The American Immigration Council, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the law firms Van Der Hout, LLP, Joseph & Hall P.C., and Kuck Baxter Immigration LLC filed a nationwide class action lawsuit today challenging U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ pattern and practice of arbitrarily denying H-1B nonimmigrant employment-based petitions for market research analysts positions filed by businesses in the United States.
  • Litigation

USCIS’ Unlawful Denial of H-1B Petitions Spurs Class Action Lawsuit

This nationwide class action lawsuit challenges U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ pattern and practice of arbitrarily denying H-1B nonimmigrant employment-based petitions for market research analyst positions filed by United States businesses.

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