Lofgren Gives USCIS 3 Days To Answer Questions

Does Law support USCIS using mid-month VB?

I think the key question to look into is whether law allows for USCIS to accept/reject applications based on a mid-month Adjustment VB?

Not seen is an explicit support or mention in law books for Mid-month “adjustment” VB. Only Monthly VB governs whether you can submit your application to USCIS in respective month. Not governed by the actual availability of visa numbers or a mid-month adjustment VB.

Also it is now sufficiently clear from all the information posted so far that at a minimum, USCIS departed from their established procedures with the sole aim of preventing July VB applicants from filing (500K-700K of them). With available public information they could have informed us on the very next day/week. Why was there no advance notification? All VB's have a forecast for the future months.

DOS followed established procedures in announcing the initial July VB (all Current) as the available visa numbers were more than the documentarily-qualified applicants reported by consulates/USCIS.

USCIS later realizing the coming “485 application tsunami” and potential loss of ~$250M in lower fees worked overtime to allot tens of thousands of visas in 3 weeks by abandoning decades old procedures.

EB32002Ind-CA
 
Now I see the strategy:

New fees coming into effect at the end of July so ...

1. Pretend all visas are used up, stop people from applying I-485
2. Wait until August 1, announce that some unused visa numbers have been returned to the pool, announce new priority dates
3. ???
4. Higher fees in effect ... Profit!
 
For those who want to know if violation is done. Please read here. So don't try to give your own opinion about whether they followed law. I can still accept their July VB update if posted on or before June 30th.

http://lofgren.house.gov/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1808

As you know, pursuant to your own regulations, “f the applicant [for adjustment of status] is a preference alien, the current Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Visa Bulletin will be consulted to determine whether an immigrant visa is immediately available.” 8 CFR 245.1(g). Thus, when the Visa Bulletin shows that visas for most preference categories are available for applicants with priority dates on or before the listed priority date, your Department must accept those adjustment of status applications for adjudication.
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Madboy said:
I don't understand why you want to support CIS everywhere when they made legal tax paying immigrants (especially Indians) as fools. Is that because you are already have an EAD?

I am not a lawyer. But as per Murthy.com, Immigration-law.com and some other legal sites they say it is a clear violation and fraud.

Please read Zoe Lofgren's questions to CIS & even Rice. She says it is a clear violation.

Please understand that there is no law for illegals. But still government is able to create laws to protect them. Legals have to suck forever as they pay taxes.

Even I am not asking them to make it current again (They can do it if they still want to) as blunder can be done only once. But they can't run away with what they have done to many people. Atleast they have to pay a solid price for their blunder since they had enough time to correct it but they didn't do it because of their laziness. These people live on our money. They have to waive the Medical Report for whoever took medicals now to be valid forever. The other thing is they should not increase the fee for those who applied in July.

There are two different sets of people in this forum. One is lucky EAD people and other is unlucky non EAD people.
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I do not support any one. What I am writing is a opinion. I strongly feel USCIS has helped lot to Indians in June and July. Otherwise, EB3-Indian with PD in June 2003 cannot imagine to get a GC in June 2007. If USCIS tables all the answers to 3 page question of congresswomen; immagine who will be in trouble? Not only USCIS; Also all Indian (EB3-folks) who got approval in June, as USCIS overstepped 7% quota for India in June 2007. They may revoke all GC and give to EB3-ROW. They did a good job in clearing old backlogged 485s, as they got bombardment from Omdusman. Otherwise, EB3 India will stay in Apr 2001 for ever (EB3 India will get only 3000 visas per year).

Most of the guys in frustration is worrying only about EAD,AP and AC21 and do not care about GC. Also, they do not want to understand the truth. The logic of the most of the guys are simple. DOS/CIS did a mistake in initial july VB. However, they want to correct it. You do not want them to correct it. Your intension is, keep the mistake as it is and let us enjoy the benefit. This is the simple logic and hidden agenta.


Unlike eveyone, I do not care about EAD or AP. I care only GC. I spent lot of money for EAD and AP and did not used it.

My simple question " How many of them expected/predicted in June that, in July VB all catagories will become "current"?

For your recent posting, they violated their regulation not law.
 
I don't understand fee logic, most of the people apply now are going to do at least 2 EAD

With old fee : I485+EAD+AP+2*EAD/AP(with new fee)=325+180+170+2*340+2*305= 1965 USD
With new fee : I485+EAD+AP = 1,010 USD (Interim benefits are free)

Do you still think it is fee issue?


Jackolantern said:
Now I see the strategy:

New fees coming into effect at the end of July so ...

1. Pretend all visas are used up, stop people from applying I-485
2. Wait until August 1, announce that some unused visa numbers have been returned to the pool, announce new priority dates
3. ???
4. Higher fees in effect ... Profit!
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Why do you guys think AILA has been proactive in slapping a law suit against USCIS/DOS only now?Do they genuinely care about GC aspirants? What was their position when a vast number of LC substitution was being done taking undue advantage of certain loopholes in the law(I agree not all of the labor subs fall in that category)? How exactly they helped immigrants cause when a huge number of immigrants visa were being wasted and why did not they take up this issue in such a big fasion?
Why they have taken up this pro immigrant cause now? is it because a vast number of AILA members worked overnights and weekends in the month of june preparing 485 petitions and are unable to file now? no filing means, no fee for their service.
Guys who missed the bus, i understand why you guys are angry but I agree with perm_LC that USICS may have deviated from standard practices and guidelines, whatever they did, it was in a clumsy fashion but we do not have enough information to tell if there was violation of any law, like assigning a visa number for case when that petition did not have a current priority date. I think whatever they did and if allowed to stand, will help EB2 and EB3 guys from India in the long term. Short term gain should not be a long term loss.
Guys who are desperate for EAD for themselves and their family may be interested in making big, quick bucks and get out of the country without worrying about GC but there are people who are genuinely interested in making this country their home and they would be more interested in obtaining GC.
BTW, USCIS will get their moolah from the immigrants eithey way.
 
perm_lc said:
they violated their regulation not law.
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I agree 100%, there is pattern change of regulation and their usual practice but there is no law violation. It is kind of the same like to request DoS to publish monthly visa bulletin on the particular date of the month like every 12th of each month, and if they publish one on 14th to file lawsuit against them, because it destroyed some people's expectations.
 
StillAlive said:
I don't understand fee logic, most of the people apply now are going to do at least 2 EAD

With old fee : I485+EAD+AP+2*EAD/AP(with new fee)=325+180+170+2*340+2*305= 1965 USD
With new fee : I485+EAD+AP = 1,010 USD (Interim benefits are free)

Do you still think it is fee issue?
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Long term the new fee structure is cheaper. But like most management, they can only think of this year's budget. Making people wait until after July means more money in the next budget.

However, the new fee structure puts us old-timers in a dilemma. We have to pay the EAD and AP fees every year; only the new filers will pay the one-time up-front fee. So USCIS still has a monetary incentive to keep our cases pending for a long time, while that incentive doesn't exist for the new filers.
 
sfmars said:
I agree 100%, there is pattern change of regulation and their usual practice but there is no law violation. It is kind of the same like to request DoS to publish monthly visa bulletin on the particular date of the month like every 12th of each month, and if they publish one on 14th to file lawsuit against them, because it destroyed some people's expectations.
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Not so simple. Publishing it on the 22nd instead of the 12th might just make some people upset, but it doesn't make them spend money and pay lawyers and cancel or shorten expensive vacations. The misinformation they gave out cost a lot of people a lot of money. If they did the same thing as a business they could easily be sued or fined for false advertising or even fraud.
 
Jackolantern said:
Not so simple. Publishing it on the 22nd instead of the 12th might just make some people upset, but it doesn't make them spend money and pay lawyers and cancel or shorten expensive vacations. The misinformation they gave out cost a lot of people a lot of money. If they did the same thing as a business they could easily be sued or fined for false advertising or even fraud.
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I strongly believe that even if July's Update bulletin is released not on July 2nd but sometime between June 15th - June 22nd there would be lawsuit anyway and a lot of desperate people deceived in their expectations. I agree there would be not so many of them in that case.

As for misinformation, and false advertising or even fraud, I would say they do not advertise they at least pretend that they do calculation and based on the current realities they correct PD in the bulletins.

I serously believe that USCIS and DoS consulted with their internal attorneys before to realese July's 2nd update bulletin and they were prepared to the potential lawsuites and different congressmen requests.
 
I hear the EAD and AP cost going up after July. What is the new cost ... can someone please sum up this information?

Thanks in advance.
 
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