Immigration Reform Bill Introduced in Senate (Part 2 of 3)

In Part 1 of this Article, we provided you with an overview of the Immigration Reform Bill that was introduced in the Senate on April 17, 2013 and familiarized you with some of the key provisions for those who are present in the Unites States in an unlawful status.  This article will highlight some of the key provisions of the bill for those who are present in the U.S. in a legal status. 

Some of the key features of the bill for legal immigration are as follows:

1. The bill eliminates the backlog for employment and the family-based category;
2. For employment based green card categories, the bill exempts the following categories from the annual numerical limits on employment-based immigrants: derivatives of primary beneficiary; aliens of extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics; outstanding professors and researchers; multinational executives and managers; doctoral degree holders in any field; and certain physicians;
3. Additionally the bills allocates 40 percent of worldwide level of employment-based visas to: (1) members of the professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent whose services are sought in sciences, arts, professions, or business by an employer in the United States (including certain individuals with foreign medical degree) and (2) individual who have earned a master’s degree or higher in a field in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics from an accredited U.S. institution of higher education in five years immediately before the petition was filed and have an offer of employment in a related field;
4. The bill creates a startup visa for those who want to emigrate to the United States to start their own companies;
5. The bill eliminates the Diversity Visa Program though the individuals who are selected for diversity immigrant visa for the fiscal years 2013-14 will be eligible to receive it;
6. The bill amends the definition of immediate relative to include a child and/or spouse of individuals with Green Card;
7. The bill amends the category for married sons and daughters to United States citizens to include only those who are under 31 years of age;
8. The bill amends the family based category.  The new systems will have two family preference categories and it will cover unmarried adult child; married adult children who filed before age 31, and unmarried adult children of green card holders.  Additionally, the bill repeals the availability of immigrant visas for siblings of U.S. citizens once 18 months have elapsed since the date of enactment of the law;
9. The bill expands the V visa and would allow beneficiaries of an approved family petition to live in the U.S. and allow certain other family members to visit the U.S. for up to 60 days per year;
10. The bills adds a merit based visa, which will be created in the fifth year after enactment, and would award points to individuals based on their length of stay in the U.S., employment, education, and other considerations.