Employment based immigration backlog petition

Few thoughts

Hi guys
Wouldn't it be a good idea to mention how many immigrants(not only Indians, we can include everyone here) so that he will get a feel how bigger the problem is and also include the benefit he is going to get by doing this favor, nicely into our message.
Suppose say, if we add up all the 485 applications starting from Jan'2002 till now, assuming that there 6000 apps per month, 20 months * 6000 = 120,000.
So if you say over 120,000 immigrants are currently affected and phrase that in our petition as:
'your efforts and involvment are going to benefit 120,000 immigrants immediately + many more immigrants to come into the country in the coming future. Your efforts and achievements will remian historical and be remembered by the people for ever."
And also you can so, "Here is the oppurtunity for you to tackle one of the most critical problems that many of immigrants are facing and prove your distinction among others."

Just my ideas, include this if you feel appropriate. . .
 
gcgcgcgc,
Good suggestion.
I think there are about 1.2 million applications pending which might include about 300,000 to 400,000 employment based.
But please provide some document to prove statistics, we can't write something based on assumption.
 
Hey, I think we forgot to add this part

Clearing the backlog delay of employee based 485 petition will have following benefits:
1) Less EAD, AP renewal, that can dramatically save BCIS officers time
2) Less Finger print redo, that can save FBI time
3) Easier to identify terrorists, with the backlog, even if there's a terrorist, will take BCIS several years to find out the document of terrorist and arrest him
4) Less AR-11 update during pending time. Less file will be misplaced.
5) Less RFE needed, if there's no backlog, then no RFE is needed for employment verification. The longer the delay is, the more RFE will be issued, the longer backlog will be.
6) Benefit immigrants and their citizen relatives in US.
 
dengdeng,
clearly specify where you would like to see the benefits? Appendix or main petition????????

I like your comment about security check(terrorist), you would like to get the things done using the same tactics used by BCIS to delay the decision on our applications.
 
jerry421,
I understand that you would like to have reference to the link when we post our final petition.
 
this should be in main letter not appendix.

Appendix should list all common problems.

Appendix
Common problems of EB based I-485 petition are listed as below:
1) ..
2) ..
3) ..

proposals of efficient way to clean backlogs
1) Increase FP effective time to 18 months
2) name check months before a case is assigned(I don't think they are doing right now)
3) EAD, AP valid till green card approved/denied
4) second FP sent when first FP half month to expiration date
5) Allocate time for RFE case, and adjudicate immediately. (thus u still have memory of the case)
6) Automate name check and provide FBI phone to check if your name check has passed
7) Quarterly conference call with public to discuss backlog
8) Approve 2nd FP case immediately when 2nd FP is done.
9) Store images of FP (future project)
10) Improve case online status, provide more details
11) Expedite all long delayed cases.

Edison, please consolidate what I wrote to some nice words. You can also list the backlog causes the mistake of issuing visa and green card to terrorists, so clean backlog is a must.
 
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Diverse background

Originally posted by dengdeng
Please don't say hi-tech jobs, not all of us are in this area, and recently congress/senators are proposing to limit hi-tech H-1.
Click to expand...

dengdeng,

The purpose of my lists is just that. Add your comments. Please say, suggest other generic terms, inclusive to our group. This is important as we need to show who we are and what we are doing, thus the benefit to the American economy.
I think we need to provide a sample of this in the "Petition" with actual job names and fields we are working on. Say, Phds, Medical doctors, Masters, Bsc, Biotechnology, Sciences, Engineering, etc.
We also need to stay away from the fray of H1-b and L visas. We are different as we have gone through the LC and I-140. We need to point this out so the confusion and the smoke goes away. Even Congress may not know who we really are!
 
Not really necessary

Originally posted by dengdeng
Hey, I think we forgot to add this part

Clearing the backlog delay of employee based 485 petition will have following benefits:
1) Less EAD, AP renewal, that can dramatically save BCIS officers time
2) Less Finger print redo, that can save FBI time
3) Easier to identify terrorists, with the backlog, even if there's a terrorist, will take BCIS several years to find out the document of terrorist and arrest him
4) Less AR-11 update during pending time. Less file will be misplaced.
5) Less RFE needed, if there's no backlog, then no RFE is needed for employment verification. The longer the delay is, the more RFE will be issued, the longer backlog will be.
6) Benefit immigrants and their citizen relatives in US.
Click to expand...

dengdeng,

Let us not become too intrusive, telling BCIS, the FBI and other federal agencies how they will go about their business. Let us point out the problem and the expected solution. Let them figure out the way and the benefits. Maybe AILA would object to at least some of your suggestions. They would have less business if your lines are adopted. Is AILA with us? Why?
 
Re: Not really necessary

Originally posted by cinta
dengdeng,

Let us not become too intrusive, telling BCIS, the FBI and other federal agencies how they will go about their business. Let us point out the problem and the expected solution. Let them figure out the way and the benefits. Maybe AILA would object to at least some of your suggestions. They would have less business if your lines are adopted. Is AILA with us? Why?
Click to expand...

cinta,
I buy your view than dengdeng's view. As you said let's stay focussed on the problem and the expected solutions obviously BCIS is aware of these benefits.
 
Appendices/Petition letter comments

Originally posted by Edison
GCExplorer,
I agree about your comment regarding welcome note.
Click to expand...

Edison and all others,
Keep up the good work. Can you consolidate the appendices please or I need to re-write? In any case we expect more comments from more people. Can we make a decision later whether we present them as separate from the letter?
Comments:

1: "hardships caused to the individuals and the United States". Need to be more specific wrt the United States. Maybe the economy, etc?
2: In the second paragraph, I think we need to provide more hands-on, concrete examples for our contribution and role as diverse as it is. we need to briefly explain also who we are. LC, I-140 and I-485. I am in favor of every possible immigration in this country, including the guest workers and farm workers, H-1B (spent seven years) or L visas, but our case is different. We need to throw out the smoke and the confusion.
3: The director of the BCIS did not even mention or elaborate on EB I-485 backlogs.
4: Last paragraph. The word "dominance" sounds differently to different groups. Let us find a better one, like technological advance or something. Maybe, we need to give some examples also in this part.

Cheers,
 
cinta,
I'll concentrate on main letter, you please handle the consolidation of appendix.
As you said other issues can be decided later.
 
Version ds1.0

As promised in the morning, here is my version. I don't know how long it looks on this page. Let's discuss all the versions (Edison's, kjkool's, dengdeng's , YJAY's etc) later. If my version seems long, let's cut some portions.

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

Who we are
----------------
We are the applicants of Employment based GreenCard process. We would like to congratulate you on the occasion of your appointment as Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman.

Why this petition
---------------------
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.

Till last year, in most of the service centers (except Texas) Employment based I485 applications used to take less than 1 year for approval. But with the introduction of additional security checks and shortage of staff at BCIS, the I485 application process time has now increased to more than 19 months at all the service centers, with Texas Service Center already taking more than 2 years. Please refer Appendix A to find out what factors are contributing to the additional delays and what can be done to eliminate or minimize these factors.

Our Problems
-----------------
The severe processing delays, is affecting our lives enormously. Some of the problems include <<< Lablah Lablah ………… ………………………Let’s fill it later . >>> .
Please refer Appendix B for more details of the hardships faced by us due to the delay in getting our Greencard.

Our Contribution
---------------------
We all came to this country when it desperately needed speciality skilled workers. We are not just critically important to the success of some of the large corporations of the United States, but also contribute immensely to the American Economy. While pursuing our American dream, we will continue to make our contribution towards maintaining the lead enjoyed by American businesses in the free world.

President Bush's promise
--------------------------------
President Bush made a pledge to reduce the Immigration and Citizenship processing times to less than 180 days. While we understand the practical difficulties being faced by BCIS, we feel that no serious effort was made by BCIS to reduce the processing time to less than 1 year. If BCIS does not take bold and decisive steps now, soon the processing times will reach 36 months or more.

Our Expectations
---------------------
So we request you to understand our situation and make our voice heard at BCIS. We request you to discuss all the issues we have listed in Appendix A and Appendix B, with
Senior BCIS officials and inform us of the decisions taken. Once again we congratulate you on becoming the Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman and we see in you, a bright opportunity for us to communicate with BCIS about the issues facing us.

Regards,
Employment based I485 Applicants
 
I perfer version 1 of Edison. Version 1 is more like a letter.
Version 2 is like a presentation outline.

Let's ask Rajiv's opinion.
 
You guys rock -

my 2 c's - the letter format is better, no doubt, but we can also structure the letter in a similar way, as state above (presentation format), so that everything is in its place.

Also, apart form sending this letter to Mr. Khatri, do we also want to publicize it, in the form of say an open letter in a public forum? or do we just want to send in copies to some politicians and BCIS?

I feel we should not only send this letter to BCIS but also to all our Senator's and Representatives. The impact may be more if the push is hard and fast. Hit everybody together and at the same time. It may maximize our chances and get us some positive results.

Please do let me know of I am out of whack here or does it make sense?

Thanks,
GCDz
 
Hi all,
I am against rushing to finalise the petition. Please note Rajiv's suggestion that petition should be strong. The most important thing to keep in mind is, nobody should monopolise the final version of the petition. We should all discuss all the versions, para by para, select the ones that are approved by majority. So i would say that let's proceed in a systematic manner. Now that different grafts are available, we have the following tasks :
1. Finalize the framework of the Letter (what paragraphs, what Appendix etc)
2. Finalize the contents of the letter (pick up the best possible points from all the drafts, decide on size of each para etc)
3. Finalize the contents of Appendix

I would say that let's finalize the framework and Appendix by this Friday. Let each of us present our frameworks and decide upon final framework.
Then the most active members (let's pick top 10) should have a chat session in the week-end where we can discuss the contents of the letter and finalize the contents based on majority vote (out of the participants). Then let's publish the final agreed draft version on Monday here. Let's ask all others to give their coments. Let's see any changes are wrequired. Let us explain to every one how we have decided the final draft. And finally, sometime in next week (Wednesday or later), let's pass on the draft to Rajiv for his comments. Then i think, we will have the final petition ready by next Friday. Then we will decide about where to host, how to do propaganda etc.
Your comments are welcome.
 
Folks,
(Edison, dsatish , dengdeng etc), you guys generated great ideas, and your letter was great.
However the short letter posted by "YJay" seemed very effective and to the point. What I particularly liked was listing points that are easier to read.
I just transformed and polished his format a little bit and here is his version:-

--------------------------------------
First, we would like to congratulate you on your appointment as the Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman at Department of Homeland security. We, the immigrant community, appreciate the potential of more effective communication with Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS).

We are writing this letter to request you to devise suitable measures to reduce the processing time for employment based applications to Register Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status and to convey the hardships caused to the hundreds of thousands applicants due to the perpetual delays to these applications.

Immigration has been an integral part of America since its inception. New immigrants contribute greatly to the US economy, enrich American culture and enhance the US influence in the world. Contrary to the popular myth that immigrants may take American's jobs, they have created employment opportunities for millions of Americans by developing new products and establishing business ventures. The continued success of the United States largely rests upon its successful pro-immigration policy.

However, recent changes in the US immigration policy have severely affected the employment based immigration application processing. Some of the reasons causing delay are:-
1) Temporary freeze of all immigration application processing for auditing and the enforcement of FBI security check in late 2002;
2) Incorporation of former INS into the newly created the Homeland Security Department as Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS);
3) Shifting priority, by some service centers, to expedite processing of religious worker's immigration applications and to meet deadlines related to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs.

In addition, termination of customer service at all service centers and establishment of the National Customer Service Center (NCSC) made it difficult to obtain the case specific information;

All these have caused immense hardships for the employment-based applicants.

Recently, Mr. Eduardo Aguirre, director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services explained the reason for backlog of immigration applications. We are glad that he would give priority to reach the goal set by the President of the United states of America, Mr. George W. Bush to reduce wait times on immigration benefit applications to no more than 6 months by the end of 2006. However, we would welcome some imminent and intermediate actions to reduce the backlog of employment based immigration applications.

We would like to suggest the following measures that would advocate the backlog reduction of employment based immigration applications at BCIS.

1) Give high priority to and expedite the process of the employment based immigration applications;
2) Introduce interim permanent residence;
3) Issue multiple year Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and
4) Advanced Parole for travel;
5) Extend the validity period of Finger printing report;

6) Enhance the online case status by providing the detailed information about the present status of the applications;
7) Accelerate the security check process
8) ....................
9) ...................... add more points




-sai
 
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draft v 3.0

Guys, thanks for the excellent job by each one of you.

I have gone thru’ in details all the version posted so far by Edison, yjay, dsatish and sai (I could not locate the posting made by kjkool). What I have noticed is that version posted by yjay and sai are identical and actually modified version of Edison’s draft. Dsatish has come out with a new structure of the letter.
I liked the structure of dsatish but Edison’s version has more content. What I tried to do is a mix-match of both. I eliminated some of the para of dsatish and mainly focused only on “who we are”, “why this petition” and “our expectation” to have a focused approach. Picked up important contents from Edison's draft and also put in some of the points I felt important. However, I tried to maintain the general structure and flow of both the draft made by you guys.

Here goes version 3.0


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


First, we would like to congratulate you on your appointment as the Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman at Department of Homeland security. We, the immigrant community, appreciate the potential of more effective communication with Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS).

Who we are
----------------
We are the applicants of Employment based Green Card process. 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 all BCIS Service centers.

Why this petition
---------------------
We are writing this letter to request you to devise suitable measures to reduce the processing time for employment based applications and to convey the hardships caused to all applicants due to the perpetual delays caused by BCIS.In your appointment, we see our only hope of our voice being heard at BCIS.

Till last year, in most of the service centers (except Texas) Employment based I485 applications used to take less than 1 year for approval. But due to the following reasons, the I485 application process time has now increased to more than 19 months at all the service centers, with Texas Service Center already taking more than 2 years.
1) Temporary freeze of all immigration application processing for auditing and the enforcement of FBI security check in late 2002.
2) Incorporation of former INS into the newly created the Homeland Security Department as Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS).
3) Shifting priority, by some service centers, to expedite processing of religious worker's immigration applications and to meet deadlines related to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs.

The most concerning fact is that with every passing month, the delay in processing keeps on increasing and we are made to wait endlessly causing tremendous amount of mental, social and professional stress.

The severe processing delays, is affecting our lives enormously. Some of the problems / hardships are detailed in Appendix B.


President Bush's promise
--------------------------------
President Bush made a pledge to reduce the Immigration and Citizenship processing times to less than 180 days. While we understand the practical difficulties being faced by BCIS, we feel that no serious effort was made by BCIS to reduce the processing time to less than 1 year. If BCIS does not take bold and decisive steps now, soon the processing times will reach 36 months or more.

Our Expectations
---------------------

Hence, We would like to request you to necessitate necessary measures that would advocate the backlog reduction of employment based immigration applications at BCIS. Some of our immediate expectations are:

1) Give high priority to and expedite the process of the employment based immigration applications;
2) Introduce interim permanent residence if the case is not adjudicated within 12 months.
3) Issue multiple year Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and
4) Advanced Parole for travel;
5) Extend the validity period of Finger printing report;
(3,4 and5 are irrelevant in view of 2 and not necessary in my opinion)
6) Give top most priority to "local transfer" cases and arrange interview with 15days/1month of transfer to local office.
7) Enhance the online case status by providing the detailed information about the present status of the applications;
7) Accelerate the security check process
8) Improve quality of service at Customer Service center (NCSC)
9) ...................... add more point

Our Contribution
---------------------
Last but not least, we all represent a qualified and skilled working community. The employment based immigration applicants are mostly law biding immigrants, who pay heavily in terms of taxes and contribute immensely to the American Economy.

We sincerely request you to help us to purse our American dream and help us not to suffer any more

Regards,
Employment based I485 Applicants
 
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