Major Nursing Shortages? Foreign National Nursing Intervention as a Plan of Care.

Originally published in Healthcare Michigan, Volume 40,  No. 11 The nursing profession’s vital signs are unstable and require an intervention. The single largest occupation of health care workers is Registered Nurses (RN). It is also the fifth largest profession nationally.[1] Yet the nursing profession is facing extreme shortages as the need for health care workers grows. Specifically, …

10 Hot Tips for Employers to Consider This H-1B Cap Season

March Madness is around the corner, and we are not talking about basketball! For the immigration aficionado, the much-anticipated annual H-1B cap season for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 is gearing up to start. While many will make bold predictions for their NCAA basketball brackets, HR professionals will have a bracket of their own, tracking employees …

H-2B Visa Program gets “Peak Load” Visa Numbers Boost for FY 2023

As U.S. companies struggle to find workers to fill their rosters, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of Labor (DOL), offered a reprieve through the authorization of supplemental visa numbers for the H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker program. Industries that may benefit from this “peak load need” visa boost include: hospitality, …

Remote Work Policy: Immigration and Post-COVID

As employers make adjustments to incorporate Remote Work Policies in a post-COVID world, employers with a foreign workforce must also carefully consider antiquated immigration rules for their Work from Home (WFH) workforce. Of all the nonimmigrant work visa sponsorships, the H-1B category is the most restrictive on worksite location and movement. The same strict rules …

Immigration Update: Biden Administration Takes Action

The Biden Administration appears to have addressed some of its promises on U.S. immigration policy by issuing a memorandum entitled “Memorandum and Presidential Proclamations” on January 20, 2021, the first day of his administration. We shared in our recent December 2020 blog post, Immigration 2021: A New Administration, A New Beginning?, an update on what …

Immigration 2021: A New Administration, A New Beginning?

For the last 4 years, U.S. immigration law and policy has been in the spotlight with numerous Presidential Proclamations, Executive Orders, and rapid policy changes as well as regulations, which have resulted in a long-lasting ripple effect on U.S. employers and its foreign workforce.  These changes have resulted in numerous challenges in court through litigation. …

2020 USCIS I-9 Guidance Round-Up

As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, employees continue to work from home in record numbers, and employers continue to scramble to adjust their business operations and employee relations policies to accommodate the so-called “new normal”. Following-up on our earlier news about the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) odd relaxation of certain …

USMCA Implemented: What North American Companies Need to Know on Immigration

On July 1, 2020, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) entered into force and replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that governed continental trade for more than two and a half decades.  While the new agreement includes key upgrades in areas such as digital trade and intellectual property to reflect the 21st Century economy, …