An open letter to President
We need action!
Dear immigrants:
I have drawn an open letter to President. Please review and contribute your opinion. We need union to fight for our green cards, otherwise many people don’t know our situation and nobody will pay high attention to legal immigration problem.
I have a couple of questions in my letter.
Illegal immigration is a hot issue right now and I haven’t found many good ideas about it. In order to contribute our thoughts, I put illegal immigration content in the letter, also it may have more people to pay attention to this letter and realize how important to make immigrant coming to USA legally. But the letter is too long, I am afraid if people will read whole letter. Please let me know your opinion ------ delete this part or keep it.
One voice or two voices are nothing. More voices may mean something. Please put your information in the bottom of the letter. If you have any suggestion or amend this letter, you are no more than welcome to contribute your thoughts. I’ll re-write this letter after I gather more new ideas, then send to President, Congress and media.
In order for me to get information easily, please click
http://boards.immigrationportal.com...799#post1421799 and put all information in the same thread. Thanks a lot.
NJ EB3 RIR
PD Aug. 2002
45 day letter received and replied in Sep. 2005
Email:
bluesky133@hotmail.com
President George W. Bush
The President of the United States
U.S. White House
Washington, D.C. 20001
An open letter to President George W. Bush
Dear Mr. President:
We write to endorse your admirable commitment to immigration issues. Recently, more and more illegal immigrant issues are in the newspaper and on television. We appreciate the idea that you disagree to letting illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens since the United States is a legal system country.
We are legal immigrants. All of us are skilled people and paying taxes. We would like to contribute our intelligence and skills to this country’s economic and advance technology development, but we have endless worry and pain waiting for a green card! We are suffering!
The green card process is extremely slow after 911. Some of us have been waiting for labor certificates several years and still waiting without knowing anything, when and whether we can get approval or not. We cannot change our job when another position is more fitting to us and the employer cannot find this kind of skilled person during our endless waiting.
Although the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has taken some steps to reform the process and two backlog centers in Philadelphia and Dallas to handle all national backlog cases. There are many problems such as:
45 day letter: After backlog case is entered into system, 45 day letter will be sent to the employers / attorney who must reply to this letter within 45 days, otherwise the case will be closed. But the backlog centers send 45 day letters are out of order. We are unable to trace our case status and don’t know the process time schedule. In case 45 day letter mail is missing, miss delivery or employer has replied to the letter, but backlog center hasn’t received it, all of those things happened are resulting in our case being closed, but we are still waiting until we receive a cased closed notice. Some cases are closed by error. Some people who submitted application in 2001 haven’t got a 45 day letter yet.
“First in, first out” rule: As a matter of fact, many labor certificate approvals come out without an order. Some people have been waiting more than four years and are still waiting, but some people who submitted their applications in 2003 and even in 2004 have got labor certificate approval!
Immigration processing retrogress: Even if we get labor certificate approval finally, we need to file 140 Form which may take several months to years. After #140 approval, because of retrogress ((#485 cut off date is May 1, 2001 for EB3, it's more than 5 years behind now. it moved only 4 months in the past more than two years!), we may still have to wait several years before we can file #485 and apply for advance parole which allow us to travel. Our work visa has to be extended again and again while waiting. Our spouse with H4 visa can’t go to work. We can’t make long term plans for ourselves and our family’s future. Some people are planning to go back to their motherland country or other countries where skilled people are welcomed. Some of our friends who are in foreign countries have no intention of moving to USA after they hear our stories. The USA may lose some highly educated and skilled people.
For most of us who go through the labor certificate process, it seems that we may have to spend a decade to go through the entire employment-based green card process if we are lucky enough to get it. If we fail to get approval in any stage, we may have to leave this country soon. It is a very long green card journey. The journey is in the darkness. Many of us haven’t visited our family members and friends in our motherland country for many years because of green card problem. Also, it is hard for our family members to get US visas to visit us. We are very homesick; we miss our family members and friends so much. We can’t stand being apart from our family especially when our parents are very sick, but we are unable to take care of them. Some people even missed seeing their parents one last time before they passed away. Dear President, you have a family, therefore you can imagine how tough it is for us. We have lost our freedom in some way.
All of the above is based on facts and our experiences. We earnestly request you, Mr. President, to pay high attention to legal immigrant issues. We have below petitions:
1. “First in, first out” rule, every stage of green card process must follow this rule. There are too many backlog cases which may be messed up; it’s hard for the backlog center to get every single case done orderly, so the priority date should go through all processes no matter when the approval of Labor Certificate and #140 is issued.
2. The Labor of Department makes public the process time schedule at least once a month. Applicants can trace their case status from internet.
3. To speed up the green card process.
4. Someone who has been staying in the USA more than five years or working in the USA more than three years should be free to get a travel visa to travel especially to their motherland no matter in what the stage of his/her green card.
5. Someone who has been working in the USA more than five years, his/her spouse should be allowed to get work permission.
Mr. President, we know you are worrying about this country’s security and illegal immigrant issues. We also concern about these issues and have below suggestions for your reference.
1. Illegal immigrants who have been staying the USA more than five years can get three year work visa and renew another three years once in the USA but not allowed to apply for green card unless they go back to their country to apply for work visa and enter this country with legal documents.
2. Illegal immigrants who have been staying in the USA less than 5 years but more than three years can get non-renewable three year work visa and not be allowed to apply for green card unless they leave the USA to apply for work visa and enter this country with legal documents.
3. Illegal immigrants who have been staying in the USA less than three years must leave the USA to apply for work visa and enter this country with legal documents.
4. Set up fast and simple channel to get work visa. Give illegal immigrants a chance to be legal immigrants based on their conduct and US job market requirement. In order to encourage illegal immigrants leave USA early and apply for work visa legally, besides green card’s condition, this type of work visa need quota limited every year and special rules including below factors: How many years have they been in the USA before, their family member status, their behavior such as paying taxes, do not commit crimes and others while they are in the USA.
Note: Above four points showed importance of legal system and give illegal immigrants a chance to correct their mistake from humanitarianism.
5. Make more strict laws against the employer who hires illegal immigrant and lawyer who makes counterfeit documents for illegal immigrants. Increases penalties for employing illegal aliens.
6. Limited illegal immigrant’s rights by laws. Such as: Cannot get any financial service (bank account, loan and credit card). Not allowed to buy a car and take any transportation, no driver’s license. Cannot rent and buy a house/apartment.
7. Anyone who provides above rights to illegal immigrant will be fined for breaking the law.
8. Illegal immigration laws must be published and announced on newspapers, TV and radio for a long time period, let everybody know those laws.
Note: After illegal immigrants realize it’s very difficult to work and live here without legal document, they may leave USA and get legal document into the USA. In case some illegal immigrants don’t want to leave the USA, it will be more and tougher for them to work and live here. Eventually, they have to leave the USA. Then more and more people who are outside of USA will try to come to USA legally.
9. New crossing border illegal immigrants must be immediate deported and left their fingerprints with 10 years prohibit entering USA.
Note: After those illegal immigrants went back with 10 years penalty, their family members, relatives and friends will know immediately and may stop to cross border automatically.
10. Set up fingerprint verify information system for everybody in the United State, which connects with personal ID and social security number.
Note: Since a lot of places have used this system, it will not cost huge amount of extra money to build this system for more places, but it will be a big help for the home security in the future and reduce other crimes such as stealing ID and social security number.
The above suggestions may solve illegal immigrant issues for fundamental reasons and make the homeland security more efficient from now and in the future. We don’t think it is a good ideal to build a border. It may waste money but will be no help in preventing illegal immigrants. Open the legal channel widely for the people who are qualified to come to USA and make illegal immigrant very tough to survive here, we think, this is the key to prevent illegal immigrants.
Mr. President, we are looking forward to your solving both legal and illegal immigrant problems successfully during you are in office.
Sincerely,
Legal Immigrants’ Ally
Number State Category PD 45 day letter Stage E-mail
No.1 NJ EB3 RIR Aug. 2002 Sep. 2005 LC
Bluesky133@hotmail.com
ittsburgh,PA