U.S. immigration relaxes rule for 'green card' seekers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. immigration service reversed itself again on "green cards" on Tuesday, saying it would begin immediately accepting applications from thousands of foreign professional workers.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services abruptly reversed an announcement issued in June offering expedited processing of green card petitions for skilled foreign professionals working under H1-B visas.

Thousands of holders of H1-B visas -- reserved for skilled workers in computing, engineering and other special professions -- scrambled and spent money on lawyers and medical exams to prepare green card applications for a July 1 deadline.

However, on July 2, the U.S. State Department announced that no applications would be accepted until the fall because of a large visa backlog.

The announcement drew protests from disgruntled green card applicants and Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, who called on the State Department to reverse itself.

"The public reaction to the July 2 announcement made it clear that the federal government's management of this process needs further review," USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez said in a statement announcing the latest flip-flop.

Gonzalez vowed to work on implementing a more efficient system in line with public expectations.

"It's unfortunate that the administration had to tie itself in a pretzel before coming to this conclusion," Schumer said in a statement, calling it a welcome reversal.

US to reverse some denials of work visas

The US will reserve some denials of work visas, a positive move to resolve the messy immigration tangle, The Wall Street Journal said.

The government will accept at least some applications for work-based green cards that were filed by thousands of skilled workers in early July at the government's invitation and then abruptly rejected, according to the report published on Monday.

Tens of thousands of skilled workers, many of them in the US on temporary H1B visas, responded to an official invitation, in a June 12 "visa bulletin" issued by the State Department, to take the final step in July toward attaining permanent US residency.

That sent workers, their families and their employers scrambling to compile paperwork and meet other requirements such as medical exams. Normally, eligible employment-sponsored workers wait years for their numbers to be called, according to the report.

Then, July 2, as applications poured into processing centres, the State Department announced in a bulletin "update" that no employment-based immigrant visas were left for the fiscal year ending Sep 30 because of "sudden backlog reduction" by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

USCIS announced it would reject applications that it received.

The July 2 decision has provoked outrage among immigration lawyers, foreign workers and their employers.

The report quoted people familiar with the situation as saying that officials are working out the final details of a plan that would at least partially rectify the problem.

But it isn't clear whether the immigration agency will now accept all applications and process them later, accept only those that have arrived, or come up with some other approach, the report added.