Master’s degree is priority route to green card, says Trump – The Wall Street Journal

EDINBURGH — President Donald Trump has been pushing for a wall to be built to stop Mexican immigrants slipping across the border, but he has just opened a gate for individuals with specialist knowledge who are looking for career development in the US. Trump has made it easier for highly educated individuals to gain entry to the US to work. Having a Master's degree or a PhD will help you get priority in a new visa system that is reducing reliance on agents. The Wall Street Journal explains that Trump's new rules will give hopefuls with postgraduate degrees several chances in the green card lottery. The change is likely to be challenged, warn lawyers, with outsourcing firms having a lot to lose. Every year, the US gives opportunities to individuals from specific countries to enter the green card lottery. Some countries are excluded each year, as the US aims to attract immigrants from a wide variety of countries. – Jackie CameronUS Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.By Louise Radnofsky(The Wall Street Journal) WASHINGTON — The Trump administration unveiled changes to how the coveted visas for high-skilled foreign workers are allocated, starting this April, in an effort to boost the number awarded to people with advanced degrees from US universities.The change would result in up to 5,340 more immigrants with a master's degree or higher getting selected for the visa, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which published the new rules.The shift appears to fulfil a pledge President Trump made two years ago to help Silicon Valley companies by prioritising the most skilled applicants for the visas, known as H-1B, and reducing the number of visas secured through outsourcing firms.The new rules are likely to be challenged in court by those outsourcing companies, arguing that the administration has acted outside of its authority or sidestepped the full rulemaking process, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and partner at Holland & Knight LLP.He added that any court issuing a restraining order against the rules taking effect April 1 "could potentially throw the whole H-1B system into chaos.""If a lawsuit is filed, and an injunction is entered, it does have the risk of throwing the whole thing up in the air. That would be my greatest fear," he said.Michael Bars, a USCIS spokesman, said the rule was made "in compliance with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act."The number of visas allocated in any one year is capped, and for years, demand by employers has far outstripped that. USCIS selects applications based on a lottery, though applicants must meet qualification criteria.Under the adjusted system, workers with advanced degrees seeking H-1B visas will first be entered into a general lottery that will allocate 65,000 visas. If they aren't selected, the more-educated applicants will have another chance through a second lottery for 20,000 visas, for which entry is restricted to advanced-degree holders. In the current system, the order of the two lotteries is reversed."It's a statistics-class style problem," said Mr. Fresco. "They definitely change the outcome of how this works."USCIS director L. Francis Cissna said the rule furthers Mr. Trump's "goal of improving our immigration system by making a simple adjustment to the H-1B cap selection process. As a result, US employers seeking to employ foreign workers with a US master's or higher degree will have a greater chance of selection in the H-1B lottery in years of excess demand for new H-1B visas."Mr. Cissna's agency also said it would grant employers their requested yearlong postponement of another change, which would require applicant qualifications to be certified after the visas were awarded, rather than before.Employers themselves had asked for the change, but requested the delay because they feared the administration would be unable to adapt its technology quickly enough for it to take effect this year. Website woes combined with rule changes hobbled the system for employers to seek low-skilled workers' visas, known as H-2Bs, earlier this year.Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.comAppeared in the January 31, 2019, print edition as 'Rules Shift For Visas For Skilled Workers.'

Master’s degree is priority route to green card, says Trump – The Wall Street Journal

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