FY 2002 Refugee Admissions

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A friend of mine went to the local INS district office to inquire on the latest updates regarding asylee adjustments. He was told that the new visas for FY2002 has not been authorized yet.

  I sent letters to Senators and Congressmen asking to look into this matter. But I don\'t know what will happen to my letters with all this anthrax scare in DC. I also tried to send emails to those parties but I received automated response saying "if I am not from their Congressional district I need to mail a paper letter."
 
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I am trying via fax. This is really frustrating, it is unfair that the approval of the 10,000 visas for FY 2002 is on hold only because asylees are in the same package with refugees.
I can understand that Senators can be concerned about inquiring identity of refugees before being admitted in the US. But, asylees are a completely different story. We have been living in this country for years, have been investigated several times, they know where we live, etc. So, there shouldn\'t be any concern with asylees. Why we have to wait until that inquiry from Senate is resolved?
 
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Good idea Alanpero. I will also try to fax my letters.

Yes it is VERY unfair. That is why we need to get organized and hire a full-time lobbyist firm. If you or Gilbert know any professional organization (other than AILF of course, those guy don\'t even answer inquiries) I am sure most asylees in here will be interested in it too.
 
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Hi Jack,
I agree we need to get organized; however, I am reluctant about hiring a full-time lobbyist firm, though I respect your initiative.
I have been in this process for about eight years and what I have learned is not to trust any professional who makes a living providing services on immigration matters. Each time I have to deal with them, before making any decision I have asked for a second and a third opinion, and if they were coincident I just did everything by myself. Most of the times, I found that opinions from immigration specialists were opposed to each other, then I had to do my own search to find out who was giving me the right advise. Not few times, I realized I knew more about immigration issues than the professional I was consulting.
What I think is that nobody else , is more interested than yourself, in sucessfully completing this tedious process. An immigration professional, has thousands of clients and he/she will work in your case as long as he/she can get more money from you. You will be only one more among the thousands of clients he/she has.
This is why I enjoy this site, because in here I learn from experiences from people like you, Gilbert and others that are making an outstanding contribution.
Getting organized is something we should do; however, it is not an easy task either.
 
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Alanpero,

  I have learned through the experiences of some asylee friends that most of them went to immigration lawyers (and so called "professionals") to get help in speeding up their asylee adjustment applications. You wont be surprised to hear that the clients did not receive any better answers than what we will find in this forum.
  The fact of the matter is that it is the 10K per year visa quota that is causing the bottle neck and so many backlog cases. And to my knowledge the only way to increase the quota is through legislative reform. So instead of wasting our money on "not so useful" legal advice I am thinking we should hire a professional lobbyist firm based in DC to do effective lobbying for us. I have no experience in this matter so I am open to all suggestions on how to get it started.

  What frustrates me most is that just when I think I am almost at the near end of the tunnel the September 11 tragedy took place and there is so much uncertainty now.
  And here is something I fail to understand about the legislative system: how comes this Bill was passed so quickly and 3 other Bills calling to increase the annual asylee adjustment quota are ignored?

http://www.refugees.org/world/articles/syrian_rr00_7.htm
 
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It seems that you have also experienced what I have learned from people consulting to immigration specialist, and I am as frustrated as you. As for the lobbyist firm, I have no experience on that either. The problem from my point of view is how to select the right firm, how are we going to track their work, how to get organized, etc Personally, I wouldn\'t join any effort before visiting their office, meting in person their key personnel, and the asylees that will direct the work, etc. If I am going to provide personal information I need to know the same from the other party.
I haven\'t found yet what is the criteria followed by Legilators to approve Bills, but it seems that they have to be pushed by someone to proceed.
I am kind of dissapointed by response received from asylees to get organized and look for alternatives to expedite this process, I feel that only few of them have shown the same initiative.
 
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I saw some press conferences held by the State Department, the DOJ, and most recently the press briefing by Attorney General and the INS commissioner Ziglar. To my dissapointment no one is asking the questions about Refugee admissions or asylee adjustments for FY2002.
 I think it can make a whole lot of difference if a journalist from a prominent media agency stand up and ask "What are you gonna do about 40,000 asylees adjustment backlog applications?"
 
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And Tim Zheng has recently posted a message about a related article appeared in the New York Times. That would be a good opportunity for us, to explain NYT that the 10,000 quota for asylees is pending of approval because the Senate wants to make sure about identity of refugees prior to authorize the admission number for FY 2002. Asylees are people that have been living for years in the US, have been investigated several times, have a place of residence reported to INS, etc and it is unfair that just because we are in the same package with refugees we have now to wait even more to get our 10,000 quota approved.
 
AILA-DOS Liason Meeting

The meeting took place on 10/26/2001. Details can be read here.
http://www.immigrationtotheus.com/news/dos_1101.htm
 From what I have read there is no mentioning of the Asylee/Refugee related issues. But a gentleman named Eric Cohan handles Refugee and asylum related issues for AILA. We may want to send our questions to him in future so that AILA can bring up questions concerning asylee adjustment issues in future liason meetings with the DOS.

Eric Cohan AF, forms, parole/refugee/asylum
         202-663-1164
 
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Sonyn,

 Has your asylum based I-485 application been approved? Do you mind telling the rest of us how long it took for you (from the date you filed your I-485)to get the final approval (passport or I-94 stamping)?

 The question you have asked is a very interesting one. We have had many discussions in this forum concerning asylees wanting to visit their home countries but not Green Card holders who obtained their LPR through asylum.

  I am not a licensed immigration lawyer so I am not qulified to give you any legal advise. Rather than giving a yes or no answer I will try to elaborate your question and add more detailed questions. Perhaps Gilbert or Alanpero will pitch in some of their ideas.

(1) Asylee Green Card is just as good as any other Green Card (EB, marriage etc). The only variation I can think of is the Category number printed on the Green Card itself. By reading that number immigration experts can tell how one obtained his or her green card.

(2) There is something called "Travel Document" that is issued to Green Card holders who cannot obtain or renew passports from their countries. Read about it at this link:
http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/howdoi/travdoc.htm

I don\'t know if the INS is going to issue "Travel Document" or "Refugee Travel Document" to Green Card holders who were formerly asylees. I think you can check this with NSC help line.

(3) Some countries will not issue visa to "travel document" and "Refugee travel document" holders. So check with the consulate or embassy of the country you are going to travel.

(4) INS has issued a memorandum regarding asylees and refugees travelling outside of the US. It doesn\'t say anything about Green Card holders who were formerly refugee/aslyees. But you can read it here anyway:
http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/asylrefs/ar065.htm

(5) Sometimes the INS will not have a clear policy on this issue. The best thing to do is to find people from your homecountry who have travelled there and ask their experiences.

(6) In my humble opinion you need to be more concerned about authorities in your home country than the USINS. Because if they see you coming back with a Refugee Travel Document or Travel Document they will ask you what happened to your national passport.

(7) If you want to play it safe I suggest consulting your case to a licensed immigration lawyer before you travel. A lawyer will stand by his/her answer and fight for you in a court if the need arises.
 
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