Anna Eshoo's next town hall meeting on 12/13/03

Definitely count me in.

I think we will have all the usual suspects volunteer, because it is a Saturday. I am hoping that some silent lurkers also show up. So looking for a crowd of atleast 15 if possible.

As far as Agenda is concerned, it will be the same, though there is no need to hand over the petition since she already has multiple copies. I would also request the people who haven't sent the petition over to Anna Eshoo, to please do so ASAP.

Regards and hope to see a number of people next Saturday.
 
Faxed to Ms. Aris Aguirre at Anna Eshoo's Washington DC office

(originally posted at Project Ocean thread)

I faxed a letter to follow up.
-kashmir


December 8, 2003

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo
Attn: Ms. Aris Aguirre
205 Cannon Building
Washington, DC 20515-0514
Phone: (202) 225-8104
Fax: (202) 225-8890

RE: Reply from Don Nuefeld ?

Dear Ms. Aris Aguirre;

Have you got any reply from Don Neufeld, Director of CSC, since Congresswoman wrote to him on 11/11/2003 ? It's almost one month.

By the way, according to several immigration attorney's web sites, at the AILA liaison meeting being held in November, a representative from CSC seemed to talk that additional personnels had been allocated to reduce the processing times for I-485s to within one year in the next six months (or to within six months in the next one year). However, we can not see any improvement as of today (12/08/2003). We don't want such a lip service from CSC but we need to see Don Neufeld's written commitment and the actual implementation plan to reduce the EB I-485 backlog through Congressioanl office.

We will attend Congresswoman's town hall meeting in Palo Alto on 12/13/2003. If she can update it at that meeting, we'd appreciate it very much.

Best regards,
(my signature)
(my name)
(my address)

Attachment:
1) Excerpts from Immigration Attorney's Web Sites
2) Congresswoman's Letter to Don Neufeld - 11/11/2003
 
thanks for the letter; should we also mention AC21

I am assuming then that the agenda will be to request Ms Eshoo to get CSC to give a written commitment.
Adding info about the AC 21 law that asks (if I have interpreted it correctly) BCIS to eliminate the backlog by year 2001 should also
be brought to her notice.
 
letter/Eshoo/feinstein

i have sent a letter to Ms Eshoo's office mentioning AC-21 (law 106-313 sections), EAD+APD hassles, and the exponentially increasing delays at CSC (with graphs from data posted elsewhere on this forum). also sent a similar letter to feinstein's office (since she introduced the 106-313 bill in 2000).

will post here if/when i get a response. previous commitments likely will pre-empt attending this saturday's council meeting though its only a few blocks away.

and despite the emotional/logical "arguments by repeated assertion" on this board for/against the lawsuit, i support it even if it only brings benefit to those who may follow in the coming years.

-wac-ed
02-223
 
Originally posted by san_gcwait
... do we meet outside the townhall?
Click to expand...
Each one can go into the meeting room directly.
We know each other, so it should be no problem.
 
There should be two more persons with me

actually five have agreed. None of them have ever posted on immigrationportal.com. Am making a conservative estimate in case last minute appointments happen.
 
agenda for meeting?

Pardon me for asking again, but shouldn't there be any specific agenda that we should agree on? From my past experience at Pete Stark meeting - this is what we should attempt to do
a)Discuss the main points (and if possible the speakers) to be presented beforehand. We need to get a coherent message out that is well stated. Mutliple persons speaking randomly may dilute our message. It also helps new attendees to the meeting get updated with Kashmir (and others) efforts. For this particular meeting Kashmir can present the petition, 140_takes_4ever can then continue with an overview of the magnitude of the problem and suggested remedies and then others can reinforce the statement with a description of their own personal 485 / EAD/ AP issues. The main point to get across in this meeting can be to get Ms. Eshoo to extract a written promise from Don Neufield about processing dates and (possibly) to convey the message that BCIS is violating AC21

b) Include some real life sob stories. Get spouses if possible and get them to talk to Anna. We should be presenting the problems that dependents (or the family as a whole) face because of BCIS twisted rules eg. my wife's and mine AP dates are staggered such that when one of us gets AP approved - the other one's expires. As a result - we will not been able to travel together in the next several months. This could have easily been avoided if AP was issued for the entire duration of 485 application instead of on an annual basis

c) Solicit suggestions from Anna on further leads that we can puruse in order get CSC to respond faster. A good question that was asked in the Pete Stark meeting was ' Who else can influence Don Neufield / CSC' . Such questions may give more insight on who the real movers and shakers are in the CSC set up.
 
Here are some hints based on my experience attending her town hall meeting twice.

1) Anna Eshoo will appear at the room 30 minutes before the meeting, and try to talk with some constituents.
2) She will speak about major hot topics for 15-30 minutes.
3) Then, Q&A for an hour or more if the room would be available.
Attendee has to fill out a questionnaire and pass it to a staff.
Staffs gather them and bring them to Congresswoman.
She reads each question and answers.
4) After the meeting, she will stay at the room for a while to talk with constituents.

I don't think we can have a separate official meeting with Congresswoman on 12/13/2003.
We had better be there at 9:30am to wait her coming.

Or, some of us may visit the district office on Thursday or Friday,
and talk to Anne Ream who is a kind of chief staff at the district office to negotiate.
 
I called to Washington D.C. office yesterday and found that Ms. Aris Aguirre was absent because of her sickness,
so I faxed the similar letter to Anne Ream at the district office last night.
It might be diffiult to get a response from Don Neufeld by the town hall meeting.
-kashmir
 
Eshoo's office says the meeting tomorrow will focus on the following issues:
-- the situation in Iraq
-- implications of the recent healthcare bill
-- economy.

-wac-ed.
 
agenda (once again)

>>We had better be there at 9:30am to wait her coming.
Does this mean that if we reach by 9:30 - we may get a chance to speak to her

It seems to be a pleasant surprise - but I have gotten 3 new *unsolicited* inquiries in the past hour about tomorrow's meeting by acquaintances. Not sure how many will make it.
My present problem is to explain the agenda of the meeting and the time that we are expected to assemble.
For the moment - this is what I am communicating:

Assemble at 9:30 am. Attempt to speak to Anna Eshoo where Kashmir will hand over the petition. Give personal accounts of hardship (AP delays being the most recent).

If not - then attempt to speak to a staffperson and hand over the petition. Also inquire about Don Neufield's response (or the possibility of it)

Is this what is expected? The old timers may wish to correct this.
My current view is that if we ever want to spread the awareness about this effort - then we need to be more focussed in terms of agenda, speakers , format of petitions and the time of meeting
 
Terrific news! Good job mazdur_desi! :)

Your plans and agenda sound excellent. I was hoping that the people who showed up in Fremont would show up for the 14th district meeting again.

Our points this time will be different from the last time because there is no need to spread awareness to Anna Ishoo's organisation. Thanks to the various volunteers, she is pretty aware of the problem and our presence.

In this meeting we must press her for results and action plan to reduce backlogs. Let us not waste time in discussing the problems we are facing, instead try and suggest ways and means, she can suggest to Don Neufield how to cut the backlog and the checks and bounds she should ask Don Neufield to implement.

Good work once again, hope to see you guys tomorrow morning, this time we should recognise each other much easier than the last time. :)
 
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