Project "Ocean" : Become a U.S. Citizen by 2008 Election !!

[kashmir]

Rajiv's message

As to what you folks can do:
Contact friends and family. Contact the media. Contact community orgaizations, other online forums like we have here, sympathetic employers... the more people, the better. Make everyone aware of the issues. I will tell you this, one or two articles about your problems in national news will get the ball rolling. CIS will not settle without some more public pressure.

[kashmir]

I will start talking to some Congressional offices about amendment of INA.
-kashmir

Originally posted by kashmir

SEC. 102. FIVE-YEAR RESIDENCE REQUIREMENT FOR NATURALIZATION
(a) Section 316(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1427(a)(1)) is amended by inserting "after the application for the adjustment of status is filed or" before "after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence".

[kashmir]

Pending I-485 Litigation - The Compaint (forum)

• Attached is the Complaint we have filed 12/22/2003
• ____complaint.pdf
• My conversation with USCIS Lawyer 2/5/2004
• Attached is the gorvernment's request 2/16/2004
• motion_extend_answer_complaint.pdf 2/16/2004
• Can We settle on These Bases? 2/17/2004
• ( senators_letter_delays.pdf )
• time_extension.pdf 2/18/2004
• Govt. has refused to cooperate on one issue at least 2/22/2004
• Settelement Memorandum Sent 2/27/2004
• 00001_settlement.pdf 2/27/2004
• Class action Motion Was filed Today 3/10/2004
• class_cert_motion_full_doc.pdf 3/10/2004
• class_cert_counsels_ affidavit.pdf 3/10/2004
• Settlement status 3/16/2004
• The govt said - no 3/24/2004
• Here is the Govt's Response to The complaint 3/30/2004

[wac-02-068]

Originally posted by kashmir
Pending I-485 Litigation - The Compaint (forum)

• Attached is the Complaint we have filed 12/22/2003
• ____complaint.pdf
• My conversation with USCIS Lawyer 2/5/2004
• Attached is the gorvernment's request 2/16/2004
• motion_extend_answer_complaint.pdf 2/16/2004
• Can We settle on These Bases? 2/17/2004
• ( senators_letter_delays.pdf )
• time_extension.pdf 2/18/2004
• Govt. has refused to cooperate on one issue at least 2/22/2004
• Settelement Memorandum Sent 2/27/2004
• 00001_settlement.pdf 2/27/2004
• Class action Motion Was filed Today 3/10/2004
• class_cert_motion_full_doc.pdf 3/10/2004
• class_cert_counsels_ affidavit.pdf 3/10/2004
• Settlement status 3/16/2004
• The govt said - no 3/24/2004
• Here is the Govt's Response to The complaint 3/30/2004

No surprise. I feel bad for the US government for such an answer, and for those sufferers who knew this lawsuit but didn't sign the petition which resulted in the disqualify of class action.

[kash777]

I read most of the statments . It looks for me is a relpy from a typical lawyer/ lawers gang seating somewhere and scraching head for 90 days to reply,which he/she could have denide every thing in one day as his part of job. It is very common and expected kind of reply from the defendants. every opponant will always deny . It is upto the judge to study the facts and rule. Lets see . Time will tell how far are we.

[wac-02-068]

Originally posted by kash777
I read most of the statments . It looks for me is a relpy from a typical lawyer/ lawers gang seating somewhere and scraching head for 90 days to reply,which he/she could have denide every thing in one day as his part of job. It is very common and expected kind of reply from the defendants. every opponant will always deny . It is upto the judge to study the facts and rule. Lets see . Time will tell how far are we.

However, it could have been somewhat different had we made it qualify class action, by enough people ONLY signing the petition.

SIGH

[yuk1200]

The answer sucks.
It is a shame that we were not able to be considered for a class action.

I do not believe congressmen/women can do, or let me rephrase it, are willing to do something for us: we are not voters (yeah...maybe in 5+ years) and right now immigrants "stink" (no pun intented for anybody - but this is the reality nowaday)

I think we should push for press recognition: newspapers, radio....(so far my efforts did not produce any results)
Maybe as a group...

[gc0299]

Signing the petition was a first easy requierement, and we already failed here.

[ThelastMile]

Class action motion is not over yet. USCIS is not agreed to it but court will decide whether to grant it or not. It is due by end of April.
On a related note, we haven't submitted any signatures yet.
See Mr.Khanna's note:
http://www.immigrationportal.com/sho...314#post719039

Although, I am disappointed with USCIS’s response, after reading the response document, I am fairly optimistic that court will throw out some of their “not accountable for anything” arguments.

[kashmir]

Rajiv's message

Originally posted by operations 1st April 2004 03:50 AM
I need every one's input. All view points including those I disgree with are welcome.

What does this all mean? Nothing. They could have drafted a more fair response and narrowed the controversy. They chose not to do so. This is their right as defendants. But I find it shameful that our government litigates in a manner calculated to waste the time of the courts rather than achieve justice.

Just because they deny facts or law does not alter either. If they wish to go to trial, we will line up the court with witnesses who can testify as to the harm suffered.

Agreed, they have strong legal arguments. the strongest one being the separation of powers - normally - court will not tell an agency how to run its business. Nevertless, it is upto the court to intervene or not. That is why we are here, in court.

What will we do? We will fight - win or lose. And as a community, we will never again be treated with disregard. We will try always to fight for the right cause - win or lose. It is the struggle that is important.

We must simultaneously approach Congress for help and not just fight on the judicial front.

The first big test in this litigation would be the determination on the class action. Let us see where that goes.

Hang tight. I will keep you informed.

We need some more ledearship amongs you folks. More people to plan, organize, move.

Just my two cents. My warmest regards to all of you.

[wac-02-068]

Excuse my pessimistic.

If we can't make the case qualify for class action, I don't see any chance for the community to get any thing out of it.

There are millions of cases pending, multi thousand means 0.1%.
If more than 99.9% can bear the current situation, who would seriously think there is a problem?

Signing the petition is equivalent to saying "dear government, I am suffering more than I can bear!" It won't hurt. Why not just stand up and let your voice heard?

"United We Stand" has a Chinese version, which is "Ò»¸ù¿ê×ÓÈÝÒ×Íä, Ê®¸ù¿ê×Ó²»Ò×ÕÛ". I believe there are many other versions in the universe.

[solarise]

I agree we must continue our fight.

I received a piece of encouraging news from my lawyer today:

*****
CSC Director Don Neufeld announced at a March 31, 2004 AILA liaison meeting that the USCIS will be embarking on two new pilot programs to experiment with different approaches to processing.

Starting shortly, CSC will attempt to adjudicate all new concurrently filed EB-2, non- National Interest Waiver, I-140s and I-485s on a truly concurrent basis. Instead of a prima facie review, the I-140 will be adjudicated within 90 days, together with the I-485, provided fingerprints and name checks are cleared in time. The CSC also will be targeting previously-filed, non-NIW EB-2s, in order to bring their processing times down to match the pilot program processing. Additionally, the CSC will concurrently adjudicate pending adjustment/I-140 applications in all categories, in order to bring processing times to below one year; however, AILA was told to expect little movement on lone-filed I-140s during this push. This pilot project will be at only the CSC at this time.

Current I-485 processing at the CSC - and the other three regional USCIS processing centers - averages 24+ months. In 2000, the US Congress instructed the government to complete the processing of I-140s and I-485s in 180 days or less in order to make America more competitive.

Time will tell whether the USCIS will now comply with the 2000 law or if the US Congress cares enough to have the law enforced.

*****

Hopefully this is not another gimmick to win Bush more votes. I am sick and tired of lies and deception by the USCIS, especially the CSC. Don Neufeld's comments leave out much details. 1 - He never specified a concrete date as to when the pilot program would be implemented. 2 - The duration of this pilot program is unknown. 3 - Pilot programs have been enacted in the TSC but retracted immediated due to unmanagable demand. Nevertheless, I take Don Neufeld's comments as a positive step towards reducing the backlog.

We still need to influence the Congressional leaders so they will be on our side to enforce American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act. I encourage us all to stay together and contact our Senators and Representatives to keep Don Neufeld honest and make sure no immigrants will suffer again in the hands of the USCIS.

[BMP]

Originally posted by kashmir

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by kashmir

SEC. 102. FIVE-YEAR RESIDENCE REQUIREMENT FOR NATURALIZATION
(a) Section 316(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1427(a)(1)) is amended by inserting "after the application for the adjustment of status is filed or" before "after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence".

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

This is good but do not encompass some categories of immigrants.
For example one can be at a DOL certification process for more then 5 years. So adjustment of status is not applicable.
Can the phrase
"after the application for the adjustment of status is filed or"
be changed to
"after the application for the permanent status is filed or"
Or something similar to reflect those who fall under DOL backlog mill ?

[kashmir]

Originally posted by BMP
This is good but do not encompass some categories of immigrants.
For example one can be at a DOL certification process for more then 5 years. So adjustment of status is not applicable.
Can the phrase
"after the application for the adjustment of status is filed or"
be changed to
"after the application for the permanent status is filed or"
Or something similar to reflect those who fall under DOL backlog mill ?

Hi, BMP,
Thanks for your suggestion.

I'd like to cover all terms not only I-485 pending but also I-140 and LC.
However, I think "the application for the permanent status" is not clear in INA.

Can you read related part of INA and suggest appropriate words ?

[kashmir]

US Citizenship forum

http://immigrationportal.com/showthr...398#post750398

[kashmir]

USCIS Announces Fee Adjustments to Enhance Service 4/14/04

New USCIS Immigration Benefit Application Fees 4/14/04

[kashmir]

Pete Stark Town Meeting 4/17/2004

[kashmir]

I will close all fax/e-mail campaigns that I have started except #13 for a while.
You don't need to fax or send e-mail to participate in the campaign.
It's just a donation to ImmigrationPortal.Org.

Project Ocean Campaign #13a
Make Your Contribuion Today !!
target number of contributions 15 by 4/18/2004
Project Kashmir weekend report of 4/18/2004 will not be posted until we meet the target.

[kashmir]

I cancell all my campagins including #13.

Originally posted by kashmir
I will close all fax/e-mail campaigns that I have started except #13 for a while.
You don't need to fax or send e-mail to participate in the campaign.
It's just a donation to ImmigrationPortal.Org.

Project Ocean Campaign #13a
Make Your Contribuion Today !!
target number of contributions 15 by 4/18/2004
Project Kashmir weekend report of 4/18/2004 will not be posted until we meet the target.

[kashmir]

We have been doging dozens of fax/e-mail camaigns for last several months.

1) USCIS, CSC, or Don Neufeld
They totally ignore our letters.

2) DHS Ombudsman
unknown

3) Congressperson or Senators
They usually response only to residents in their district, however, they come to aware of ImmigrationPortal.Com.
An immigration case worker at the district office is sometimes very useful for an individual case.
We need to contact to the staff at Washington D.C. office about policy or legislation on immigration.

4) Media
If we can provide a strong story, it would have an impact.

5) Arnold Schwarzenegger
maybe useless

In conclusion, it's the most effective contacting Congressional member's Washington D.C. offices.

[kashmir]

It must be the most effective contacting Congressional member's Washington D.C. office.

I still believe that fax campaign to Congressional office is effective if a lot of people participate and if some of us call to Washington D.C. office constantly to follow up.

However, the number of participants is too small to give the impact to them.
Also, it's very diffcult and needs a lot of time and efforts to talk directly with a staff at Washington D.C. office.
Especially in California, we have some hardships because Washington D.C. is far from California and because Democrats is too strong in California.

In step forward, I believe we must have a dedicated person in Washington D.C. to contact Congressional members directly in professional way.
It had been impossible, but now we have ImmigrationPortal.ORG.
This is why I have been asking your donation to ImmigrationPortal.ORG recently.

[kashmir]

I'm very pleased and proud that many members at CSC I-485 forum have been continuously participating in various campaings for the community.
Even though it might be not so effective nor enough, I believe we get some results from the campaigns.

I know that some people are unwilling to join campaigns just for reports of Project Kashmir.
They complain about campaign's ineffectiveness or don't want to use their time for such a campaign.

Regarding Project Kashmir, I have no obligation to post its reports at the forum at all.
I can get data by myself without anyone's help and just for myself.
However, I understand most of I-485 applicants want to see such data.
Also, I believe providing data helps the community to see what happens at the CSC.

I am not a volunteer at ImmigrationPortal.Com.
I am just a member and come to the forum to give and take to/from each other like most of you.
My focus at the forum is not to exchange information but to do something for the community to improve the current broken immigration system.
So, if you get some benefit from Project Kashmir, I'd like some contribution from you to the community such as campaign participation.

Now, as I summarized above, I have cancelled all my campaigns and shifted my focus to ImmigrationPortal.ORG.
So, you don't need to worry about annoying campaigns any more.
Instead of that, you can make a donation to ImmigrationPortal.ORG to contribute for the community.

[140_takes_4ever]

I don't think the campaigns should stop. Regardless of hiring a person in Washington, the only effective way to make things happen is the voice of the people.

As you can tell the number of participants in the campaign is increasing slowly but surely! In my opinion, immigrationportal.ORG cannot match the captive audience of immigrationportal.COM. We cannot afford to lose either, because doing so is playing into the hands of the INS.

We must motivate both groups of people to continue a sustained campaign against INS. We must put pressure on the director of CSC and all the various congressmen and senators.

We CANNOT stop the campaigns, regardless of outcome. Because one day we will succeed.

Kashmir, however much you deny it, the fact is absolute that you are the main driving force and the main mover and shaker, you cannot quit, if you do so INS will run rough shod over us.

I don't care one hoot for Project Kashmir as much as I care about your campaigns. The campaigns should not be stopped.

[kashmir]

Hi, 140_takes_4ever,

> I don't think the campaigns should stop.
> We CANNOT stop the campaigns, regardless of outcome. Because one day we will succeed.
> I don't care one hoot for Project Kashmir as much as I care about your campaigns. The campaigns should not be stopped.

I agree with you and don't worry.
I just said, "I stop the campaigns that I started and I don't start new ones for a while."

Anyone can start a campaign.
I am not only a person to start a campaign.
Actually, almost half of recent campaigns have been started not by me and some of them are succeeded.

I encourage everyone to start new campaign better than mine.
I am pleased to join those new campaigns.

[kashmir]

http://www.shusterman.com/

Democrats to Introduce Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Bill

April 26, 2004
Congressional Democrats are poised to introduce
a comprehensive package of immigration reforms
next week.

Among the reforms will be the end of all quota
restrictions on spouses and minor children of
permanent residents, the elimination of the three
and ten year bars on permanent residence, and
the immediate immigration of anyone who has a
priority date which is more than five years old.

We will discuss and analyze this bill in the May
issue of our free, e-mail newsletter,
SHUSTERMAN'S IMMIGRATION UPDATE.

[wittAAAA]

I like this part:
the immediate immigration of anyone who has a
priority date which is more than five years old.

Finally, the idea -- honoring fixed timeline -- is being introduced into bill.

[kashmir]

Here are cosmos' initiatives:

• Project Cosmos
• Ideas Boulevard
• 485 – An Imperfect Q: What should we do about it?

Originally posted at Projet Cosmos thread

> Is Project Cosmos a duplicate of Project Ocean?

I don't think so.

> Is there a summary post of the results of Project Ocean efforts so far?

No.

Here is the original thread of Project Ocean that I started in October 2003:
http://immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=99973

Originally, I wanted to focus the amendment of INA about 5-year resident requirement for Naturalization.
However, we shifted our focus to I-485 backlog reduction especially at the CSC.

You can find the links to our fax/e-mail campaigns at:
http://immigrationportal.com/showthr...662#post714068
Each campaign requested a specific item to a specific person.
For instance, the campaign #8b targeted Ombudsman Khatri for nomination of Don Neufeld to the anual report for Congress.
The most successful campaign got almost 50 participants.
Some campaigns got only 10 - 20 participants.
I stopped all campaigns in April due to a certain reason.

By the way, my I-485 got approved on 5/7/2004.
I will be back in the Project Ocean to pursue the original goal at the next weekend.
Also, I support your new BIG project, Project Cosmos.
Let's think BIG !!
-kashmir

[cosmos]

Thanks for Kashmir. I just finished reading through most of Project Ocean posts. Wow! Truly remarkable! And thanks for continuing to be such a positive influence even after getting your GC approval.

Q1: In some of the posts, I saw you mentioned that we need about 15 – 20 dedicated adjudicators. Is it based on adjudication time of about 45 minutes? Is it still correct?

Q2: There are about 1.2 million pending 485 applications. I do not have a break up of employment based, family based, etc. Do you have any stats on this?

Q3: I remember reading somewhere that EB visas are only about 140000 a year. Is it true and are we handicapped by that too?

Thanks!

[kashmir]

Thanks for Kashmir. I just finished reading through most of Project Ocean posts. Wow! Truly remarkable! And thanks for continuing to be such a positive influence even after getting your GC approval.

My pleasure.

> Q1: In some of the posts, I saw you mentioned that we need about 15 – 20 dedicated adjudicators. Is it based on adjudication time of about 45 minutes? Is it still correct?

That number was my wild guess.
Anyway, the CSC has abandoned its stupid policy about RFE recently,
so the CSC seems to have I-485 adjudication resources to stop its backlog growing,
but I think such resources are not enough to reduce the backlog significantly.

> Q2: There are about 1.2 million pending 485 applications. I do not have a break up of employment based, family based, etc. Do you have any stats on this?

Project Kashmir shows the following numbers for WAC-02 and 03 at the CSC.
receipt : 100+/day, 3,000 cases/month, 36,000 cases/year in average.
for WAC-04, a little bit less.

Other service centers seem to receive more applications,
maybe the VSC receives almost double of the CSC.

> Q3: I remember reading somewhere that EB visas are only about 140000 a year. Is it true and are we handicapped by that too?

Visa Bulletin
http://travel.state.gov/visa_bulletin.html

I have no idea about your second question.

[kashmir]

I will start talking to some Congressional offices about amendment of INA.SEC. 102.

FIVE-YEAR RESIDENCE REQUIREMENT FOR NATURALIZATION
(a) Section 316(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1427(a)(1)) is amended by inserting "after the application for the adjustment of status is filed or" before "after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence".

-kashmir

I have read some sections of INA and I'd like to change the target to the priority date or I-140 filing date.
Any suggestions ?