Ocean 10: EMAIL/FAX campaign to California Governor - Arnold Schwarzenegger

[theWarrior]

Lets start a campaign to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to get him to support our cause. He is an influential person and if he supports our cause it will put more pressure on Don Neufeld.

Also in the light of the Lawsuit, as Rajiv says - "CIS will not settle without some more public pressure." Read the whole post here -
http://boards.immigration.com/showth...873#post720860

Please write to him and also ask your friends/family/neighbors to join this campaign. Do post the number of your acquaintances who wrote to him if they are not members. This will help encourage others to write to him.

You can send E-mail/Fax/Postal mail whatever is convenient to you or maybe all three! Here are the contact details -

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
governor@governor.ca.gov

UPDATED : March 19th 2004 8:57am PST)
Here is the list of people who have written to him so far -
1) 485Victim
2) codex
3) Dadagiri
4) golumolu
5) hussein
6) kadamtaal
7) kashmir
8) kuldeepc
9) lcauser
10) mazdur_desi
11) ramakriya
12) solarise
13) theWarrior
14) wac-02-068
15) wac098
16) wsxwsx
17) ...

(This list will be updated with ids of folks who write to him.)

[theWarrior]

I just sent my e-mail to governor. You can use it as a template or better still send it in your own words describing your personal issues caused by the backlogs.


Dear Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger,

I am writing to you to draw attention to the processing delays at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS and formerly BCIS/INS). I am one of many immigrants suffering from delays in employment-based I-485 adjudication at the California Service Center (CSC) and also a member of immigrationportal.com a group of legally employed immigrants in the United States.

I currently work as <my designation>. My company applied for I-485 adjudication in <my date of filing> for an employment-based immigrant petition. <Period you are waiting for> later, the CSC has not reached the processing date for my I-485 application. In fact, the CSC spent the first eleven months of this period processing I-485 applications dated 11/16/2001 and they are currently processing applications for 12/16/2001. USCIS is processing approximately 350 applications per month and around 3000 new applications are added each month! At this time there are currently 81,000 applications pending already!
Disclaimer: These figures are based on our community’s online scans of the website - http://www.uscis.gov.

There is an online petition signed by thousands of legal immigrants regarding the sufferings caused by Immigration Backlog at this link http://immigration.com/common/rsk/petition_I485.html.
The petition highlights a number of issues caused by these immigration delays, including serious disruption of the lives of legal immigrants, as well as potential harm to Californian economy due to the fact that world-class individuals are actively discouraged from progressing in their careers because of the policies (as explained in the petition) and lack of accountability of USCIS. There is a big potential among these individuals to unleash another round of economic growth to restore the Golden State to its former economic success.

Our community, ImmigrationPortal.Com, had made several other concerted efforts to redress this problem through the government and the legislature. Thousands of people have signed and submitted several petitions, like the one mentioned earlier but no action was taken by the government. Having failed in their efforts, filing a lawsuit was the only option left to the community. On 22 December 2003, ImmigrationPortal.Com and others have filed a lawsuit against United States Immigration and Citizenship Services (earlier known as INS) challenging the delays in processing of some applications for employment based immigrants. The complaint is available here - http://boards.immigration.com/attach...postid=651497.

Sir, you are an immigrant and at this time leading one of the greatest states in US. California is full of successful immigrants like you who have contributed immensely to make it a Golden State. Immigrants’ immense potential has been put on hold because of these backlogs. I urge you to take our petition into consideration. In particular, we would be grateful if you could contact Don Neufeld, the Director of the California Service Center. The CSC has recently said that it is working hard to reduce the backlogs in I-485 petitions, but they have said this many times before without much actual change. I would be especially grateful if you could ask him to assign more resources to Employment-based I-485 (and their associated I-765 and I-131 petitions) so that the current backlogs of approximately two years are reduced. This would be in line with the Immigration Services and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2000 where Congress felt that processing an immigration benefit application should not take longer than 180 days after the initial filing. It would also be in accord with President Bush’s commitment in 2000 to reduce immigrant applications to less than 180 days.

Yours sincerely,
<Name>
<Address>


********************************************
ImmigrationPortal.Com
5225 N. Wilson Blvd, Arlington VA 22205
Voice: (703) 908-4800
United for Dignity, Equality, and Acceptance
********************************************

[kashmir]

Hi, theWarrior,
It's great your taking the initiative for the campaign to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
-kashmir

To: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger <governor@governor.ca.gov>
Subject: Immigration - Green Card (I-485) Backlog in California

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger;

When you became the California Governor on 11/17/2003,
I was really proud as one of IMMIGRANTs.
Also, I am very impressed to read your words:
http://www.schwarzenegger.com/en/lif...ubsec=hiswords

I came in California with my wife and two teenage children three years ago
to become U.S. CITIZENs, so NOTHING had been left in my home country.
We have filed I-485 applications to become Permanent Residents two years ago.
We have already waited for over 2 years but may have to wait almost forever.
If I were to die before approval even by a car accident or as a victim of murder,
my dependants would have to leave this country immediately.
I cannot see FAIRNESS nor JUSTICE in this current IMMIGRATION system
of the United States, which is totally CORRUPT.

Especially in California, when I filed I-485 in 2002,
the California Service Center (CSC) is the FASTEST
among 4 service centers nationwide.
However, the CSC has updated its I-485 processing date only once by just 30 days
from 11/16/2001 to 12/16/2001 for last 424 days since 1/15/2003.
Now, the CSC is shamefully the SLOWEST service center.

I understand Immigration is a federal matter,
however I'd like to urge you to talk to Bush Administration
as the influential Repbulican Governor and also as the representative of Immigrants
so that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) would improve
the current huge backlog, especially of I-485 applications for Permanent Residents
in California (at the CSC).

Sincerely,

(my name)
(my address)
(my contact information)
WAC-02-124-##### (I-485)
pending at CSC for over 2 years since February 2002 !!

********************************************
ImmigrationPortal.Com
5225 N. Wilson Blvd, Arlington VA 22205
Voice: (703) 908-4800
United for Dignity, Equality, and Acceptance
********************************************

[kuldeepc]

email sent

[hussein]

Fax Sent

[mazdur_desi]

good work
Thanks

[solarise]

Email sent

[wsxwsx]

email sent

[theWarrior]

Folks,

JUST 7 PEOPLE SUPPORT IT! REST OF YOU ARE HAPPY ABOUT IT?

Do take out a few minutes and write to him.

LETS GET HIM TO SUPPORT OUR CAUSE.

-Warrior

[Dadagiri]

EMAIL sent

[485Victim]

I just sent e-mail. Its nice idea and hats off the originator.
Lets hope that at least one of these e-mails help us.

[kadamtal]

Just sent mine

[codex]

sent mine too...

[lcauser]

Updated list,

1)hussein
2) kashmir
3) kuldeepc
4) mazdur_desi
5) solarise
6) theWarrior
7) wsxwsx
8) Dadagiri
9) 485Victim
10) codex
11) kadamtal
12) lcauser

[wac098]

email sent

[theWarrior]

Originally posted by 485Victim
I just sent e-mail. Its nice idea and hats off the originator.
Lets hope that at least one of these e-mails help us.

Thanks.

But I am just a small volunteer, there are others who spend many hours every week for this cause. Each of us need to do our bit to make it a success.

We don't know from whom and where the success is going to arrive, so we must keep on pariticipating in these campaigns.

I firmly believe based on my past experiences, there is a lot of strength in numbers and together we can make a difference.

-Warrior

[theWarrior]

Originally posted by lcauser
Updated list,

1)hussein
2) kashmir
3) kuldeepc
4) mazdur_desi
5) solarise
6) theWarrior
7) wsxwsx
8) Dadagiri
9) 485Victim
10) codex
11) kadamtal
12) lcauser

Thanks for participating and compiling the list lcauser. I was busy with other ImmigrationPortal tasks

I am happy to see 6 more people have signed up while I was not looking.

Its encouraging to see many people participating. There are 13 supporters in two days.

But 13 is not good encough. We need more numbers for making the Governor hear our story.

Ask your friends to sign up for it. Ask them, cajole them, coax them, convince them .....
(BTW, I convinced two people today. And one of them has GC and he is still willing to participate!)

We need more support, not just for this thread but for others as well. Here are the other campaigns -
http://www.immigrationportal.com/sho...threadid=85662

[wac-02-068]

Email sent.

Content modified based on Kashmir's script, as follow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger <governor@governor.ca.gov>
Subject: Immigration - Green Card (I-485) Backlog in California

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger,

You may have recently received a lot of emails from members of
ImmigrationPortal, asking for your concern on the problems we are
encountering with our green card application. I am one of them.

My family moved to this country about 6 years ago. My husband joined the
Santa Clara based <xxx xxxx Inc.> in 2000. And our I-485 (green card)
application was submitted to the California CIS center in December 2001.

Our son is now 11, a middle school student soon to be. Starting his formal
education in this country and having lived in this country for 5+ years,
he is completely Americanized. He knows very limited Chinese, which is
our first language. And the life in our home country is so far away and
so unfamiliar to him. The tremendous delaying of permanent residency
application processing is the most threatening to him, comparing to other
members in our family.

As an old (in terms of time living in this country) immigrant, you must
understand how we have already become part of this country, which is like
a new big family to us. Both my husband and myself have worked and been
paying taxes for about 6 years in this country. As a matter of fact, we
don't think we are not American any more, except when the status of our
green card application reminds us.

A few years ago, the California Service Center (CSC) used to be the
FASTEST among 4 service centers nationwide. However, the CSC has updated
its I-485 processing date only once by just 30 days from 11/16/2001 to
12/16/2001 for last 424 days since 1/15/2003. Now, the CSC is shamefully
the SLOWEST service center.

I understand Immigration is a federal matter. However I'd like to urge you
to talk to Bush Administration as the influential Repbulican Governor and
also as the representative of Immigrants. So that U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Service (USCIS) would reducee the current huge backlog,
especially of I-485 applications for Permanent Residents in California (at
the CSC).

Sincerely,

<My Name>
<My Addr>
<My Contact>
WAC-02-068-xxxxx (I-485)
Pending at CSC for 27 months since December 2001!!


********************************************
ImmigrationPortal.Com
5225 N. Wilson Blvd, Arlington VA 22205
Voice: (703) 908-4800
United for Dignity, Equality, and Acceptance
********************************************

[theWarrior]

Thanks wac-02-068 for writing a such a personal and well written e-mail. Also sharing it with us.

I just talked to another person who had a similar sentiment to share. His daughter considers America as her home.
Hardly does she know that she is still just a "temporary" resident.

Folks,
Such personal stories are going to be very effective.

If you can find time please do share your own personal suffering with the Governor and all of us.

-Warrior

[ramakriya]

with my personal story

-Ramakriya
wac020405****

[theWarrior]

Thanks ramakriya for writing to him.

Folks 15 is way to less.

We need many many more. At least 50 if not more.

If the reason you are not writing is due to the fear of retribution from USCIS/CSC/INC then you can write anonymously. Its important to get the message across.

Do post here that you have written to him. Its important since it really encourages others.

We have started seeing the fruits of such campaigns.

http://immigrationportal.com/showthr...r=7#post725248

Lets keep the pressure on!

-Warrior

[golumolu]

Done my part