While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

For more information on Obama to push immigration bill as a key priority:
Read this story from the NYT

8.1. Eligibility
8.1.1. Who is eligible for the STEM extension?

F-1 students who completed a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in a STEM field and are currently engaged in post-completion OPT may apply for the STEM extension if they have a job or job offer from an E-Verify employer.
8.1.2. Is the extension available to students who completed their post-completion OPT prior to April 8, 2008?

No. The eligibility is not retroactive.
8.1.3. How does a student or DSO know which degrees are designated as STEM degrees?

Read more about the 17 month extension here

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a reminder that the revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification (Rev. 02/02/09), goes into effect today for all U.S. employers. The revision date is printed on the lower right-hand corner of the form.

The interim final rule, published Dec.17, 2008 in the Federal Register, revised the list of documents acceptable for the Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) process. Employers may no longer use previous versions of the Form I-9.

The revised list improves the security and effectiveness of the Form I-9 process. The list specifies that expired documents are no longer acceptable forms of identification or employment authorization. Allowing for expired documents makes it more difficult for employers to verify an employee’s identity and employment authorization and compromises the Form I-9 process.

Read more information on the new I-9 Form here

Would people favor immigration if they knew how many of our biggest companies exist because of it?

John has already written here at Splice about the anachronistic American immigration laws that make it difficult for skilled, legal immigrants to settle here. Today, The Economist’s Lexington blog makes its own case:

Chinese and Indian immigrants founded more than half of all high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. Immigrants co-founded Google, Intel, eBay and Yahoo. Immigrants contributed to more than a quarter of US global patent applications. Immigrant-founded companies employed 450,000 workers in 2006 and generated $52 billion in revenue.

I don’t know how you could argue with those numbers. One pro-immigration argument has been “America is a nation of immigrants,” but it seems to me that the more effective argument would be to point to the Fortune 500 companies that wouldn’t exist had immigrants not wanted to come to America. Financially, immigration makes sense.

But then again, the anti-immigration views in America largely resemble that infamous South Park “They Took Our Jobs!” episode. But America deserves better. Under Obama, maybe we’ll get something better.

For more information on this subject:
Read this article from SpliceToday.com