Business and the Workforce

The enforcement of immigration laws is a complex and hotly-debated topic. Learn more about the costs of immigration enforcement and the ways in which the U.S. can enforce our immigration laws humanely and in a manner that ensures due process.

Recent Features

  • 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

  • Research and Analysis

A Conversation about the Economic Effects of Immigration on African Americans

July 14, 2009
Anti-immigrant groups have repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between African Americans and immigrants by capitalizing on the myth that immigrants take American jobs. In a new Perspectives piece for...
  • 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...
  • Amicus Briefs

Microsoft Corporation - BALCA

November 7, 2013
The Council and AILA filed an amicus brief in an en banc case pending before BALCA, an administrative body at the Department of Labor that reviews denials of PERM labor certifications. The case turned on the proper interpretation of a regulation which requires employers to notify certain laid-off U.S. employees about new job opportunities before the employers are permitted to hire foreign workers. The brief focused on the agency’s failure to provide fair warning before applying a new, more restrictive interpretation of the notification requirement.
  • 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

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...

  • 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...

  • Blog

Immigrant Health Care Workers Play a Vital Role in the United States’ COVID-19 Response

March 24, 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, the U.S. health care system will likely be pushed to its limits. During this time, it is important to remember the role that immigrant health care workers play...

  • Blog

As Trump Slashes All Immigration, Other Countries Open Their Doors

March 4, 2020

The Trump administration has worked to close the door on all types of immigrants—including people trying to come to the United States on visas. Consequently, the United States is experiencing a...

  • Blog

H-1B Registration Is Almost Here: What We Do and Don’t Know About USCIS’ New Process

February 26, 2020

For the first time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is requiring U.S. employers to register in order to have a chance to file an H-1B petition that is subject to the annual...

  • Blog

What We Know About USCIS’ New H-1B Cap Registration System

January 16, 2020

The new process for petitioning for highly educated H-1B workers will officially begin on March 1, 2020. For the first time, a U.S. employer who wants to file a petition that is subject to the...

  • Blog

USCIS Announces Major Change to H-1B ‘Cap’ Filing With Electronic Registration

December 12, 2019
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that U.S. employers will have to pay a $10 fee and register to have a chance at filing an H-1B petition subject to the statutory “...
  • Blog

USCIS’ Denial Rates for H-1B Petitions Have Quadrupled

November 8, 2019

The Trump administration, acting through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is disrupting the process by which U.S. employers obtain work authorization for highly skilled foreign...

  • 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

Restrictions on Foreign Workers Will Hurt America’s Recovery From COVID-19

October 8, 2020

The Trump administration issued two rules October 8 that, if not overturned, will further restrict legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued the first rule, which only...

  • Advocacy

Summary of Proposed Changes to Student and Exchange Visitor Admissions Process by DHS

October 6, 2020

This document provides a summary of the Department of Homeland Security's September 25, 2020, Proposed Rule, "...

  • Blog

Federal Judge Limits Trump Administration’s Foreign Worker Ban

October 2, 2020

On October 1, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop enforcing parts of a presidential proclamation that banned many foreign workers from entering the United States. The court...

  • Blog

How Trump’s COVID-19 Immigration Ban Has Impacted Family-Based Immigration

October 1, 2020

The Trump administration is successfully using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to alter the U.S. system of legal immigration. New government data makes clear that these changes will...

  • Special Report

The Impact of COVID-19 on Noncitizens and Across the U.S. Immigration System

September 30, 2020
This report identifies disruptions throughout the immigration system because of the COVID-19 pandemic and makes recommendations for improvements to the federal government’s response.
  • Practice Advisories

Requesting Attorneys' Fees Under the Equal Access to Justice Act

August 14, 2020
In the immigration context, Equal Access to Justice Act fees generally are available in petitions for review, mandamus actions, Administrative Procedure Act suits, habeas corpus actions, and naturalization actions.
  • Blog

Farmworkers Need Better Support to Survive COVID-19

August 5, 2020

The dangers to America’s farmworkers—primarily immigrant men from Mexico with temporary H-2A visas—have long persisted under a system that is ripe for abuse. But those risks have only grown since...

  • Practice Advisories

New Rule Eliminating 30 Day Processing Deadline for Adjudication of Employment Applications Filed by Initial Asylum Applicants

June 29, 2020

On June 22, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a rule that removes the 30 day processing deadline for the adjudication of employment authorization document (EAD)...

  • Blog

The Trump Administration Expands Legal Immigration Ban, Using COVID-19 Pandemic as Excuse

June 23, 2020

The Trump administration has banned foreign nationals on certain employment-based nonimmigrant visas from entering the United States. The new ban begins June 24, at 12:01 am ET. The administration...

  • Press Release

An Expanded and More Permanent Ban on Immigration Threatens Our Values and Compromises Our Future

June 22, 2020
The Trump administration announced a more permanent order that suspends many categories of immigration to the United States and an expanded ban that halts many legal employment-based immigration categories for those outside of the United States.

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