It is our CHANCE on 10/20. CALL US SENATORS !!!!

PPK_WALTHER, this is not a time to behave like an ostrich.

Hello ppk_walther:
If we are going to work together on this, here few things you need to know about myself and the group of folks here:

We are not an ostrich. When we have a problem, we act, protest and communicate our concerns. It is not time to worry too much about whether Senators will listen or not to our concern. It is time to act. One thing is for sure, if our ancestors did not have hope and reinvindicated, fight for ideals, we would be in far worse conditions than in what we are today. As an analogy, can you imagine if M. Luther King just gave up on the fight for his cause because the white Americans ignored the blacks altogether ?

Yes, personally I estimate that our participation calling senators would count only 5-10% on the final outcome, whatever it is. You are correct, essentially America is driven by business sense. Our employer lobby is not supporting us strongly as it used to be, but fortunately institutions such as the US Chamber of Commerce and Compete America are still giving us some hope. If we achieved this small victory on October 20th, to a certain extent was also due to our participation educating and calling media and senators.

Now let's keep the focus and think positively. Thank you PPK_Walther (9mm or 7.65?)


ppk_walther said:
Why everybody is talking about calling Senators? Why they should listen to you, you guys are no citizens of US. May be they will listen to u as courtsey.
But why would they take any action? They will not.
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We need to continue with our effors

Friends,

We need to continue with our efforts contacting the pro-immigration lobby groups (compete america, American Hospitals Association, etc) and the pro-immigration senators and congressmen/women.

Every bit counts. The provision is not a law yet, so we have some ways to go.
 
i agree with you guys, we need to keep raising our voice.....atleast they will become aware of the problem.....if not today maybe after 2 years there will be a change....

if we keep quite...nothing will happen...
 
You are right

We need to continue with our messages, faxes to the politicians.
This provision in the senate is a temp fix.

For the long run we need significantly increased EB visa numbers, no country limits and faster processing times. We need to keep on hammering the message and one day it will happen !
 
Guys, I'm not very savvy in US budget process and procedures, but it seems that including immigration provisions in the Budged Reconciliation Bill 2006 was someone's very smart move.
First of all, though there is no definite deadline for this bill to be passed, both House and the Senate will do their utmost to pass it as soon as possible as it allows very important expenditures for Gulf Coast rebuild efforts. We all should realize that the provisions we are interested in are just a bandwagon for the express train called US budget. So there can be no doubt that this train will move fast. Moreover, the Senate Budget Committee will report the bill out of the Committee on October 26th, the House Budget Committee will do the same two days earlier.
A very disturbing question so far is whether the House version of the bill include any of the immigration provisions attached to the Senate bill. If not, the only way to get these provisions to the final bill is to create a Commission which will reconciliate the two versions, and then it will be possible that the immigration provisions might be striken out of the bill, since most of them do not have direct budgetary impact (see below).
Another pertinent question before the full Congress will receive the bill is: whether the Senate is willing to hook this immigration bandwagon to the budget train. There might be some obstacles, since Senate majority leader Bill Frist voiced against including immigration provisions into the budget bill. The good thing is that the bill cannot be fillibustered on the Senate floor due to the nature of the bill (budged bills are not allowed to be fillibustered) and immigration provisions seems to be very pertinent to the nature of the bill since they include such things as inclreasing H1b visa fee from $3 to $500 and charging additional $500 for a 485 filing. In this light it seems that all other proposed measures (such as recovering visa numbers from previous years and increasing visa # by exempting family members from this count) can be removed from the final bill since they "do not have a direct budgetary impact". Then we will get a sharp increase in fees charged and none of the benefits.

I think we will learn whether these immigration provisions made their way to the budget bill or not really soon, but in order to ensure their including into the bill we definitely should bug and urge all involved parties to support them.
 
Whatever everyone did - it worked! The main EB- related proposals viz

1.(It would raise the annual cap on permanent employment-based immigration by changing the formula as follows: employment-based visas = 140,000 + any unused family-based visas from the previous year + (the lesser of 90,000 or unused employment-based visas from any prior year).

2. It exempts the spouses and children of employment-based immigrants from counting against the numerical cap, beginning in 2004. (In 2003, workers got 36,210 visas, and their spouses and children got 45,927 visas. Total visas could have more than doubled under this bill.)

3. It adds a fee of $500 per petition for most employment-based visa petitions.

4. It allows alien spouses and children of citizens to adjust to Legal Permanent Resident status if the citizen abused them, died, or lost or renounced their citizenship; and it allows alien spouses and children of LPRs to adjust to LPR status if the LPR abused them or died.

5. Anytime the H-1B cap is reached, the lesser of 60,000 or any unused visas in any prior years are added to the cap.
THESE PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN PASSED TO BE INCLUDED IN THE BUDGET RECONCILIATION!THEY MADE IT THROUGH QUIETLY THROUGH THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE AS THE CHAIRMAN'S MARK! HOLD ON TIGHT NOW - there are other duels in education & Medicaid being played out - BUT THESE PROPOSALS ARE THROUGH!!! THANKS SEN.s SPECTER & KENNEDY!!!
When they actually get enacted may be a short while!
The other Immigration Reform will probably get bogged down somewhere, but it need not be our concern immediately.
 
Hello my friends,
I know this is not the correct forum to post this request but i need your help.

Can someone tell me when is the annual recess of Congress.

I just read that since the Immigration Reform Bill is attached to the Budget Reconciliation Act, it is expected that the Congress may act before it goes into the annual recess. Once it is enacted into law, it is anticipated that the numbers may run out fairly quickly.

Thanks and Regards
 
I think the recess is prior to Thanksgiving.

Choclito said:
Hello my friends,
I know this is not the correct forum to post this request but i need your help.

Can someone tell me when is the annual recess of Congress.

I just read that since the Immigration Reform Bill is attached to the Budget Reconciliation Act, it is expected that the Congress may act before it goes into the annual recess. Once it is enacted into law, it is anticipated that the numbers may run out fairly quickly.

Thanks and Regards
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