The RELIEF Act

The RELIEF Act is one of several pieces of immigration-related legislation being considered by Congress and is endorsed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

Last month, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced S. 2603, Resolving Extended Limbo for Immigrant Employees and Families (RELIEF) Act. They have been joined by other champions of immigration reform, including Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Patty Murray (D-WA). The bill helps ensure that the US immigration system advances the needs of American families, communities and businesses. The RELIEF Act contains many necessary reforms to achieve a fair and equitable solution to the ever-increasing immigrant visa backlog, including:

Eliminating the family and employment green card backlog over five years in the order in which applications were filed.

o   The current immigrant visa backlog has nearly 5 million eligible individuals who are waiting to become lawful permanent residents (LPRs) simply because a visa number is not available to them. They have demonstrated that they are eligible to live and work permanently in the United States but are forced at times to wait decades before they actually can. These individuals have followed the legal path towards becoming an immigrant but risk falling out of status, being separated from family members and losing out on economic opportunities as they wait for a visa number to become available to them.

o   The RELIEF Act addresses this untenable situation by making additional visas available to those individuals who have been stuck in the immigrant visa backlog. This is a necessary step to ensure that those individuals who have proven that they are eligible for the benefit and who have followed the immigration laws can pursue their American dreams and get on the path to become U.S. citizens.

Making it easier for families to be together.
o   The RELIEF Act makes two important changes to ensure that families can be together sooner while ensuring that families are not significantly disadvantaged because of their country of birth.

o   First, by exempting the spouse and children of LPRs from the numerical limitations, the RELIEF Act ensures that these individuals can more quickly reunite with their family member who is already a contributing member of U.S. society.

o   Second, the RELIEF Act increases the per-country numerical limitation for all family-based immigrants from 7 percent to 15 percent to be more reflective of immigrant visa demand.

Exempting derivative beneficiaries of employment-based petitions from annual green card limits.

o   The current system of employment-based immigration is intended to bring more workers with needed skills into the United States to bolster the economy. The current practice of counting derivatives individually against the employment-based numerical limitations undermines these goals.

o   Nearly half of all green cards that are granted annually are distributed to the family members of the principal applicant, which exponentially increases the wait times for all eligible principal applicants.

o   The wait times for all prospective employment-based immigrants increases simply because some individuals get married or have children while waiting.

o   The annual green card limit for employment-based immigrants of 140,000 should be allocated towards those individuals who are specifically described in the statute and will fulfill the intent of the statute.

o   By exempting the family members of these workers from the total allotment, the RELIEF Act will ensure that the U.S. economy will more quickly benefit from those individuals who have proven that they will be providing necessary skills to the U.S. economy.

Protecting “aging-out” children from falling out of status and becoming ineligible to become LPRs based on their parents’ petitions.
o   This is a necessary common-sense reform. Through no fault of their own, children who have been stuck in the backlog for years or even decades, lose their underlying nonimmigrant status and become ineligible to become an LPR simply because they have grown up. They are powerless from changing this situation.

o   The RELIEF Act solves this problem by determining a child’s eligibility for lawful permanent residence, not based on the age they are when applying for permanent residency, but by considering their age at the time the associated immigrant visa petition was filed.

Eliminating the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants.
o   The application of per country quotas for employment-based immigrants defeats the purpose of our employment-based immigration system to ensure that workers with necessary skills help boost the U.S. economy, by placing emphasis on an applicant’s country of birth rather than their qualifications.

o   This has led to similarly situated employees of U.S. businesses being subject to drastically different wait times not based on their merit, but rather based on where they were born and the demand from that country. For example, skilled workers from India may be forced to wait for multiple decades, whereas skilled workers from Europe may have no wait at all.

o   By eliminating employment-based per country caps, the RELIEF Act emphasizes the skills an individual will bring to the United States and equalizes the playing field for all individuals, regardless of where they were born.