An Albanian with a law degree working as a porter or a doctor from Bangladesh moonlighting as a cab driver are signs of the times so typical of America that for a ling time not much significance has been attached to them.

These people, well-educated but unable to find suitable work in their professions, are generally relatives of immigrants who came to the United States years, or even decades, ago. Wading into the struggle against the immigration system, which is overloaded from dealing with its own unqualified employees as well as with undocumented immigrants, they remain silent observers on the sidelines, simply trying to provide for themselves in a legal manner. But it does happen that luck and justice occasionally turn out to be on their side. Here’s one example.

Oyumaa Kennedy, a native of Mongolia, is a professional accountant with a higher education who almost gave up hope of finding a suitable job. Before she started working in a supermarket to make ends meet, she had many interviews at large companies for accountant positions, but all her efforts were in vain. Ironically, HR departments at well-known companies are not easily impressed by a higher education received in Ulan Bator or even by experience working at the Mongolian stock exchange: these biographical facts elicit no more than an ironic smile.

But one day, Kennedy met Jane Leu, the daughter of a Cleveland butcher, who founded a tiny nonprofit organization in San Francisco called Upwardly Global. It’s entirely possible that Leu is the sole activist in the United States who helps qualified immigrants who are specialists in their fields but have difficulty finding work. Since 2003, Jane Leu has tried to prove to large American companies that these people are ready to work, that they know their fields, and that they are literally waiting at the door.

“We don’t have to spend a cent on their training – they know everything and are able to do everything on their own. New talent is a requirement for business development, but companies don’t take advantage of this opportunity to hire personnel,” states Leu.

It’s hard to argue with her initial success. Over the past three years, Leu has been able to find suitable jobs for immigrants at such behemoths as Google Inc., Bearing Point Inc. and Robert Half International Inc.

Soon after appealing to Upwardly Global, Oyumaa Kennedy moved from the checkout counter to her own office at Wells Fargo &Co. Leu’s agency has so far been able to place 200 of its 350 clients.

The debates unfolding around immigration laws concern not only undocumented immigrants. An increasing number of American companies state that they need to attract highly-qualified workers from abroad. The government allocates 140,000 green cards annually for foreign employees of companies. However, 800,000 legal immigrants, also capable of furthering their education and acquiring the necessary skills and qualifications, enter the country every year. How are they supposed to find a job?

The government is in no hurry to answer this question. As Michael Fix of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute explains, “In our country, immigration policy is much better developed than integration policy.”