FINAL DRAFTS for backlog Petition

[dsatish]

Originally posted by dsatish

For the past one year, we have been a voiceless group and we are passing through very difficult times because of the slow progress of our applications at California, Nebraska, Texas and Vermont Service centers. In your appointment, we see our only hope of our voice being heard at BCIS.

The severe processing delay, is affecting our lives enormously. We are not sure of our future, we can not take some important decisions in our lives and our career advancement is hampered because the applicant has to remain with the same employer (or) similar job. The employers are taking advantage of the above restrictions and the severe processing delays have only helped in extending this forced bondage. A general feeling of frustration over these ever-swelling waiting periods is very negatively affecting all of us.

Rickz, thanks for your review of version 3.1 .
If any one wants to know what is the emotional stuff in version 3.1, that i am talking about, please see the above text quoted from version3.1 .
The second paragraph in the above quote is mostly taken from kjkool letter. I have incorporated some points from version 2.0 (by edison) and put them under 'Our contribution' paragraph.
The idea of attaching an emotional tone to the letter was provided by DengDeng. That's why I have been repeating in almost every post that i have incorporated the best from all the versions.

[dsatish]

Dengdeng,
I have updated Appendix B with most of the your suggestions.

Hi Rickz,
I have replaced 'huge taxes' with 'our taxes' (and lost some emotional shine ). I haven't changed 'critically important' because i feel that's much stronger and better.

Cinta,
I wonder what made you to think that the two letters does not clearly state 'who we are' clearly. It only tells me that you haven't read even the first 5 lines of version 3.1 . Version 3.1 is 300% clear about who we are. The clarity starts in the "subject" of the letter itself.

[dengdeng]

dsatish, look at my http://boards.immigration.com/showth...threadid=94835
thread.

Since it's not possible to argue for a higher priority than religious workers, let's fight for higher priority over TPS. And let's emphasize we have been waiting for 2 years, we need expedite too. To Oct 2003, the processing time of EB485 cases will be 22 months. What a shame of BCIS.
Law said 6 months, last year was 10 months, now 22 months. We should point out this in the petition.

[topazB]

Dengdeng: I don’t agree with you. Let us put in what we want – whether it is religious worker, TPS or anything for that matter. We want our cases to be given higher priority.

Dsathis: I agree with you that many have not even read the version 3.0 posted by me. Otherwise, we would have at least got some response on that version. Actually, in one of my posting I have put in this question: is it too good (to comment) or too bad (just ignore).

Personally, I liked version 3.1 not because it is an improved version of 3.0 (posted by me) but of the structuring of the petition. I have all along been advocating on the structure and the length of the petition. I still believe that there is no need for the Para 'Benefits of Immigration' in Edison’s version. My opinion is that certainly the version 3.1 has better flow and more to the point. We need to keep it in mind that those guys are not expected to read more than one page seriously and we need to bring out our point on the very first page.

Ar888: We understand it is too much to ask Rajiv to review both the version. Can you please put in a request on our behalf? If it is not possible can he give some direction by just glancing thru’ these two petition.

[ar888]

Originally posted by topazB

Ar888: We understand it is too much to ask Rajiv to review both the version. Can you please put in a request on our behalf?

I did.

[sai-2367]

A story to digest during lunch!

A food market had crabs from various countries all stored in different jars. The jars had lids on them to prevent the crabs from escaping. However one jar, had no lid on it. When asked by a passerby about it, the owner said ::"AH! these crabs are from country (X), they cannot escape".
The passerby became curious, and enquired why???
The answer was : Such is the nature of crabs from this country, that when one tries to escape --the others pull him back.

-sai

[Edison]

Originally posted by sai-2367
A story to digest during lunch!

A food market had crabs from various countries all stored in different jars. The jars had lids on them to prevent the crabs from escaping. However one jar, had no lid on it. When asked by a passerby about it, the owner said ::"AH! these crabs are from country (X), they cannot escape".
The passerby became curious, and enquired why???
The answer was : Such is the nature of crabs from this country, that when one tries to escape --the others pull him back.

-sai

Sai,
I thought of the same story. But I thought that it would be inappropriate to post that. Anyway, Thanks for the story. I'm sorry please read that as 'Thanks for the facts".

[lz25888]

well, both are good. Thank you guys for your effort. Edison, dsatish, dengdeng.... thank you!

as for the petition, could Rajiv office polish it by professional legal writer i thought there are enough people willing to contribute money for effort like that.

[Bold_Trueth]

Greaaaaaaaaaat Job dsatish, edison.
Hats offfff for your superb efforts.
Both versions are good but i prefer version 3.1 because it is more focussed . I especially liked the sentences "every month, BCIS is changing the processing time " and "soon the processing time might become 36 months".

[cinta]

Originally posted by dsatish
GUYS,
PLEASE GIVE YOUR INPUTS. It's unfortunate that not many people are posting their comments. This makes the job of finalising the Letter difficult. Only YJay has clearly spoken about his choice. Dengdeng and Topaz said that both are good. What about other active people like Cinta, mogli, frantic, Mavishka, kjkool etc ?

YJay,
It's not true that i have not incorporated other's suggestions. It is also not true that more people have favoured version 2.0.
When version 2.0 and 3.0 were published almost at the same time, a lot of people commented(including me) about the flaws in version2.0 where as there were virtually no comments on version 3.0. I take it as a complement for my version where as you seem to take it as disinterest. Now that we have the two final drafts, let people clearly give their preference. I know that you and perhaps sai prefers version 2.2 . I think that Topaz prefers version 3.1 (It is an improvement of his 3.0). Where as earlier Dengdeng preferred version 2.0, now he says that both v2.2 and v3.1 are good. Please rememember that version 3.1 is a vast improvement over version 3.0 for its emotional tone and presentation of our solutions.

To All, let me explain why i am pushing version 3.1
Advantages of version 3.1 (compared to version 2.2)
----------------------------------
1. stronger emotional tone
2. The main letter is shorter and simpler
3. Our demands are covered more clearly and comprehensively .
4. Though the structure of both the letters are same, i feel the
flow is better in my version. I don't like 'Benefits of Immigration'
appearing at such an early stage in the letter.
5. My version offers the solutions in detail in ther appendix.

I once again request every one to say which version they like more. Thanks for those who have already given their preference.
We will go with whiich ever version more people prefer. If we get clear answer , then we will select that. If we don't get any responses from people (other than Dengdeng, Sai, Topaz and YJay) then let us ask Rajeev to pick one from both. I am actually ready, if we want to send both the letters to Rajiv right away. That may be best idea if we don't want to cause any more delays and any more futile discussions.

dsatish,
I spent more than a couple of hours on "your version" alone. It simple does not strike me a bit. From the composition to the presentation, etc. There are too many points to comment on, and do not take me wrong for this. There is no doubt that you and others put a lot of work into this, but this is the nature of such a thing. So in any case, whether it is early or late here are some points:
1: A lot of words are not used properly. "for the past one year", "our only hope", "very negatively affecting","desperately needed","we played", "we will continue", etc
2: Our expectations section: I mentioned before that it is not proper nor professional to tell the US government what to do. It seems like you do not have the capacity to understand. You do that in a LAWSUIT not in a PETITION. This is a petition only. Save this information for next. This section should therefore be titled as "What the problems are" instead.
3: Based on this "Appendix B" should be abolished also. Keep the most important points and incorporate them into the main letter.
4:who we are: The subject line by itself does not explain "who we are" unless you identify about 300,000 people with yourself. Apparently this is not the case. You should mention exactly what at least most of us are: NIW, EB1, EB2, EB3, etc with approved LC from the Department of Labor. In this paragraph (there is no paragraph), you should explain where we work. From Wall street to Main Street and if you make a right turn, you will find me also. You need to show that group has the TOP SCIENTISTS IN THE COUNTRY (EB1, NIW). You need to show that people contribute to the HOMELAND AND NATIONAL SECURITY, given the fact that BCIS is driven by it from September 11. You need to mention this date also as things changed from there on. This is like a letter to your professor trying to upgrade or correct your grade. It has an overall "guilty" feeling about it and then with intrusion tries to tell the Big Brother what to do. No need. This Nation is a superpower, can "liberate" a country it, bomb it, and then reconstruct it in a couple of weeks. Do not worry about the money!

[dsatish]

Cinta,
Here is my answer to your feedback :
1. words : I don't see what's the problem with the words that you mentioned. I agree that i am not a professional writer but nobody has made any remarks on these words.
2. Our Expectation Section : You have gone too far in making the remarks here (saying "It seems like you do not have the capacity to understand"). There is no need to use such language. You better concentrate on the defects of the letter than the person.
Coming back to your question, i don't agree with your assumption that you should not present any solutions in a petition. Petition is nothing but a letter submitted by a group of people asking for remediation to their problems. I felt that the letter will be more effective if you offer possible solutions rather than simply complaining about BCIS . Nobody here said that we should not that paragraph in the letter. It doesn't mean that all these people
do not have capacity to understand.
3. -same as above- . The main purpose of Appendix B is that it helps BCIS understand what we are suggesting to them in order to reduce the backlog. They will look into this if they are serious.
4. who we are : I don't feel that we need to go into the details you wanted. We started this petition effort on behalf of all the people whose I485 is pending at the 4 service centers and that much is very clearly mentioned in the letter.

Now that these letter's are brought to the attention of Rajiv, let's wait.

[cinta]

Originally posted by dsatish
Cinta,
Here is my answer to your feedback :
1. words : I don't see what's the problem with the words that you mentioned. I agree that i am not a professional writer but nobody has made any remarks on these words.
2. Our Expectation Section : You have gone too far in making the remarks here (saying "It seems like you do not have the capacity to understand"). There is no need to use such language. You better concentrate on the defects of the letter than the person.
Coming back to your question, i don't agree with your assumption that you should not present any solutions in a petition. Petition is nothing but a letter submitted by a group of people asking for remediation to their problems. I felt that the letter will be more effective if you offer possible solutions rather than simply complaining about BCIS . Nobody here said that we should not that paragraph in the letter. It doesn't mean that all these people
do not have capacity to understand.
3. -same as above- . The main purpose of Appendix B is that it helps BCIS understand what we are suggesting to them in order to reduce the backlog. They will look into this if they are serious.
4. who we are : I don't feel that we need to go into the details you wanted. We started this petition effort on behalf of all the people whose I485 is pending at the 4 service centers and that much is very clearly mentioned in the letter.

Now that these letter's are brought to the attention of Rajiv, let's wait.

dsatish, my comments were not meant to be taken personal. If I offended you, I apologize. The words you used the wrong tense as if we did what we did..It is better to find out by yourself what is wrong with them. Plus, there is no need to congratulate someone more than once in the same letter. Choose either the beginning or the end. In this country which I am sure I lived more years than you did and have some experience, smart street as they say, it is considered as "kissing a frog". We do not need that. I wish I could have more time and compose the whole letter. In any case, here is an interesting article showing why the EAD as well as the H-1B are useless wrt "Export Control". Follow the link

"www.ailf.org/lac/lac_pa071703"

Note: My whole US life is more than twenty years, so I lived in this system ON and OFF from the early 80s.

[GC050102]

Originally posted by dsatish
Cinta,
Here is my answer to your feedback :
1. words : I don't see what's the problem with the words that you mentioned. I agree that i am not a professional writer but nobody has made any remarks on these words.
2. Our Expectation Section : You have gone too far in making the remarks here (saying "It seems like you do not have the capacity to understand"). There is no need to use such language. You better concentrate on the defects of the letter than the person.
Coming back to your question, i don't agree with your assumption that you should not present any solutions in a petition. Petition is nothing but a letter submitted by a group of people asking for remediation to their problems. I felt that the letter will be more effective if you offer possible solutions rather than simply complaining about BCIS . Nobody here said that we should not that paragraph in the letter. It doesn't mean that all these people
do not have capacity to understand.
3. -same as above- . The main purpose of Appendix B is that it helps BCIS understand what we are suggesting to them in order to reduce the backlog. They will look into this if they are serious.
4. who we are : I don't feel that we need to go into the details you wanted. We started this petition effort on behalf of all the people whose I485 is pending at the 4 service centers and that much is very clearly mentioned in the letter.

Now that these letter's are brought to the attention of Rajiv, let's wait.

........and you (dsatish) are saying that you are incorporating all the suggestions? Try to take all suggestions in a right way and incorporate them, if not somebody will comeup with version 4, confusing everybody.

I've seen your petition (and also Edison's), are you planning to include Appendix B also? Because in that appendix, points 2& 3 are essentially same (Half the paragraphs talk about the same stuff), you can integrate them both and it's the same case with 4&5.

I would prefer Edison's version than dsateesh's version. It is more formal and inline with people like Prakash expect.

Finally, we are all in the same boat, let's be united and fight for our cause (not fight among ourselves).

[topazB]

Originally posted by ar888
I did.

Thanks ar888. Let's all wait for Rajiv's opinion.

[dsatish]

Hi Cinta,
I really felt affended by your earlier remark and that made me take you lightly. Upon GC050102's suggestion and also with your later explanation later, i took a second look at version 3.1 and i incorporated almost all your suggestions. I addded some stuff in 'our contribution' paragraph so that it better explains who are the people behind this petition. When you said you are in this country for 20 years, i realised that you certainly needed more attention than what i earlier paid. Please feel free to give more inputs .

[dsatish]

Cinta,
Forgot to mention that i could not do anything about the last paragraph. It's a much debatable issue (whether we should have it or not) and due to the time constraints, let us leave it for now and see what rajiv says.

[dsatish]

Hi GC050102,
Thanks for pointing me towards a terrible copy and paste mistake.
Today i made some changes in the word document on my computer and while trying to copy those changes in my posting here, i have pasted the wrong stuff at some places (repeat material is pasted).

[jaxen]

To,
Mr Prakash Khatri
Citizenship and Immigration- Ombudsman
Dept of Homeland Security.

Subject : Request for reducing the huge backlog for Employment based I485 applications (Application to Adjust to Permanent Residency or also known as Greencard)

First, we would like to congratulate you on your appointment as the Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman at the Department of Homeland security. For the past few years, th eemployment based I485 applicants have been a voiceless group. We are passing through a very difficult time because of the slow progress of our applications at California, Nebraska, Texas and Vermont Service centers. We believe that you are the only hope of our voice being heard at BCIS.

The Processing Delays :
Until 2002, in most of the service centers (except Texas service center ) Legacy INS’s decision on the employment based I485 applications used to take less than one year.. But with the introduction of additional security checks combined with shortage of staff at the BCIS centers, the I485 application processing time has now increased to more than 19 months at all the service centers, with Texas Service Center taking more than 2 years. What is worse is, this processing time is increasing every month and BCIS is officially changing it (increasing it) every month.

Our Hardships :
This severe processing delay is affecting our lives enormously. We are not sure of our future, we can not take some important decisions in our lives including marriage, home ownership, children’s education.Our career advancement is hampered because the applicant has to remain with the same employer (or) similar job in order to benefit from this adjustment of status. Most of the employers are taking advantage of the above restrictions and the severe processing delays. These delays have only helped in extending this forced servitude. A general feeling of frustration over these ever-swelling waiting periods is very negatively affecting all of us.

Our Contribution to America :
We all provided our dedicated efforts to this country when it was in desperate need of speciality skilled workers. The persons behind this petition include scientists, highly skilled computer experts, system Analysts, innovators, doctors, teachers etc. We are playing an important role in making the American corporations establish and maintain their leadership in US and global markets. We are now an integral part of almost every major American Corporation. Our continued presence in immigration-glitch free situations is critically important for the growth of American business and the American Economy. While pursuing our American dream, we will continue to contribute towards making this country continue to lead the world technologically and economically.

President Bush's promise :
President Bush made a pledge to reduce the Immigration and Citizenship processing times for all types of applications to less than 180 days when he was elected. While we understand the practical difficulties being faced by BCIS, we feel that no serious effort is being made by BCIS to reduce the processing time of Employment based I485 applications, to less than 1 year. If BCIS does not take the necessary bold and decisive steps now, soon the processing times will reach 36 months or more.

Our Expectations :
We request you to appraise yourselves of our pathetic situation and help us make our voice heard at BCIS. Some of our immediate suggestions are listed below :

1. Increase the priority and resources given to process Employment Based I485 applications
2. Automate / improve the Name check and Security check procedures.
3. Automate the overall approval process
4. Increase the validity period of Finger Printing from the current 13 months
5. Eliminate need for EAD and Advance Parole renewal for employment based cases. Instead of renewing every year, these can be given until a decision has been made on the pending I485 petition.
6. Better Customer Service over phone. We should be able to know the exact status
of our applications and how to remedy any problems.
7. Initiation of a special backlog reduction drive for Employment based I485
applications. It should be taken as a serious project.
8. Allot some adjudicators to exclusively work on old cases (which have Receipt
date prior to the current processing month, but not yet approved). This would help alleviate disparity in the processing periods. People who have applied in 2003 have been accorded their I485 approvals, whence persons who applied in 2000 or 2001 are still waiting for BCIS’s responses.
9. Conditional approval for cases where BCIS did not get final results of Name or
Secuity check.
10. Finally, please get back to us with what BCIS is going to do on these suggestions. Any recommendations or guidelines for our approach will be eagerly followed.


We request you to discuss all the above issues with senior BCIS officials. Kindly inform us of the decisions taken. We see a bright opportunity for us to communicate with BCIS about the issues facing us, in you,


Thanking you

Signed
Employment based I485 Applicants

[dsatish]

jaxen,
The update looks good to me. Please rephrase the following sentence under processing delays paragraph : "What is worse is, this processing time is increasing ... ". I think "what is worse is" does not look good.

[topazB]

Jaxen: One more point needs to be added under “our expectation” that local transfer cases must be given highest priority and be interviewed within a month of transfer. These guys have already waited long and should not be made to suffer any longer.

[feb12rd]

3 things,

1) 4rth point in immediate suggestions, current fp expiring in 13 Months (I think it is 15 Months.)
2) topazB point is very good regarding inclusion of HIGHER PRIORITY ON LOCAL TRANSFERS.
3) very small, 2nd line in first paragraph a typo. It is 'th eemployment' inlieu of 'the employment'.

Thanks,

[Rajiv S. Khanna]

Folks, let me take a look at them. I have been extraordinarily busy the last two days. Now I have time. I will work them over and let you have my comments.

E-mail to rajiv@immigration.com

Thanks.

[Edison]

Hi Rajiv,

I e-mailed the petition for your reference. We appreciate your comments and thanks for your time.


Regards,
Edison.

[YJay]

Edison,
Thanks for your action.

dsatish,
Please respond to Rajiv with the version improved by Jaxen if you have not done so.

Thanks.

[dsatish]

YJay,
I just did (sent the sofy copy to Rajiv by Email). Here is the copy that i have sent.

Rajiv,
Did you recieve it ? If not, please download from this post.

[ag28]

or maybe problem with my comp

[dengdeng]

dstatish, can you change that 19 month to 20 month - 24 month, it's no longer 19 months now

typo on line 19, not 2003 but 2002. this is a mistake.

several spacing problems between words and comma.

"Conditional approval for cases whic BCIS has not been able to get final results of Name or Secuity check.

"We request you to discuss all the above issues with senior BCIS officials" not polite, we would like to request is better.

Kindly inform us of the decisions taken. should be "please kindly"

Page 3, line 13. each of us has been living
line 14 should be therefore, instead of there by

line 15, Defence -> Defense

line 18, an asylee

line 24, should be "so that they will work more efficiently"

Page 4, line 7, they should be "The operators"

line 44, should be "at least"

There're many other problems in your document, If you want, I can fix for you, but since you've already sent the document to Rajiv, maybe he will fix it for you.

[dsatish]

dengdeng,
i tried to change it to 20 and save it, but i can't save it. I can only save it to my harddisk. "save" is disabled. I can delete that attachment there, but i could not attach a new attachment in the same post. Seems you can only attach files to new posts. So let's keep it. Since we said that it is taking more than 19 months, it is still true.
I have added the suggestions of feb12rd and topaz (see point 10 in suggestions)

[dengdeng]

19 months is not as long as 20 months even though only one month difference. Here, everything is $xx.99 is not same as $xx+1. 19 let someone thinks it's in teens, but 20 let someone thinks it's more seriously, much longer.

[Edison]

Originally posted by dengdeng
19 months is not as long as 20 months even though only one month difference. Here, everything is $xx.99 is not same as $xx+1. 19 let someone thinks it's in teens, but 20 let someone thinks it's more seriously, much longer.

It's just a petition not a bill or law, so take it easy.