I previously reported that the U.S. State Department has announced that by March 2010 all nonimmigrant visa applicants in China will need to use the new Form DS-160. This form combines and replaces previous Forms DS-156, 157, and 158.

Here’s an update on implementation of the new Form DS-160 by U.S. Consulates in China:

* Beijing: Effective Jan. 20 applicants through the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) corporate visa program are required to use DS-160. At our firm’s request, the Embassy has made this optional for applicants who experience technical difficulties filling the DS-160. Effective Mar. 1, all applicants must use DS-160–its use is optional beforehand. See http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/ds160onlineapplication.html.

* Chengdu: Effective Feb. 4 applicants through the AmCham corporate visa program must use the DS-160. Effective Mar. 1 all applicants must use it–its use is optional beforehand. See http://chengdu.usembassy-china.org.cn/ds-160_new.html.

* Guangzhou: Effective Mar. 1 all applicants must use DS-160. http://guangzhou.usembassy-china.org.cn/visa-application-form2.html.

* Shanghai: Effective Jan. 11 applicants through the AmCham corporate visa program were required to use the DS-160.  After advocacy by our firm and others, the Embassy has made this optional for applicants who experience technical difficulties filling the DS-160. Effective Mar. 1, all applicants must use DS-160–its use is optional beforehand. See http://shanghai.usembassy-china.org.cn/non-immigrant_visas/new-online-application.html.

* Shenyang: No announcement from the Consulate yet. See http://shenyang.usembassy-china.org.cn/160.html.

Also see my report on how filling the Form DS-160 can be an exercise in frustration.

Authorities implemented the measures for expatriates on Jan.1 to entice scientific researchers, top managers and investors to stay longer in the city.

 Other categories are: individuals with highly specialized skills, celebrities, private investors and foreigners awarded special status in light of their contributions to China. All of these people can apply for five-year residence permits, the newspaper said.

One of the changes makes life considerably easier for business owners, who formerly had to prove that they had 30 million U.S. dollars of registered capital to apply for the extended permit. This figure was slashed by 90 percent at the turn of the year, according to the newspaper.

 ”Now that the number has dropped to 3 million U.S. dollars, the range of expats who are eligible to qualify has soared, “a police officer surnamed Zhang from the exit-entry administration bureau of the Shanghai public security bureau was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

The extended residence permits were implemented citywide following a successful trial in Shanghai’s Pudong New District from July 1. In this interim period, police processed more than 500 of the new five-year permits, said the newspaper.

Shanghai saw its population of foreign permanent residents top the 150,000 mark in 2008, up 20,000 from the year before. Figures for last year have not yet been released by the city’s bureau of family planning.

Most foreigners live in Shanghai on a short-term basis, using either the tourist (L) or visitor (F) visas, which usually allow them to stay for up to three months, according to the newspaper.

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The U.S. State Department has announced that in March 2010 all nonimmigrant visa applicants in China will need to use the new Form DS-160, Nonimmigrant Visa Application. This form combines and replaces previous Forms DS-156, 157, and 158.

To test the form with smaller groups, the State Department began to require its use for the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) corporate visa programs in Shanghai (effective Jan. 11) and Beijing (effective Jan. 20). Our firm’s initial experience with the form has been frustrating.

The main problem is that this Form must be completed and filed electronically on the State Department’s website (http://ceac.state.gov/genniv), but the website is unstable. The website itself has posted a warning:

However the problem is more serious than that warning implies. The website crashed so often that over the past days (Wed., Jan 20 to Fri., Jan. 22) it has been very difficult to complete the form. The most common error is a “time out” error:

We tried many hours (including early mornings and late nights) filing the forms from multiple PCs and from three of the firm’s offices in China and the U.S. But time after time the system crashed. Only by filing the form over and over did we sometimes get lucky enought to finish the filing process.

We have explained the problem to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and the Embassy has agreed to our request to continue to accept the old Forms DS-156 and 157 for the AmCham corporate visa program through Mar. 1.  However, the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai insists that the DS-160 must be used. Applicants with difficulties filling the DS-160 in Shanghai should be aware that the AmCham program is now optional, meaning that an appointment may be scheduled through the normal channel by calling the Visa Call Center. The regular channel will continue to accept Forms DS-156 and 157 until Mar. 1.

Some Chinese scientists who have established their careers in the U.S. are deciding to return to China, according to Sharon LaFraniere’s article entitled Fighting Trend, China is Luring Scientists Home, in January 6th’s New York Times.  The number of returnees seem to be small but significant.

In brief, here are the pros and cons of returning to China, according to the article:

Pros:

* Chinese government and Party support for returning scientists.

* Scientists can take pride in helping their own nation.

* Within the next 20 years, China may surpass the U.S. in the ability to commercialize R&D.

* The ability to make a difference: Shi Yigong left a position at Princeton to become the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua. He admits that Tsinghua is not on par with Princeton, but “[i]n the United States, everything is more or less set up. Whatever I do here [in China], the impact is probably tenfold, or a hundredfold.”

* The sense that “Asians confront[ ] a glass ceiling in the United States.”

Cons:

* The Chinese scientific community may not recognize the contributions made overseas by returnees.

* “Connections too often trump[ ] merit when grants [a]re handed out in China.”

What do you think?

Especially noteworthy is the increase in “regional centers.” These are private corporations or government agencies which can pool investor money to make large investments in specific geographic areas. The centers have used EB-5 investor capital in a wide variety of projects, including hotels, manufacturing enterprises, farms, restaurants, and technology companies.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics for fiscal year 2009 (ending October 1, 2009):

* Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur:  1028 received, 966 approved, 163 denied.
* Form I-829, Petition by Entrepreneur to Remove Conditions: 437 received, 335 approved, 55 denied.

U.S. Department of State Statistics:

* FY 2009: 4,218 immigrant visas issued.
* FY 2008: 1,443 immigrant visas issued.

Regional Centers:

* FY 2009: 74
* FY 2008: 23

In the past, Chinese students applied in droves to study in science, technical, and math graduate programs in the U.S. But a tectonic shift is taking place. Now, greater numbers of Chinese are applying to study as undergraduates abroad too. Leading reasons seem to be:

* Greater wealth in China means more families can afford to send their children abroad.

* The Chinese higher education system can’t meet the demand. Ten million students take the annual national college entrance test, competing for only 5.7 million admission slots.

* Going abroad is an alternative for students who don’t pass the college entrance test or who don’t get into their school/major of choice in China.

Chinese undergrads and graduate students in the U.S. now total about 100,000.

Read more in USA today.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap for fiscal year (FY) 2010.  Dec. 21, 2009 is the “final receipt date” for new H-1B specialty occupation petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2010.

The “final receipt date” is the date on which USCIS determines that it has received enough cap-subject petitions to reach the limit of 65,000. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2010 that arrive after Dec. 21, 2009.

Properly filed cases will be considered received on the date that USCIS physically receives the petition; not the date that the petition was postmarked.  USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2010 that arrive after Dec. 21, 2009.

USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions that are subject to the cap and were received on Dec. 21, 2009.  USCIS will use this process to select petitions needed to meet the cap.  USCIS will reject, and return the fee, for all cap-subject petitions not randomly selected.

Petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap will not be counted towards the congressionally mandated FY 2010 H-1B cap. Therefore, USCIS will continue to process petitions filed to:

• Extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States.
• Change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers.
• Allow current H-1B workers to change employers.
• Allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second H-1B position.

Certain H-1B petitions are also exempt from the H-1B cap. These include foreign nationals offered employment at an institution of higher education, a related or affiliated nonprofit entity, a nonprofit research organization, or a governmental research organization. (USCIS has already received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption.)

The current fee is $131. The new fee schedule would be tiered because “the cost of accepting, adjudicating, and issuing [visas] is appreciably higher” for certain categories of visas that require a “review of extensive documentation and a more in-depth interview.”

B (temporary visitors for business or pleasure): $140
E (treaty traders and investors): $390
H (temporary workers): $150
K (fiance or fiancee of U.S. citizen): $350
L (intracompany transferees): $150
O (aliens of extraordinary ability): $150
P (artists, entertainers, athletes): $150
Q (cultural exchange visitors): $150
R (religious workers): $150
Other nonimmigrant visa classifications: $140

After the proposed fee increase was published in the Federal Register on December 14, the public was allowed 60 days to submit comments. Then the State Department will implement the proposed rule “as quickly as practicable.”

Fees were last changed effective January 1, 2008.

Carl Minzer gives a brief explanation of the petitioning system:

‘[P]etitioning’ [is] a traditional means of seeking justice firmly rooted in Chinese history. Defined broadly as an effort to “go past basic-level institutions to reach higher-level bodies, express problems and request their resolution,” petitioning includes a variety of practices that parallel, overlap, and in some cases replace formal legal channels. These practices have survived into the post-1949 People’s Republic of China in the form of citizen petitioning of numerous “letters and visits” (xinfang) bureaus distributed throughout all Chinese government organs, including the courts.

Development of a modern legal system over the past two decades has not eliminated these petitioning practices and institutions. Formal Chinese legal institutions have developed internal means of accommodating petitioning behavior. Since the 1990s, Chinese authorities have also passed a web of regulations to govern both petitioners’ practices and the operation of national, provincial, and local xinfang bureaus.

According to an AP story, Ms. Hamm turned to petitioning due to a grievance that her fiance has been unjustly jailed since June 2009 on trespassing charges.

The story points out the shortcomings of the petitioning system. Petitioners can try for years to bring their cases to the attention of Beijing authorities but get nowhere. Some are grabbed off the streets and sent home by police from their home provinces who don’t want news of local injustices reaching  Beijing. Some petitioners are even held in unofficial detention centers known as “black jails.”

Hamm has been “spared the rough treatment Chinese petitioners often receive, [but] the results are no different. She finds official suspicion, indifference and the desire that complainers would simply go away.”

I’d welcome any reader comments about whether it may be useful for a foreigner to make complaints about China visa issues through the petitioning system.