After Trump-era controversy, USCIS terms America as a ‘nation of welcome and possibility’ for immigrants
By Naresh M Gehi
After planning to introduce the startup visa for STEM professionals and entrepreneurs, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has unveiled its new mission statement terming America as a nation of welcome and possibility for immigrants.
This move is to get on track visa applications, employment authorization documents and other immigration benefits. This also promises to be fair, show integrity and respect towards foreign applicants who wish to work, study, reside and become citizens of US or even seek refuge in the US.
Under the Biden administration, the agency is taking a special method, utilizing phrases like “welcome” and “respect,” in addition to shortening the statement.
Read: ‘Biden committed to bring US immigration system into 21st century’ (January 19, 2022)
During the Trump-era, USCIS removed the reference to ‘nation of immigrants’ from its mission statement in February 2018. The change got here to symbolize a shift in direction of an extra hard line method with a statement that emphasized “safeguarding its integrity” and “securing the homeland.”
The American Immigration Lawyers Association called it an “insidious attempt by the Trump administration to diminish the valuable contributions that immigrants have made” to the United States.
The agency’s new mission statement reads: “USCIS upholds America’s promise as a nation of welcome and possibility with fairness, integrity, and respect for all we serve.”
This is the agency’s third mission statement since 2005. USCIS is accountable for managing federal immigration advantages, applications and different purposes, together with hosting naturalization ceremonies, processing green cards and serving to confirm employment eligibility.
The Biden administration’s rhetoric on immigration has diverged sharply from the prior administration, emphasizing the contribution of immigrants to the US and “welcoming” methods, in addition to transfer to cease utilizing the time period “illegal alien” in public paperwork and speeches.
Reshaping immigration coverage, nevertheless, has proved trickier for the administration, as lawsuits and infighting stalled policy changes, regardless of the lofty targets set out by President Joe Biden when he took office.
Read: US announces new actions to attract global STEM talent (January 21, 2022)
In my opinion, I greatly foresee that there will be tremendous expansion in the contributions of the Immigrants as currently, there is a shortage of the labor in the US which was mainly contributed by the immigrants.
In fact, US has expanded its bandwidth by adding 22 STEM occupation fields to the already existing list and very soon highly qualified people shall be “welcomed” more into the US.
Specifically scientists, researchers, PHDs, IT engineers, space tech engineers etc will benefit tremendously under the recent plans of the Biden Administration.
Read: U.S. immigration agency replaces Trump-era mission statement that removed “nation of immigrants” label (February 9, 2022)
(Naresh M Gehi is the founder of NYC based firm, Gehi & Associates. The immigration attorney has appeared on CNN, ABC World News with Brain Ross, Fox News and has featured in the Forbes magazine)