Employment based immigration backlog petition

Re: Questions

Originally posted by cinta
Rajiv,

We are all so thankful for your efforts. This immigrant community is so grateful. Thanks for contacting the India Tribune. We are in the process of contacting, or at least made the Petition available to other mainstream media as well.
Question on AILA: So far we have nobody else on this bandwagon. EDISON will provide us with some answers from immigration lawyers later. AILA expressed interest on more general issues.
Summary:
Sign-On Letter Urges BCIS to Restore Direct
Phone Access to Service Centers

Sign-On Letter Urges BCIS Not to Contract Out
the Immigration Officer Function

Results of AILA Survey Finds Extremely High
Rate of Dissatisfaction with BCIS 800 Number

AILA Backrounder:
Ombudsman Issues

AILA Urges President and Congress to Get Serious about
Backlog Reduction

Testimony of Palma Yanni on the Impact of Visa Approval
Backlogs on Small Business

AILA Issue Paper on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Restricting Immigrant Access to Driver's Licenses
Click to expand...

Oh I did not contact them. They contacted me.
 
Re: Emails to all the registered members

Originally posted by dsatish
Rajiv / Monica,
I think that there are thousands of registered users in your website under different forums like H1B, I485, Labor Certifications etc. How ever, we have got only 1200 signatures till now. This is quite low compared to our potential.
Could you please ask the administrator to send Emails to all the registered users with a request to sign the I485 backlog petition ?
If you can do that, that will add thousands of signatures to our campaign.
Click to expand...


I feel that is an undue intrusion on their privacy. I am reluctant to do that.
 
addresses

source: AILA


The Honorable Tom Ridge
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

The Honorable Eduardo Aguirre, Jr.
Director
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
Department of Homeland Security
425 Eye St. NW
Washington, DC 20536

From the second we can make up the
Ombudsman's address. Does he have an office and a P.O.Box?
 
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Support for Petition - Response

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Thank you for contacting the Immigration Law Center. Mr. Campbell is working through the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C., to promote a direct appropriation from Congress to BCIS in order to address the horrible backlog situation of which you write.
IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER, L.L.C. P.O. Box 11032 Montgomery, Alabama 36111-0032 Tel (334) 832-9090 http://www.visaus.com/
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We'll provide information on your cause in the News Bytes section of our next newsletter.
Good luck.
Regards, Greg Siskind Gregory Siskind, Attorney at Law Siskind Susser - Immigration Lawyers Telephone: 800-748-3819 or 901-682-6455 Fax: 800-684-1267 or 630-604-9306 Email: gsiskind@visalaw.com Web: www.visalaw.com
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be sure we will post it on our web page...
Immigration Assistent @visaamerica.com Peter J. Jaensch Immigration Law Firm, P.A. 2198 Main Street Sarasota, Florida 34237 Tel: 941-366-9841 Fax: 941-951-0677 www.visaamerica.com
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Dear <Zzzzz>,
What the immigrant community does not understand is that U.S. immigration policies and practices don't make any sense to intelligent, or even half-brained people. Of course, anyone with a smiddling of 'common sense' would be completely lost and confused. The delay you speak about, and good luck on the petition itself, is a result of BCIS and the overall 'homeland' security bureaucracy (including the FBI) being 'frozen' by the prospect of swearing in another 'mistake'; it is difficult for BCIS to differentiate and separate the normal processing of immigrant petitions (I deal almost exclusively with I-140/EB1 & 2, and applications, including I-485s, and the security issues involved, i.e., obtaining quick clearances. Today, every alien is a presumed terrorist or engaged in some kind of fraud/misrepresentation these days, including businesses, and those adjudicating cases at the Service Centers are not trained to 'approve' cases, but to look for and find 'denials'. In a bad economy and with terrorists around every corner, it is open season on immigration and that is what you are feeling and seeing. No one seems to understand that it is in our economic 'national interest' to steal the best and brightest who are attracted to our shores. Only Alan Greenspan has gone there, in relation to saving social security. He's thinking labor force. Even he has not made the connection to inherent brainpower and creation of jobs and future industry. To the Demos, the issues are asylum, humanitarian parole and refugees; to the Republicans, the issues are illegal immigration and deporting people. Don't hold your breadth; presently, there is no one in charge! Paul
"Paul M. Heller, Esq." <heller@greencard1.com>
If interested, please visit our website: www.greencard1.com or call us toll-free at: 1-800-863-4448.

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Re: addresses

Originally posted by cinta
source: AILA


The Honorable Tom Ridge
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

The Honorable Eduardo Aguirre, Jr.
Director
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
Department of Homeland Security
425 Eye St. NW
Washington, DC 20536

From the second we can make up the
Ombudsman's address. Does he have an office and a P.O.Box?
Click to expand...

No clue. Monica, get these two addresses also.
 
Suggestion

I believe that if the I485 backlock was created because of lacking of funding and resources, then the most efficient way to address the issue is to increase the funding. However, in current situation that will not happen, the congress is very unlikely to increase the budget for the immigration service. Most likely the funding will be further eroded because of the current Iraq spending. I suggest that we solve the funding problem ourselves in the following way: 1. Increase the filing fee for I485, and the fee increase will be only used for processing I485 cases. 2).Set up a premium processing for these I485 waiters who are willing to pay additional fee for the process. In this way, even if we have to pay a higher price, it would be better than waiting forever without seeing any future.
 
Well said zhang102, I think BCIS needs to have a premimum process for 485. If they say they don't have funds or enough people (which I think is incorrect), increase the 485 fee and increase the number of people working on the 485 cases. Since 485 cases are predominantly employment based, people would not have any problem in paying extra fee.
 
zhang102, frantic,
You got it. Premium processing is the way to go.
But guys do you know where our application fees are going?????
It is used for Immigration enforcement rather than processing our applications.
Moreover Illegals, asylum seekers don't pay any application fees , But all these politicians are working on various Illegal immigration reforms.
Even if they introduce Premium processing the money will go to Immigration enforcement and others process, It won't help us!!!!!!!!
 
Premium processing? Yes, I am willing to pay. However, the problem is NOT the appropriateness of the fees we paid for adjudication. It IS because the fees we paid are not allocated to adjudicate our cases!!!

How sure are we that the extra fees we pay will be allocated to our I-485 cases? If BCIS make a promise today, saying they'll employ 200 extra adjudicators (JUST EB 485) for next year for a cost of $10,000,000, each of the 1 mil pending 485 applicants only need to cough up an extra $10.00. We can afford it. Will they do it? Let's say each of us pay $100 extra. Do you expect BCIS will proportion $10 to EB I-485s? Not if they are not shifting their priorities! Not if they retain their current mentality to search minor imperfections in our cases for denial! As AILA pointed out the adjudicators are trained to find causes to deny our cases but NOT trained to approve our cases. Yes, it takes time to process these cases because they are trying to find flaws in millions of perfect applications. RFEs for employment is a typical example. What the heck are these RFEs? People have gone through the scrutiny of Labor and I-140.

Our petition is to ask them to give us higher priorities and allocate the money (and hence resources) we paid for to our cases. Any extra money is just like a piece of meat you throw to hit a dog ¨C it doesn't serve the purpose.

Petition, lobbying congressmen/women, using the media, law suit are all effective means to solve the problem.
 
Re: Suggestion

Originally posted by zhang102
I believe that if the I485 backlock was created because of lacking of funding and resources, then the most efficient way to address the issue is to increase the funding. However, in current situation that will not happen, the congress is very unlikely to increase the budget for the immigration service. Most likely the funding will be further eroded because of the current Iraq spending. I suggest that we solve the funding problem ourselves in the following way: 1. Increase the filing fee for I485, and the fee increase will be only used for processing I485 cases. 2).Set up a premium processing for these I485 waiters who are willing to pay additional fee for the process. In this way, even if we have to pay a higher price, it would be better than waiting forever without seeing any future.
Click to expand...

zhang102,

All you are saying are correct. The lack of funding is only ONE of the reasons and it is being used as an excuse in most times. Actually the DHS (pointed this out somewhere)got the lion's share of the money (philadelphia inquirer, Tuesday)and this is how far it goes. Then this money is appropriated between BCIS and BICE (enforcement). Most of it goes to BICE. there is no direct funding to BCIS but to DHS. The MAIN reason is the new adjudicators policy/attitude; they work to refuse cases not to approve; and this came from the "zero tolerance" driven by the DHS and Department of Justice.
Oh, and the little money allocated to BCIS goes to SECURITY. What a joke. Myriads of databases and computer systems trying to find terrorists among us! Not only that but BCIS has very little cloud in the DHS new world of things. The cloud and the muscle)as well the money goes to BICE. There will be a new appointee of Deputee secretary of DHS (William Gordon, Navy goes back) and this is the person that oversees BCIS and makes policy. Waiting to see who is appointed and what will come..
 
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Originally posted by frantic
Well said zhang102, I think BCIS needs to have a premimum process for 485. If they say they don't have funds or enough people (which I think is incorrect), increase the 485 fee and increase the number of people working on the 485 cases. Since 485 cases are predominantly employment based, people would not have any problem in paying extra fee.
Click to expand...

frantic,
we can suggest this premium processing as well as a meaningful EXPEDITE policy. Even family based applications get consideration by allocating MSC as a central location for processing. For us nothing!
 
Originally posted by YJay
Premium processing? Yes, I am willing to pay. However, the problem is NOT the appropriateness of the fees we paid for adjudication. It IS because the fees we paid are not allocated to adjudicate our cases!!!

How sure are we that the extra fees we pay will be allocated to our I-485 cases? If BCIS make a promise today, saying they'll employ 200 extra adjudicators (JUST EB 485) for next year for a cost of $10,000,000, each of the 1 mil pending 485 applicants only need to cough up an extra $10.00. We can afford it. Will they do it? Let's say each of us pay $100 extra. Do you expect BCIS will proportion $10 to EB I-485s? Not if they are not shifting their priorities! Not if they retain their current mentality to search minor imperfections in our cases for denial! As AILA pointed out the adjudicators are trained to find causes to deny our cases but NOT trained to approve our cases. Yes, it takes time to process these cases because they are trying to find flaws in millions of perfect applications. RFEs for employment is a typical example. What the heck are these RFEs? People have gone through the scrutiny of Labor and I-140.

Our petition is to ask them to give us higher priorities and allocate the money (and hence resources) we paid for to our cases. Any extra money is just like a piece of meat you throw to hit a dog ¨C it doesn't serve the purpose.

Petition, lobbying congressmen/women, using the media, law suit are all effective means to solve the problem.
Click to expand...

Yjay, Edison well said. Let us concentrate on the following:
1: Increase Petition signatures. Maybe post it to other places as well.
2: Contact other organisations (see my postings as well as AILA's letters) and ask for Endorsment.
3: Start contacting the Media (Newspapers)by sending them the Petition. This requires a designated person to be our contact. Continue thereafter with TV/Radio.
4: Work on the Congress/Senate/Other Government agencies (like GAO)methodically. This means more people, possible modification of the letter and appropriate tailoring given recent developments with budget (87 billion),etc. The current form does not identify the problem (see response from greencard1 submited by Edison). In this respect we need HARD DATA, either from GAO, AILA, or from US. See questions posed by Operations..we need to have almost exact numbers: Number of pending cases, backlog figures, etc..
 
I don't have any problem if they have "zero tolerance" policy and I don't mind if they try to weed out suspicious cases from 485 applicants. I think it is very important in the post 9/11 world. But as someone said earlier they are taking that as an excuse and are delaying our cases.

I think the backlog is because of:
- incompetent officers working on our cases
- lazy workers because I think there is no incentive for them to approve more number of cases; what do you expect from Govt. workers
- antiquated system - they still use papers; it's high time they switch to computers.
 
INTERRUPTING

I very much want to join this discussion. Let us build tools to put BCIS on the defensive. But i am afraid that if we run long discussions in this thread, then Rajiv will lose focus. Please remember that we can't expect Rajiv to spend all his time for us. He is an extremely busy lawyer and i don't want him to look into all the postings to find out which one he has to reply. My opinion is, let us dedicate this thread for our communication with Rajiv. Let's move the discussion to normal threads. If you guys agree with me, please ask people to continue discussion on this topic in a specified link (either new or existing thread).
 
Rajiv

Rajiv,
I have sent you by Email, the new Petition that we have prepared to address the Congress Men. Could you please review it let us know your comments ?
 
I have all the time we will need

Do not worry. But if you have posted something and not received an answer within the next business day, just shoot me an e-mail.

I did review and slightly amend (attached). I would like to review one more time.

I suggest we come up with:
1. A letterhead design; and
2. A slogan that represents our community spirit (for now, I have put down "United for Equity, Dignity and Acceptance").

We have resources to hire a pro for the design and the slogan if you folks think that is what we should do. I just like doing things between us, as a community.
 
Re: I have all the time we will need

Originally posted by operations
Do not worry. But if you have posted something and not received an answer within the next business day, just shoot me an e-mail.

I did review and slightly amend (attached). I would like to review one more time.

I suggest we come up with:
1. A letterhead design; and
2. A slogan that represents our community spirit (for now, I have put down "United for Equity, Dignity and Acceptance").

We have resources to hire a pro for the design and the slogan if you folks think that is what we should do. I just like doing things between us, as a community.
Click to expand...

Rajiv,

The design and the slogan are excellent ideas.

How about the India Tribune questions you had? Do you have satisfactory answers especially with the Backlog numbers? Since there is some fear among at least some of us about the Media/Press could you dispell those rumors as urban legends and encourage this approach? I think I saw an answer of yours in the TSC encouraging people for a paid AD. We are not there yet but could start slowly. Thanks in advance.

Backlogs: It takes some ciphering to do and get the EB I-485 numbers. Nevertheless,

http://www.immigration-law.com/


09/05/2003: 31% Increase of Immigration Benefits Applications Backlogs Between FY 2002 and FY 2003!

According to the BCIS statistics report dated 08/31/2003, the immigration benefits pending cases increased 31% between 2002 (4,002,465) and 2003
(5,257,972). The bad story does not end there. The rate of approval dropped 18%, while the rate of denial increased 12% during the same period. What the
statistics mean is: More backlogs and more denials. For the full report, please click here.
For the statistics on naturalization, inspections, removals, asylums, etc., please click here.
 
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Re: Re: I have all the time we will need

Originally posted by cinta
Rajiv,

The design and the slogan are excellent ideas.

How about the India Tribune questions you had? Do you have satisfactory answers especially with the Backlog numbers? Since there is some fear among at least some of us about the Media/Press could you dispell those rumors as urban legends and encourage this approach? I think I saw an answer of yours in the TSC encouraging people for a paid AD. We are not there yet but could start slowly. Thanks in advance.

Backlogs: It takes some ciphering to do and get the EB I-485 numbers. Nevertheless,

http://www.immigration-law.com/


09/05/2003: 31% Increase of Immigration Benefits Applications Backlogs Between FY 2002 and FY 2003!

According to the BCIS statistics report dated 08/31/2003, the immigration benefits pending cases increased 31% between 2002 (4,002,465) and 2003
(5,257,972). The bad story does not end there. The rate of approval dropped 18%, while the rate of denial increased 12% during the same period. What the
statistics mean is: More backlogs and more denials. For the full report, please click here.
For the statistics on naturalization, inspections, removals, asylums, etc., please click here.
Click to expand...


I have sent a link to the recent report http://www.immigration.com/frame/dhsjuly2003reportfr.html


I think we should focus on ethnic media (Chinese, Indian etc.....).
 
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