immigration reform Archives - The National Law Forum

President Obama’s Executive Orders on Immigration – Interagency Cooperation and DOL Initiatives

On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions designed to reduce the strain on the country’s immigration system. Many of these policies will have a direct effect on employers and the business community and demonstrate that the increased interagency cooperation and enforcement we have seen in recent years will continue.

Visa Application, Passport

The President has ordered the creation of an interagency working group consisting of U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to identify policies and procedures to promote the consistent enforcement of labor, employment and immigration laws. Two of the topics the working group will review include 1) promoting worker cooperation with enforcement authorities without fear of retaliation based on immigration status, and 2) ensuring that employers do not use federal agencies to undermine worker protection laws by introducing immigration authorities into labor disputes. DOL’s interagency working group fact sheet is available here. This interagency group appears to be ready to continue the DOL-DHS discussions that began with the signing in March 2011 of a Memorandum of Understanding (which has since been revised) between those two agencies governing their coordination with respect to their various civil enforcement activities and avoidance of conflicts.

DOL has also proposed to review the permanent labor certification program (PERM), which is used to certify a shortage of U.S. workers who are able, willing and qualified to fill certain positions. This certification is a necessary prerequisite for many employment-based legal permanent residence processes. For example, DOL has reported that employers filed more than 70,000 PERM applications seeking to certify shortages of U.S. workers for specific positions in fiscal year 2014. Among other key changes, DOL will attempt to modernize the PERM program so that it can identify worker shortages more effectively. This part of the President’s directives will hopefully have a positive impact on employers trying to fill positions for which the pool of qualified applicants is limited. DOL’s PERM fact sheet is available here.

Other initiatives flowing from the President’s announcement but whose details are not yet known include improved allocation of immigrant (legal permanent resident) visas; increased portability of work authorization without jeopardizing a pending legal permanent resident process; expanded work authorization for students, recent graduates and the spouses of certain professional-level workers; and efforts to increase the number of investors eligible to enter the country.

ARTICLE BY

Gene T. Schaeffer, Jr.

Monica Santa Maria

Godfrey & Kahn S.C.

Immigration Developments for Highly Skilled Workers: Changes the Business Community Can Expect as a Result of President Obama’s Executive Action on Immigration Reform

On Thursday, November 20th, coinciding with President Obama’s announcement regarding his forthcoming executive action on immigration, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson issued a memo to the directors of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directing the agencies to take action on the president’s announcements. The DHS memo provides a framework for changes the government wishes to make, relating to skilled immigration, to alleviate some longstanding problems in our business immigration system.

Many of the suggested changes are laudable but regulatory rulemaking will be required for most of these changes to take effect. Unfortunately, whereas President Obama was very clear in his announcement about timelines for the changes he is taking to protect certain undocumented immigrants, timeframes for producing regulations or for most of the business immigration changes are lacking in the secretary’s memo. The business community is left to wonder when these announced changes will materialize and what specific forms they will take.

Modernize the Employment-Based Immigrant Visa System

There are caps (quotas) on various types of immigrant visas (green cards) that result in extremely long backlogs and delays for people born in certain countries such as India and China. If two software engineers at the same company are sponsored for green cards at the same time, and one of them is from Germany and the other is from India, the German applicant will get his green card in about two years while it will likely take his Indian colleague ten years to conclude the process. During this excruciatingly long waiting period, the Indian software engineer is supposed to remain in the same position for which he was originally sponsored. This benefits neither the employer nor the software engineer.

The existing visa distribution is deeply flawed beyond the backlog problem. Every year tens of thousands of visas in some categories go unused. These unused visas go to waste because they don’t roll over from one fiscal year to the next. It’s like vacation days at a company – in many companies if you don’t use them, you lose them. Secretary Johnson directed USCIS to work with the Department of State to better understand immigrant visa availability over the course of the fiscal year and to rationalize the visa distribution system so available visas do not go unused. Secretary Johnson also ordered the Department of State to modernize the currently unwieldy visa bulletin.

Reform “Optional Practical Training” for Foreign Students and Graduates from US Universities

Most foreign students on F-1 student visas are eligible for a year of post-graduate optional practical training (OPT) as long as the work experience that they gain is in a field that relates to their degree program. But 12 months of authorized OPT frequently is not enough time to bridge the time between the foreign student’s authorization to work on OPT and the granting of a temporary work visa status. The H-1B quota opens every year on April 1st, and the H-1B visas do not become effective until the following October 1st, at the beginning of the government’s new fiscal year. The quota has been exhausted immediately in the last several years, leaving no H-1B visas available until the next government fiscal year – resulting in a 17-month period with no H-1B visa availability.

This problem is less severe for F-1 foreign students who major in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) fields. These students are eligible to apply to extend their OPT work authorization for an additional 17 months, as long as they are employed by US employers participating in the government’s E-Verify program. (E-Verify is a program that any employer can participate in, if it is willing to check its employees’ documents through a government database to ensure the employees are legally authorized to work in the United States. Some employers don’t have a choice: if they have certain federal government contracts, or operate in certain states, they must sign up for E-Verify.) Qualified foreign students who graduate with US STEM degrees are able to continue to work legally through multiple government fiscal years, increasing their chances of “winning” an H-1B visa before their OPT period expires.

The list of STEM “majors” that qualify a foreign student for a STEM OPT extension is limited, however, and the focus until now has been on the US degree program that the foreign student has just completed. It would be much more useful if the government would expand the program to allow for STEM-based OPT extensions for F-1 students who either graduate with a US STEM degree OR complete a STEM degree prior to studying in the United States. For example, many of our MBA students come to the United States with a STEM undergraduate degree. Furthermore, the list of STEM “degrees” should be expanded to be much more robust.

Accordingly, Secretary Johnson directed USCIS and ICE to “develop regulations for notice and comment to expand the degree programs eligible for OPT and extend the time period and use of OPT for foreign STEM students and graduates.” The business community would like to see a significant expansion of STEM eligibility in the new rules. But the business community may not appreciate some OPT restrictions that the Secretary has suggested might be paired with expanded STEM eligibility. Currently there is great flexibility associated with OPT. F-1 graduates on OPT can be self-employed or work as independent contractors, and if they work as employees on a W-2, there is no prevailing wage requirement associated with their employment. The flexibility associated with OPT has proven extremely helpful to foreign entrepreneurs and inventors who use the post-graduation period to refine their inventions, products and business ideas, form companies, and find investors.

Promote Research and Development in the United States

In his announcement regarding executive immigration reform, the president emphasized the importance to the United States of the contributions of foreign entrepreneurs, researchers, start-up company founders and investors. Secretary Johnson’s memo recognizes that the existing immigration law does not meet the needs of these creative individuals who contribute to the vitality of the United States. In his memo, he directs the agencies to expand two existing immigration law provisions. The first, the National Interest Waiver provision, provides a pathway for a permanent immigration status. The second, the “parole” authority in the law, provides a temporary status.

The National Interest Waiver application allows people with “exceptional ability” to bypass the labor market test required for most employment-based green card applicants if the individual can demonstrate that his or her work is in the national interest. USCIS takes a narrow view of who can qualify in this immigration category and therefore its usefulness as an immigration vehicle has been extremely limited. Secretary Johnson recognized this in his memo and directed USCIS to “issue guidance or regulations to clarify the standard by which a national interest waiver can be granted, with the aim of promoting its greater use for the benefit of the U.S. economy.” Hopefully we will see a significant expansion for eligibility, including for people who found companies and are stimulating the economy, even if it is a local economy. Stimulating the local economy is certainly in the national interest. Asking someone who founds a start-up company to demonstrate an immediate and obvious “national” impact across the entire United States would not be realistic and would run counter to the desire expressed in the memo to expand the reach and usefulness of the national interest waiver green card option.

The government’s parole authority in immigration law, which authorizes certain individuals to enter the United States without a visa, would be expanded by Secretary Johnson’s directive to accommodate entrepreneurs, inventors, and researchers. We have no viable visa option in the United States for entrepreneurs, researchers, and inventors. Over the past years, multiple “Start-up Visa” bills were introduced into Congress, only to languish and die there. Consequently, many of these brilliant individuals leave the United States and set up their businesses or engage in their research in more welcoming countries. This is a creative approach to solving the problem in the short term. It will be interesting to see the criteria that will be applied and the mechanism for implementing this change, especially for the applicants who may already be in the United States. In terms of eligibility criteria, we already know that applicants will understandably have to demonstrate that they have sufficient financial means to ensure that they will not become a burden on the US government. Bring Greater Consistency to the L-1B Visa Program

Multinational companies in the United States use the L-1 visa program to transfer personnel to the United States from overseas offices. These transferees can either be “managers or executives” or individuals with “specialized knowledge” needed by the US employer. The Obama administration has heard the repeated outcries from the business community that the government’s interpretations of what constitutes “specialized knowledge” for L-1 intracompany transferee purposes are inconsistent, flawed, unreasonable, and unduly protectionist. Employers filing these petitions over the last many years have not been able to expect that a strong petition will be approved and have had to expend inordinate legal fees to fight and appeal incorrect government decisions and unjust denials. This has had a material negative impact on multinational US businesses.

Recognizing “vague guidance and inconsistent interpretation” of the term “specialized knowledge,” Secretary Johnson directed USCIS to “issue a policy memorandum that provides clear, consolidated guidance” for this visa category with the goal to “improve consistency in adjudications, and enhance companies’ confidence in the program.” Over the years, USCIS has issued plenty of policy memoranda regarding “specialized knowledge” but the accumulated guidance has been confusing. This time around the guidance must be crystal clear, reasonable, and consistent with the real-world business practices of multinational companies. But regardless of what the memo says, the guidance will be worthless if it is not actually implemented by the adjudicators in the field. At the end of the day, DHS must demonstrate a commitment to enforce the terms of the memo and USCIS officers who apply an inappropriate standard to their adjudications must be held to account by the US government.

Increase Worker Portability

It can take a decade for certain skilled immigrants’ green card applications to be approved. These skilled workers find themselves “stuck” for years in the same position and with the same sponsoring employer. Their career development and job mobility are terribly hampered by the visa backlogs. Under current law, a green card applicant can only “port” his or her green card application to a new employer or accept a promotion with the same employer towards the very end of this lengthy green card process, which can take 10 years. In order for an applicant to take advantage of the green card “portability” provisions, he or she has to jump through many hoops: the first two (out of three) steps in the green card process have to be filed and approved, the third and final application must be lodged with the government, and on top of that, the new job must be “the same or similar” to the one for which the original employer tested the labor market. This “portability” rule has been particularly unhelpful, precisely because many of the affected green card applicants cannot take advantage of it. They can’t benefit from “portability” because of the ridiculously long backlogs: it takes them 8-10 years to reach the third and final step of the green card process, so effectively it does not help them at all.

Cognizant of the current limitations of green card “portability,” Secretary Johnson has directed USCIS to issue a policy memorandum clarifying the meaning of “same or similar” for this purpose. It remains to be seen how much flexibility will be built into the memo. The guidance in the memo should be designed to serve the needs of the business marketplace to facilitate career development and labor mobility.

Preregistration for Adjustment of Status

This development is quite radical. Dovetailing with the emphasis on facilitating worker portability, USCIS is expected to develop regulations to allow foreign nationals with an approved employment-based immigrant petition who are caught in the immigrant visa quota backlogs to preregister for adjustment of status in order to obtain the benefits of a pending application. This is expected to impact approximately 410,000 people. This is a marked departure from anything in the current business immigration regulations. It would not only benefit the employee who is the principal green card applicant, but would enable his or her dependents to obtain employment authorization and immediately enter the US labor market. These impacted foreign nationals will be thrilled with this change.

Proposed Rule to Extend Work Authorization to Certain H-1B Spouses

The proposed rule published in May 2014 to extend work authorization to the spouses of H-1B employees with approved I-140 employment-based immigrant visa petitions is still outstanding, but is expected to be finalized in the next few months.

Summary

The Obama administration’s proposals to streamline and modernize key aspects of the country’s skilled immigration provisions are laudable and reflect that the administration has heard the lamentations and complaints from the users of these programs (employers and employees alike) that the current system is unworkable and archaic. Ultimately legislation must be passed to address the shortcomings in the US immigration system on a more fundamental and permanent basis. But no one knows how many more years it will take for the law to be changed. Accordingly, the administration’s proposals for executive, administrative improvements may result in some significant temporary solutions and benefits for the business community in the United States. Now we must wait and see (a) what shape the concrete solutions will take, and (b) how long it will take to roll them out.

ARTICLE BY

Susan J. Cohen

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

Employers’ Immigration Law Update – September 2014

ICE Levies $2M Fine against Hotel for I-9 Related Violations

A Salt Lake City-based hotel will have to pay nearly $2 million for hiring unauthorized workers, including illegal aliens. The hotel will avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for its full cooperation with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation and for taking action to correct its hiring practices. According to the non-prosecution agreement, several lower-level employees and mid-level managers conspired to rehire unauthorized workers amidst an administrative audit of I-9 employee verification forms that began in September 2010. The hotel was notified that 133 employees were not authorized to work in the United States; however, the conspirators created three temporary employment agencies, essentially shell companies, to rehire 43 of the unauthorized, and most of the workers returned under different names using fraudulent identity documents.

$300K for H-2B Violations

According to a Department of Labor announcement, the agency has charged a landscaping company with violating federal law by failing to hire U.S. workers, and for underpaying temporary foreign workers. The company will pay $280,000 in back wages to 80 workers and nine job applicants and $20,000 in civil money penalties.

Immigration Reform Update

With comprehensive immigration reform legislation no longer a realistic possibility for the foreseeable future, advocates for reform have shifted their focus to executive actions the President may take unilaterally to implement changes in immigration policy.

The President reportedly is considering broad use of executive action, granting relief potentially to up to 6 million undocumented individuals, similar to what has been provided under the administration’s Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

Building off of DACA, the President has directed the Department of Homeland Security to review the administration’s immigration enforcement policies and recommend additional changes, possibly expanding the deferred action and work authorization to family members of U.S. citizens and lawful U.S. residents. The administration reportedly also is looking at possible changes to current law and regulation that could benefit employers.

Any unilateral action by the administration likely will be controversial.

Owner Liable for H-1B, J-1 Costs

The owner of several medical clinics is personally liable for back wages and the costs of physicians’ H-1B visas and J-1 waivers, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled. Kutty v. DOL, No. 11-6120 (6th Cir. Aug. 20, 2014). The Court held Dr. Mohan Kutty and his medical clinics violated H-1B provisions by having physicians cover the costs of their own H-1B visa petitions and related J-1 visa waivers.

Immigration Reform Efforts Are Still Alive

Despite the recent resignation announcement of the House Majority Leader, immigration reform is still very much alive.

As reported just this week, the call to reform the country’s immigration system is louder than ever on and off The Hill. Immigration reform continues to garner strong and vocal support by CEOs, industry leaders and more. Placing the success or failure of immigration reform on the shoulders of one elected official is not an accurate metric. Indeed, several elected officials who strongly support immigration reform, and have for many years, won their respective primary with few challenges stemming from their support of immigration reform. Now is the time to move forward and refocus efforts to reform our country’s immigration system.

Article By:

Laura Foote Reiff

Of:

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Congress and the President Spar over Immigration Reform Prospects: Tempest in a Teapot

At a recent White House law enforcement event, President Barack Obama took the opportunity to pressure Republicans in the House of Representatives to present an immigration reform bill this summer in advance of the November mid-term elections.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made comments supportive of immigration reform and issued a “statement of principles” developed by House Republican leadership addressing immigration reform in January. As reported by the Cincinnati Inquirer, the Speaker was careful earlier this month to distinguish that proposed roadmap to legal status for some illegal aliens from an outright amnesty. ”I reject that premise. … If you come in and plead guilty and pay a fine, that’s not amnesty,” he said. Regardless of how reform measures are characterized, though, patience is flagging and significant progress remains stubbornly elusive.

The President’s comments on immigration reform, while also asking his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, to delay releasing details of a recent study on the country’s deportation system, were seen as giving lawmakers time to propose and debate new legislation, but continuing to hold out the threat of an executive order should Congress fail to act. Activists on the left are pressuring the President to act. They urge an executive order similar to the one issued in 2012 extending temporary status and work authorization to some unauthorized aliens brought to the U.S. as children. The new measure for example, could extend the same type of protection to parents of those children, advocates contend.

Nearly two million illegal immigrants have been deported since the President took office, according to a New York Times review and official records. The President asked the DHS secretary to evaluate how to make the deportation system more humane. Further executive action on immigration may spur additional controversy and make comprehensive immigration reform negotiations in Congress more difficult.

An example of this type of challenge is in seen in the obstacles besetting the bi-partisan “ENLIST Act“(H.R. 2377), a bill designed to extend legal permanent residence to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and who enlist in the U.S. armed forces. Hopes for easy passage have been set back. Contrary to the expectations of many supporters, including the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), the measure was not taken up for discussion as part of the annual defense bill. This is discouraging for proponents of reform. Political brinksmanship, rather than a genuine willingness address the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, appears to be the order of the day.

Article By:

Sean G. Hanagan

Of:

Jackson Lewis P.C.

Leaders in Higher Education Call for Immigration Reform

As the immigration reform debate endures in the House of Representatives, leaders in higher education are continuing their call for improvements to the nation’s immigration system.

Most recently, presidents of 28 Catholic and Jesuit colleges and universities united in a fast for immigration reform on Ash Wednesday (March 5, 2014). In doing so, they joined the “Fast for Families” movement, which reignited the immigration debate last fall when the movement’s leaders, supported by many members of Congress and The President, fasted for twenty-two days on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Students have not been far behind in the campaign to reform the nation’s immigration system. In February, one hundred and fifty students from nine Catholic colleges and Universities held a Student Summit on Immigration Reform.

These are just a few of the continuing calls made by members of the higher education community for Congress to pass immigration reform. In late 2013, leaders of more than one hundred colleges and universities across the United States wrote to their Congressional representatives to support the overhaul of the immigration system.

In many ways, our nation’s colleges and universities are on the front lines of our broken immigration system. Roughly a third of their graduate students in STEM fields are foreign nationals – in some states it is well over half. Leaders in higher education see how often our immigration policies prevent the nation from retaining and capitalizing on these talented individuals and create obstacles to growth.

The higher education community is hopeful that its continuing efforts will prompt the Congressional leadership to renew its efforts to pass meaningful immigration reform.

Article by:

Nataliya Rymer

Of:

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Immigration Reform: It’s Time for a Course Correction

The National Law Review recently published an article regarding Immigration Reform written by Susan J. Cohen with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.:

The first two months of 2013 have seen a flurry of activity relating to immigration reform. President Obama is pushing for comprehensive reform as are powerful factions within both the Senate and the House. And the political will and rising tide of opinion in favor of reform are making for unusual bedfellows, as exemplified by the recent joint statement of principles from the American Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.

But in this same timeframe, lawmakers anxious to change current immigration law to create new pathways for entrepreneurs and highly educated immigrants have introduced a number of bills designed for this purpose, including the Immigration Innovation (I²) Act of 2013 introduced by Senators Hath, Klobuchar, Rubio and Coons and the Startup Act 3.0, introduced by Senators Moran, Warner and Coons. These bills contain many excellent provisions that make tremendous sense, addressing shortcomings and deficiencies in our current law. For example, the I² bill would significantly increase the H-1B cap and would exempt graduates of U.S. advanced degree programs from the cap. It would authorize employment for the spouses of H-1B workers and would make it easier for those workers to move from one company to another. It would also streamline the green card process and eliminate the enormous backlogs in the current system. The Startup Act 3.0 would provide a new and much-needed work visa for foreign entrepreneurs who can attract angel or venture funding to their new U.S. ventures.

Our immigration laws are so broken and outdated that only comprehensive reform will correct our course. And the lawmakers who have introduced bills such as I² and the Startup Act 3.0 clearly hope that their prescriptions for specific improvements will be incorporated into any final comprehensive bill. But should comprehensive reform prove elusive, at a minimum Congress should pass some version of these bills, to attract and retain the best and the brightest of our foreign students and entrepreneurs, and help to boost and strengthen the U.S. economy.

Immigration Legislation: What You Need To Know Now

The National Law Review published an article by Teresa B. Finer of Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A., regarding Immigration Legislation:

Senator Rubio and his “Gang of Eight” proposed an outline for immigration reform Monday, and President Obama followed on Tuesday with his broad initiatives. The bipartisan committee intends to have draft legislation by March, and a vote by August. After many years of congressional debates to no avail, Democrats and Republicans are tripping over each other these days to be the first to suggest a reasonable plan to resolve the immigration concerns that most of the country agrees needs to be fixed in some way. But immigration is perhaps more politically charged than many longstanding and widespread national concerns, and the concern is whether legislation proposed and passed so quickly can actually solve the problems with our current system.

In order to understand whether proposed legislation will make a positive difference, of course, it is important to understand what our current set of immigration laws provides. Most Americans have little to no knowledge about the current laws restricting immigration, simply because they have had little to no meaningful exposure to these regulations. Here is a review of some of the key issues proposed thus far:

The media has focused primarily on the estimated 11 million residing illegally in the U.S. The debate ranges from whether we should provide any benefits to these individuals, to whether the fix should include a “path to citizenship,” and what must occur before benefits are extended to this group. In evaluating the best course, it is important to understand the difference between temporary work authorization, permanent residency, and U.S. citizenship. The first level immigration benefit is temporary legal status coupled with employment authorization – a temporary work card with conditions for extension. The second step is permanent residency – casually referred to as “green card” status, authorizing long-term stay and open employment authorization. The very highest benefit would be U.S. citizenship – the right to carry a U.S. passport, a faster route to sponsor certain relatives, and most significantly for politicians – the right to vote. Providing the right to vote for 11 million new voters certainly has serious political ramifications for both parties, and this is probably why the “path to citizenship” issue is so important in the congressional debate. But for the actual individuals living here illegally for years, work authorization leading to a green card would be a major win.

The bipartisan group has proposed that permanent residency for those here illegally only be granted after border security and a better tracking system have been established, and only after those foreign nationals who have applied through traditional legal channels have gone through the system and been approved for permanent residency. President Obama thus far has opposed a hold on residency based on a decision on secure borders. The question is whether there should be some waiting period before granting permanent residency to those here illegally, and if so, how we will determine that the border is sufficiently secure to prevent mass illegal entry in the future. How can this be measured? Are secure borders a logical tie into the grant of permanent residency for this group, or should this be included but unrelated? Requiring those illegally here to wait their turn behind those that have applied legally seems easier to track, but this, too, is a complex issue, as the lines for legal immigration are unreasonably long and should also be adjusted in a comprehensive bill.

While the illegal issue has been in the press for several years, in contrast, the proposed legislation’s suggestions to change legal immigration are new and unfamiliar to most. Specifically, for example, the proposal suggests that for the first time, permanent residency should be awarded to anyone that graduates with a U.S. Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math (“STEM” fields of study.) Current law gives some preference to those with U.S. Master’s degrees in any field of study. Under current law, for example, additional H-1B temporary visas for professionals are available for those with U.S. Master’s level degrees in any professional field. But this new proposal goes way farther, issuing permanentresidency for anyone with a U.S. Master’s STEM degrees. Would this include the graduate at the bottom of the class? Would it include graduates with U.S. degrees completed online, or even U.S. Master’s degrees completed while residing overseas? Should we grant permanent residency to a foreign national who comes to the U.S. for a one year graduate program and who has no job offer in a STEM field, maybe not even a temporary offer of employment in any field? Do we want to immediately extend this valuable benefit to those who are able to graduate, or only to those able to secure job offers following graduation? If so, how long must they work to maintain the status?

The proposal also includes more visas for unskilled workers, which might include roofers, caretakers for the elderly, groundsmen, and other positions that have been difficult for employers to fill, as well as a program to add visa categories to bring in more temporary agricultural workers to the U.S. Many employers will welcome such provisions. The details of precisely how employers would petition for these workers, however, and whether these employees ultimately will be given a long-term right to stay in the U.S. is the key to whether this represents worthwhile change or just more government bureaucracy.