- Shine jurmiin daguu H2B visa-iin hugatsaa 10 saraas 3 jileer ugugdunu. (H1B skilled workers visa bish)
- Shineer ajliin visa-d urgudul gargaj baigaa humuus tuhain mujiinhaa Hudulmuriin uamnaas zuvshuurul avahguigeer shuud Holboond handaj zuvshuurluu avna.
- Ajil olgogch ni visa-tai holbogdon uuriin hariutsan gargah zardliig urgudul gargagchid shiljuulehgui.
____________ _________ _______

New temporary worker visa procedures to cut bureaucracy
The Department of Labor is rewriting H2B rules to help employers
find and hire immigrant workers more quickly and efficiently than
current guidelines allow.
By Nicole Gaouette
Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2008 http://www.latimes. com/news/ nationworld/ nation/la- na-immigration22 -2008may22, 0,1057981. story

Washington, DC -- With restaurants and resorts facing summer staff
shortages, the Bush administration will announce federal regulations
today to streamline the way foreign workers enter the country for
seasonal jobs.

The Department of Labor is rewriting rules to help employers find
and hire workers for temporary jobs as landscapers, waitresses and crab
pickers more quickly and efficiently than current guidelines allow.

In one major change affecting industries such as construction and
shipyards, the definition of 'temporary' will be drastically expanded
-- from the current 10 months to three years.

Adjusting the so-called H2B visa program is part of an ongoing
administration effort to reconfigure immigration laws on a piecemeal
basis in the absence of a comprehensive overhaul.

Last year, an attempt to remake the nation's immigration laws
collapsed in Congress amid conservative anger over proposals to grant
legal status to many illegal immigrants currently in the country.

A frustrated President Bush, who had favored the overhaul,
responded with a 28-point plan to tighten enforcement at the border and
in the workplace -- moves largely meant to placate conservative
Republicans. That has led to more aggressive immigration raids and an
even greater shortage of workers.

But in an effort to aid businesses, Bush also outlined plans to
simplify existing visa programs for foreign farmworkers, highly skilled
professionals and the short-term workers from all over the world who
enter the country with H2B visas.

There are limits, however, to the administration' s ability to
change the seasonal visa program, especially in one crucial area: the
number of visas available.

Employers consider the 66,000 new visas offered every year to be
woefully inadequate, and efforts to expand the H2B visa program have
been stymied in Congress. So federal officials hope that by smoothing
out the procedures, some of the difficulties businesses are having in
filling jobs with foreign workers will be eased.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in an interview with The Times
that the changes being announced today would cut down bureaucratic
delays.

'Use of the program has increased in recent years, but duplicative
requirements have . . . [meant] employers have failed to get workers in
a timely fashion,' Chao said.

And allowing shipyards and construction firms to bring workers in
for three years, Chao said, would help those industries remain
competitive in a global market.

'Sometimes temporary work is not confined to one year,' she said.

The new rules also are meant to protect American workers, she said.
Foreign workers will have to reapply annually and labor markets will be
tested yearly to ensure there are no able and available U.S. workers
for the jobs, Chao explained.

'We're trying to be very judicious and make sure we are doing this in a careful way,' she said.

The Department of Labor is proposing to speed the visa process by
allowing employers to file applications directly to the federal
government, cutting a current requirement that applications first go to
a state workforce agency. Employers no longer will have to fill out
paperwork showing that they have complied fully with program
requirements. Instead they will be able to attest, under threat of
penalties and fines, that they are complying.

Companies would be barred from passing on any program expenses to
workers, including recruitment costs or attorney's fees. Labor
officials will begin an auditing program to make sure employers are
following the rules; those who don't face fines of as much as $10,000.

Lawmakers have been deadlocked for months over making revisions to
the H2B visa program. A temporary extension had allowed workers already
here on H2B visas to return to their U.S. jobs without being subject to
the 66,000 cap. Since that exemption expired in September, the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus has blocked bipartisan attempts to extend
it.

Caucus members argue that piecemeal efforts to deal with immigration make broad reform less likely.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) thwarted an attempt Tuesday by Sen.
Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to increase
the number of H2B visas.

'The provisions [in the proposed legislation] did everything for
business and nothing for hardworking families,' Menendez said. 'The
sooner the business community understands that it must join us in
promoting relief for families as well as business, the sooner we will
succeed in beginning to reform our broken immigration system.'