Did you know that according to the Migration Policy Institute, President Trump processed more
than 400 immigration policy changes since he took office? 400, that's a crazy number of policies
with respect to immigration. But another way to measure that number is in terms of the immigrants
that are not coming to America anymore, that are not receiving green cards anymore, that are being
denied employment authorization, EAD cards, and more. That's how we can measure those changes.
President-Elect Joe Biden promised that he's going to reverse the policies of this administration
when it comes to immigration. In this video, we'll explore the trends in approvals and
denials of all these immigrant visas, K1 visas, non-immigrant visas that the new administration
will need to reverse. So, what are you waiting for? I'll see you on the other side.
Hello, everybody. So, in this video, we're going to talk about trends and immigration
approvals and denials as it relates to US embassies and consulates abroad. So,
we'll talk about CR1, K1 visas, we'll talk about USCIS Adjustment of Status cases,
approvals and denials statistics, and why it's happening. So, make sure you stick to the end
because I'm going to go through a lot of these categories. I'll give you some statistics. And
most importantly, we'll talk about why it's happening, and how the Biden administration
is going to be reversing these policies one by one. So, let's dive right in. Welcome
back to our Immigration channel where we talk about immigration updates, visa information,
and all the good things you need to know about immigration and how to make your immigration
journey even better. My name is Jacob Sapochnick, and I'm an immigration attorney located in San
Diego, California, and I have clients in all 50 states. So, number one, let's start with immigrant
visas. There were 738,000 fewer immigrant visas issued during Trump's administration
since he took office. If you look at the chart on the screen right now, if you look at figure one,
you can see that immigrant visas went down by 83% in October of 2020, compared to the same month,
in 2016, before Trump took office. And according to the Migration Policy Institute,
even before the pandemic, immigrant visa issuance went down by 24%.
24%, that's crazy. If you think about it, there were 738,000 fewer visas issued as of October 2020
compared to if President Obama stayed in power, and continued with the same rate of approvals
under his administration. That's a lot of visas. Now, if you think about it, the reason why it
happened is because consulates and embassies remained to be closed even today. And also, the
State Department refused to waive visa interviews, unlike the USCIS where they did waive a lot of
visa interviews. And I'm going to talk about USCIS statistics in a minute. So, make sure you stay and
watch that too. But that's the main reason why immigrant visas were not issued because,
again, embassies are closed, and to this moment, they refuse to waive interviews. Maybe they will
waive interviews, who knows if this backlog will continue. I won't be surprised if even the State
Department will issue some interview waivers. But for the moment, that's not the case. But you have
to remember that another reason why we have less immigrant visas being issued is because,
on the USCIS side, we've seen an increase in I-130 immigrant petitions denials. So, of course,
if immigrant petitions have been denied on USCIS’s side, there are no visas to be issued on the DOS
side because those visas, will never going to reach the embassy for an interview because they’re
denied on the USCIS side. And guess what happens if denials continued to go up on the USCIS side
and on the State Department site? Applicants do not want to apply. And you remember, a few
months ago, USCIS threatened to shut down because they had a financial crisis. Well, guess what?
It is true that less people were applying because of the rate of denial was scaring so many people.
And that could be another reason why less applications were issued by the State Department
during the year 2020. You can see in chart number two that the denial rate of immigrant petitions
from USCIS has literally doubled for what it was under the Obama administration. So, obviously,
all these factors contribute to less visas being issued, obviously. So, what can the
Biden administration do to reverse this? Well, first of all, they have to streamline the process
of the visa interviews that the US embassies and consulates worldwide. They have to focus
more on adjudication versus enforcement, right? They have to start reopening these consulates,
start scheduling those interviews and maybe in addition to just reopening the consulates
and starting to push those interviews through, also enter into a process of waiving interviews
if couples are in their long-term marriage, if they able to see from the evidence that
there are no red flags, essentially wave the interviews, let them enter the US. And this way,
ease the backlogs. And who knows, maybe the Biden administration will actually take action on that.
So, the crisis on the immigrant visa petition, as you can see, more than 700,000 visas were
not issued under the Trump administration. Number two, 246,000 fewer Adjustment of Status
to permanent residency were processed under the Trump administration. As you know, Adjustment of
Status applications is filed by immigrants that are currently inside the US. So, between March
and June of 2020, the rate of approvals for Adjustment of Status has declined by more than
52%. And you can see that on this chart on the screen, right? And like, with immigrant visas,
as I mentioned before, the main reason for the decline is USICS offices were closed for a while,
there's been an increase in the USCIS denial rate of applications. And by the time they started to
waive interviews, it was a little bit too late because of the bottleneck and the backlog. By
the time they started issuing the visa interview waivers, it was a little bit too late because the
number of cases that were sitting there was bottlenecking this whole process and putting
it to a stop. And if you look at this chart right now, you can see that the rate of denials by USCIS
is almost quadrupled under the Trump administration as opposed to before. And
again, that's another reason why there are fewer approvals issued just because of so many denials
under this administration. But once again, what can Biden's administration do? Well, first of all,
they have to streamline this process completely, then have to provide better training to USCIS
officers to make sure that they are not going to be denying applications at such high rates.
At the same time, they need to speed up the process of adjudication of so many of
these petitions. People are waiting now for more than two years to get their immigrant petitions
approved inside the US. That has to be improved and streamlined. Once again, this administration
should focus more on adjudication as opposed to enforcement, like the Trump administration. Now,
hopefully, we'll see, in the next year or so, a much better rate of approvals,
and the wait times will decrease just like we had under the Obama administration. Number three,
let's talk about non-immigrant work visas. Under the Trump administration, we've seen an increase
in denials of non-immigrant visas. In fact, there are more than 113,000
visas denied under this administration. And you can see in this chart, the exact growth of denials
specifically for non-immigrant visas, which is quite concerning. These denials
of non-immigrant visas, which include H1Bs, and other visas, these denials of non-immigrant visas,
are a direct effort by the Trump administration to make the hiring of foreign workers more difficult.
And that was their agenda from the start. These statistics are a direct result of what the Trump
administration has tried to do all along. And it's to prevent foreign workers from coming into the
United States or actually make it more difficult for them to come here. Now, we can see that not
just by the denial rate, but also an increase for requests for evidence when it comes to all
kinds of work visas. And that continues to this day. What can the Biden administration do? Well,
first of all, they've got to streamline the whole non-immigrant visa process, increase visa numbers,
and also make the process of adjudication more smooth and reasonable. Stop denying visas as a
way to deter foreign workers from coming in here, on the contrary, make it more appealing for them
to come here and be part of our growing economy. Next, let's talk about international students.
There are 690,000 fewer international students coming to the United States,
under this administration. The number of F and M students crashed from 2016 to 2020 by 75%. This
is unheard of. And this is, as you remember, the government were hesitating whether they
allow students to come here, who's going to study online, who's going to study on campus, students
were stuck overseas, US embassies and consulates were not issuing visas. And all these resulted
in this major decline in student visas coming into the United States. So, what can the Biden
administration do for the students? Well, first of all, make it a priority for student visas to be
processed at the US embassies and consulates abroad, as we come out of this crisis, because
we need those students here and make it easier for students to actually receive those visas
if they're bonafide students, and they want to come to the United States and study here.
Don't make it hard for these students to get their visas and make it appealing for them to come here
and be able to stay here after they graduate to be able to get experience, to work. I think the
Biden administration is going to be focused on making the student visa cultural exchange
in the United States a priority as well. Finally, 9 million fewer tourists in business visitors
came to the United States under this administration. As of October 2020,
there's been a decline of 92% in the issuance of tourist visas to the United States. This is
a first in history. And you can see in this chart, the sharp decrease in tourist visa issuance.
What can the Biden administration do? Obviously, reversal the travel bans,
open the consulates and start adjudicating visas like they should. If I want to summarize this,
this administration's policies harmed millions of visitors to the United States as well as
Americans. This administration created fear among immigrants, and among prospective immigrants who
wanted to come here and make a living and help us build our country as well. Biden’s administration
will not only need to reverse these policies, they'll have to go further. They'll have to
go back into all cases that were denied under Trump and create policies to reverse those denials
and issue visas to people that should have received visas under the Trump administration.
They should also develop a process to streamline visa applications in various embassies and
consulates worldwide so that immigrants are not going to have to wait months and months to receive
a visa interview and an appointment. President Biden's goal is to rectify the harm we suffered
in the last four years. He must act boldly and aggressively to make those changes fast, in a very
smooth and methodical way. Let's hope it's going to happen, and I believe that he will. Hopefully,
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