Philadelphia Backlog Elimination Center Tracking

Pineapple said:
Looking at earlier efforts to sue government agencies dealing with immigration one way or other, the lessons to be learnt are:

1) Litigation works, but only if you are smart. If not, you waste money, get hammered, and discourage others too.

2) If you are fighting for generating awareness and attracting attention, pick up a banner and march on the street. The court is not the place - you're wasting your time.

3) If you think you can win cases even on shaky legal grounds just because you have a strong moral argument, I suggest you wake up and smell the coffee.. it ain't gonna happen.

4) Don't bite off more than you can chew. We cannot afford to fight and lose a grand all-or-nothing case. Focus on something smaller, but winnable, and build on that.

Based on these four golden rules, I have my (grave) doubts we can mount a legal challenge on the basis of slow or inefficient working of PBEC.

The most promising avenue would be to force periodic disclosure of cases entered, letters sent, and cases certified.

Of course, I'm no lawyer, so all that is just my personal opinion. :D
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I totally agree, our best bet is indeed force them to disclosure the updates to the case database on the web.

HOW ABOUT THIS:

- can 3 people from Philadelphia volunteer to PERSONALLY request a meeting with Leticia Sierra !?

- in that meeting, they'd deliver a letter requesting a case db to be dumped on the website for downloads every 2 weeks. The db could have just the basic fields:

- case id
- case status
- case source
- PD
- RD
- state

- there's NO excuse not to do it ... it's simple, it's fast, it's private. Based on that, we'll be able to monitor what's happening.

ANY VOLUNTEERS in Phila ?! I'll ask my friend (American lawyer) to write the letter.

The difference is that it would be a personal meeting, I think it'd make a stronger point than just faxing or mailing the letter. We need to hear Leticia's response in person.
 
Lets Fight it out

Guys,

I am ready for a battle! Just one pointer... There are many a dis-organized group within the same forum who want to wage the same war. Lets get everyone to one group, Chalk out a clear plan as to what we are upto, what resources it would take and what are the consequences. This way we know for sure were we are going .

Example..
1. Identify all those who want to join this class action lawsuit. Name and numbers clearly in a Excel spread sheet.
2.Identify all issues that we are going to fight for...
3.Make arrangements to meet once at a joint to discuss monteary issues
4.Start the process to Kick DOL in its hass - real hard...

Any suggestion/ideas/criticism is welcome..

Thanks for your time
LongLongAgo...
 
Good points !
I agree with you...we should concentrate on getting getting more information...it is more practical and winnable.

vk2003 said:
Javaconsultant, the points you bring up are great ones, but with all due respect, it just seems to me that it would be extremely hard to prove any of them in a court of law based on available data. Just because we do not have enough people in the forums posting case approvals from PBEC (as opposed to DBEC) does not necessarily mean that they are processing cases slower. The PBEC can always say that they have approved or are in the process of approving "thousands of cases" and we will have no way of disputing it. Variations in processing speeds (later PD getting approved sooner) can also be attributed by them to the whole host of BS reasons that they have already provided to the AILA.

I say that we aim small - releasing case information requires very little work once the extract process is written. Extracting a data dump from a database is child's play for a DBA and I can't imagine that it would take more than 2-3 hours for a single IT person to extract a dump of data and put it on a website once a week. If once a week is too much, I'm willing to settle for once a fortnight or even a month. Anything that will provide some insight into this black hole! Their key weapon in the fight to kill accountability is our case information and that is what I think we should try to take away from them

Being a tax-payer funded organization, we may even be entitled to get that information - maybe it's covered under the Freedom Of Information Act? Don't know all the legalese myself - just guessing!

It would also be great if they could provide an automated case status enquiry system (preferably web-based). That is something else I would ask for.

In the previous court ruling, the judge declined to tell the PBEC how to work more efficiently (I think he said that it was up to the PBEC to prioritize it's work), so I don't think we can expect to make them work more efficiently as an outcome. But, we can put them on notice that we are watching, if they are forced to provide case status information for all cases in their system.

I think I've put in much more than 2 cents at this time, so I'll call it quits :)
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Thanks for this link. I have forwarded the document to Rajiv Khanna's office. I got an email, that they are reviewing it.

In the meantime, please share any other ideas too...I liked the idea of setting up a one-on-one meeting with the Addl Secretary of DOL , Leticia, if that is feasible. It could be a good idea to show them our concerns personally...

I shall keep you guys posted on what Rajiv Khanna's office feels on this situation. You guys focus on other ideas as well...

Thanks
TechGuy said:
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/cases/2005,1011-libertyfund.pdf
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Take Action now

Dear Friends,

We have to do something to speed up the BEC processing. How many years we have to wait for the final approval ?

Let us draft a letter and send it to the senators and Philly BEC director to refine this process.

The following is copied from www.immigration-law.com . I strongly agree with the attorney. Please look at the site www.immigration-law.com and go to breaking news for today !!

11/09/2005: Foreign Labor Certification Applications and FIFO (First-In First-Out) Principle

For the Backlog Elimination Centers in Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Denver, ???, currently these offices reportedly do not follow the FIFO processing principles as related to a number of factors that affect the final decision process relative to other cases in the permanent labor certification process. DOL has recently explained that these included the type of application (RIR, regular application, special handling, limited review, etc), the stage of processing at which the application was received by the the Backlog Elimination Center, for instance, the applications received from the regions have already completed recruitment, and these cases could move along earlier than those received from the states. Another factors that affected the FIFO processing was the dates of applications pending at each center, which determined each application's place within the FIFO queue, the differeent quality of the applications, some raising questions that took longer, and the response time of the employer to center's 45-day letters.
The practical abandonment of FIFO again raises the impression of processing and management of applications irregularly and without a uniform national standard. It raises concerns with the "fairness" of treating the customers equally on a fixed uniform standard.

Another problem the current labor certification management presents is lack of accessibility of the customers and channel for communication with the customers. The function of the intermediary (AILA Labor Certification Liason) has noticeably been set back and the agency is operating the system secluded from the customer community. It is strongly urged that DFLC/BECs operates the labor certification processing openly and keep the customers informed of the status of the business. Whenever something is run behind the curtain, it creates a misunderstanding of irregularity and lawlessness. The agency should start reporting the processing times for each BEC as soon as possible. The customer community is not informed of what communications are being released to which intermediaries and no intermediaries report the state of the processing. We urge the DFLC to "open the door" wide directly to the customers by updating the customers on its website and reporting regularly the processing times.


**** Please draft a letter and send it to all the 50 senators and DOL Directors.

Thank You.

I am waiting for Lc for the last 4 years !!
 
In some countries you get citizenship status if stayed for 10 years and paying taxes. Here after 4 years still no status on LC, don;t know when the gc will get approved by end of 10 years! then they should give direct citizenship!

question is WHY? WHY US?

btt100 said:
Dear Friends,

We have to do something to speed up the BEC processing. How many years we have to wait for the final approval ?

Let us draft a letter and send it to the senators and Philly BEC director to refine this process.

The following is copied from www.immigration-law.com . I strongly agree with the attorney. Please look at the site www.immigration-law.com and go to breaking news for today !!

11/09/2005: Foreign Labor Certification Applications and FIFO (First-In First-Out) Principle

For the Backlog Elimination Centers in Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Denver, ???, currently these offices reportedly do not follow the FIFO processing principles as related to a number of factors that affect the final decision process relative to other cases in the permanent labor certification process. DOL has recently explained that these included the type of application (RIR, regular application, special handling, limited review, etc), the stage of processing at which the application was received by the the Backlog Elimination Center, for instance, the applications received from the regions have already completed recruitment, and these cases could move along earlier than those received from the states. Another factors that affected the FIFO processing was the dates of applications pending at each center, which determined each application's place within the FIFO queue, the differeent quality of the applications, some raising questions that took longer, and the response time of the employer to center's 45-day letters.
The practical abandonment of FIFO again raises the impression of processing and management of applications irregularly and without a uniform national standard. It raises concerns with the "fairness" of treating the customers equally on a fixed uniform standard.

Another problem the current labor certification management presents is lack of accessibility of the customers and channel for communication with the customers. The function of the intermediary (AILA Labor Certification Liason) has noticeably been set back and the agency is operating the system secluded from the customer community. It is strongly urged that DFLC/BECs operates the labor certification processing openly and keep the customers informed of the status of the business. Whenever something is run behind the curtain, it creates a misunderstanding of irregularity and lawlessness. The agency should start reporting the processing times for each BEC as soon as possible. The customer community is not informed of what communications are being released to which intermediaries and no intermediaries report the state of the processing. We urge the DFLC to "open the door" wide directly to the customers by updating the customers on its website and reporting regularly the processing times.


**** Please draft a letter and send it to all the 50 senators and DOL Directors.

Thank You.

I am waiting for Lc for the last 4 years !!
Click to expand...
 
anyone from CT got labor approved??

Hi all,
I emailed my lawyer today regarding my LC and he said that he has received some approvals from the Backlog elimination center in Philadelphia and asked me to wait for some time as I have already replied to my 45-day letter 1 week ago.

Now if anyone from CT who read this post, can they please confirm with their lawyers if anyone, absolutely anyone from CT received their labor approvals from PBEC. Please call up your lawyers if possible and ask them. I want to confirm my lawyers statment and if its true - then its certainly good news to us Connecticut guys.....
 
I still doubt the lawsuit success!

I still feel if the lawsuit will really help us getting what we want. The lazy people will be able to find a way out and we might be left where we are right now. In addition, they might make things worse by putting one more excuse: Lack of sufficient funds as the lawsuit will cost them also. They already seem to have just enough to be operating whatever speed it be.

Plus, as it goes, green card application is made by an employer and it is the employer who shoud take legal action, if any. We as the beneficiary is a third party. Only an experienced attorny can throw light on the rights and validity of third party beneficiary to bring a lawsuit.
But hey,it's so good to see all the members united for action ! And I am in, in whatever the group as a whole does.
 
a_to_z_gc said:
Thanks for this link. I have forwarded the document to Rajiv Khanna's office. I got an email, that they are reviewing it.

In the meantime, please share any other ideas too...I liked the idea of setting up a one-on-one meeting with the Addl Secretary of DOL , Leticia, if that is feasible. It could be a good idea to show them our concerns personally...

I shall keep you guys posted on what Rajiv Khanna's office feels on this situation. You guys focus on other ideas as well...

Thanks
Click to expand...

a_to_z, if you have access to Rajiv Khanna, can u ask him/her whether we'd have grounds for an injunction or lawsuit requiring the DOL to release updates (be it a simplified case database, for example) on their website ?!

It's clear that a lawsuit requesting "faster" processing won't fly, it has been tried before and it failed ... but maybe we could have more success if we base our case on "release of information to the public".

Can you talk to them about this idea ?

tks !
 
I got my 45-day letter

Finally I got my 45-day love letter, lawyer's assistant called me to confirm I'm still alive then they will fax over to PBEC.
My details as signature shows.
:D :D :D :D
 
rirmemgc

I recently knew about immigration portal website.
I am not aware of the entire green card process.
I emailed to PBEC and received a screen short with my case information.
can anyone please enlighten me,why my Case Receive Date, Occupation Title, Occupation Code, Rate of Pay,Prevailing Wage, Visa Type & Nationality are blank.


ETA Case Number: T-05216-XXXXX
PD: 03/25/2005
 
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Sweet!!

161 said:
Finally I got my 45-day love letter, lawyer's assistant called me to confirm I'm still alive then they will fax over to PBEC.
My details as signature shows.
:D :D :D :D
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I am assuming yours was SWA case which never made it to regional. Good news finally for SWA folks!!!!!
 
wait

that can only means your data is not entered into the messed up system in PBEC yet ..

rirmemgc said:
I recently knew about immigration portal website.
I am not aware of the entire green card process.
I emailed to PBEC and received a screen short with my case information.
can anyone please enlighten me,why my Case Receive Date, Occupation Title, Occupation Code, Rate of Pay,Prevailing Wage, Visa Type & Nationality are blank.


ETA Case Number: T-05216-XXXXX
PD: 03/25/2005
Click to expand...
 
Yes your absolute right.. one on one discussions to PBEC officials is a good idea.. how do we do it? Can they allow us to talk to them?

a_to_z_gc said:
Thanks for this link. I have forwarded the document to Rajiv Khanna's office. I got an email, that they are reviewing it.

In the meantime, please share any other ideas too...I liked the idea of setting up a one-on-one meeting with the Addl Secretary of DOL , Leticia, if that is feasible. It could be a good idea to show them our concerns personally...

I shall keep you guys posted on what Rajiv Khanna's office feels on this situation. You guys focus on other ideas as well...

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Can you please publish the email-id of PBEC to get the screenshot/status of my pending LC. I am getting ready for another H1B extension. Is this screenshot needed for H1B Extension ?
 
Any one in my situation

Hi Friends,

I have applied labor from NJ in April-2003 in EB3 and also from RI in Nov-2004. I recently requested status on my NJ application sending required details of NJ application. I got an immediate response and that screen shot shows the PD as Dec-2004 and these is no clue what state the response belongs to, though I think it is RI one (I am not 100% sure).

I asked my employer to verify it as well and they got the same response. I am in dilema if there is any problem in my NJ application or whether the NJ data was not yet entered in the system

Is there anyone in the same boat ? Can anyone shed some light ?

Thanks
 
Hi all,
I am new to this forum, but not new to the pain of waiting for LC process completion. Anyone has any idea/new information on which cases are currently being processed by PBPC?

Separate question, I am currently on the 7th year on H1-B, do I have any options of switching employers at this stage? If I do, what happens to LC already pending at PBPC from my current employer, if I change place of employment?

Thanks in advance,
luckyPBPCer
 
a_to_z_gc said:
Thanks for this link. I have forwarded the document to Rajiv Khanna's office. I got an email, that they are reviewing it.

In the meantime, please share any other ideas too...I liked the idea of setting up a one-on-one meeting with the Addl Secretary of DOL , Leticia, if that is feasible. It could be a good idea to show them our concerns personally...

I shall keep you guys posted on what Rajiv Khanna's office feels on this situation. You guys focus on other ideas as well...

Thanks
Click to expand...

a_to_z_gc,

When you talk to Rajiv's office will you please ask the following...

1) Can we ask DOL to release a realistic schedule of future processing plan (DBEC and PBEC seperately, since they follow different processing scheme)? So that we can plan for PERM conversion.

2) If we tell the DOL that we are ready to pay more to speed up the processing, can they deny that? Under what grounds?

3) Is there any other avenues we can speed up their processing?
 
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