USCIS Regulatory Proposals Aim To Improve Immigration Process For High-Skilled Foreign Workers

The White House is continuing to slowly roll out many of the 2014 promised changes to improve the U.S. immigration system. New regulations, published in the Federal Register on December 31, 2015 seek to modernize and improve certain employment-based immigrant and nonimmigrant visa programs for high-skilled foreign workers. Benefits to participants in those programs would include improved processes for U.S. employers seeking to sponsor and retain immigrant and non-immigrant workers; greater stability and job flexibility for such workers; and more transparency and consistency in the application of DHS policy.

Many of these changes are aimed at improving the ability of U.S. employers to hire and retain high-skilled foreign nationals who are already the beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions and are waiting to become lawful permanent residents (LPRs), while also increasing employment flexibility for such workers. The proposed regulations would