Raise awareness about labor certificate process backlog

[USCISisMockery]

With never ending process of labor certificate, we would like to organize efforts to make related personnel aware of the problem. Here are versions of sample letters.

Sample Letters

My Effort

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46482

http://www.ilw.com/articles/2005,0920-gonzalez.shtm

http://www.ilw.com/articles/2005,0921-endelman.shtm

Spidey's effort

Nilekum's letter

HondaRider's story

http://www.immigrationportal.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12365
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1119124&postcount=1072 (revised version of postcount 1058)
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1118834&postcount=1066
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1118174&postcount=1054
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1117628&postcount=1021

Please post your suggestions and response here. If you don't agree with any of the letters, don't just leave the thread hopelessly, but provide your version of the letter. Also add other contact informations you think are important to let them know. Remember saying "do your work, you will get the result".

Other Resources and Links
FOIA for DOL
Freedom of Information Act

Funds collected from past lawsuit
http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=132005

Funny thread
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=170590

isn.org, very encouraging site where people like us started similar initiatives and they succeed
Its bit out dated but we can as guidance from contact us page.

Contact Information

Call them about government offices inefficiencies and waste.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/contact.shtml

AILA has comprehensive site that lists all the media and political contacts. You can also send message to 5 contacts directly just by one click. Go to "media guide", scroll down and select your state (actually you can select some high profile states like NY to get access to editors of NYT, WSJ...). YOu will be presented with list of conatcts, select ones which you feel will make difference. It will also give you choice of emailing it or snail-mail it (ofcourse, AILA will snail-mail it, and not you).

AILA "take action" page

DOL inspector general contacts

Some media contacts by justdoit, but AILA action page above covers it

Employment and Training Agency
U.S. Department of Labor
Frances Perkins Building
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20210

DOL (search for ETA ) contacts. Personally I dont think its good idea calling them directly because that will make them even more inefficient.
DOL contact list of officials
Immigrant labor certification at ETA (202) 693-3010

Looking at the background of Emily DeRocco profile , it seems like she is true conservative. Our best bet is Elaine L. Chao (Secretary of Labor) profile , she is immigrant and she can understand our pain. Also most effective way of sending any letter is through fax or mail, any government office can't ignore or scrap physical paper. Lets send letters addressed to Elaine Chao, with CC to all senators in immigration commitee (listed below), all big newspapers and also white house. ETA has no mention about BEC or backlog, everythign is PERM here DOL page for foreign labor

People in NJ can send inquiries through governor's office as guided by aycy
aycy explains how to send inquiries to governor

Senators on the immigration committe provided by "MDwatch":
Republican Members:
John Cornyn, TX(Chairman)
Charles E. Grassley, IA
Jon Kyl, AZ
Mike DeWine, OH
Jeff Sessions, AL
Sam Brownback, KS
Tom Coburn, OK
Democratic Members
Edward M. Kennedy, MA (Ranking Democrat)
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., DE
Dianne Feinstein, CA
Russell D. Feingold, WI
Charles E. Schumer, NY
Richard J. Durbin, IL
You might want to include all of them in your distribution list

Director of USCIS
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1097373&postcount=157

The Honorable Elaine L. Chao
Secretary of U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20210

Elaine Chao's email is:
secretaryelainechao@dol.gov
Fax number for Office of the Secretary 202-693-6111

Locate your local officals here:
http://capwiz.com/aila2/dbq/officials/

AILA.org (lawyers organization)
aila newsroom

ILW.com (pretty effective)
ILW editor

Example where "taking action" works
http://www.murthy.com/news/UDhoptsc.html
http://www.murthy.com/action.html
Contact Sheela Murthy at
law@murthy.com

Trenton times contacts
http://njtimes.com/contact.html

Star-Ledger
http://www.starledger.com/editOffice.asp

Rajiv's contact page
http://devforums.immigrationportal.com/anthesys/Production/TrackerPetition/contactUs.php

Cyrus Mehta
info@cyrusmehta.com

Washington Post, writer who writes on immigration matters
Paul Bernstein

Philadelphia Inquirer, immigration writer
Maria Panaritis

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/infoservdirectory.html

Journalist who wants to write story on immigration
http://www.immigrationportal.com/announcement.php?f=231&announcementid=72

Want to start a new petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/

Current Initiatives

GOD_BLESS_YOU is promoting Rajiv's meeting with Ted Kennedy to add H1-bs to new bill. Please support it if you are in Tri-State of New England area.
GOD_BLESS_YOU's post

New initiatives by Spidey at
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=173573&page=1&pp=15
Please support that and we will continue with other efforts also. Remember, letters are being answered, our voice is definitely heard. Anand_mishra got reponse to one of the letters below. In the response his letter was forwarded to ETA agency of DOL.

Past Initiatives
Past awareness efforts with no action because of inactivity.
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=169018
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=167356
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=160354
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=160279

News and article

Washington Post exposing DOL inefficiency

Intel's Bannet supporting permanent immigration for H1bs

Naive comments from some professor from somewhere. Thanks GC_LOVER

Latest immigration legislations, full of surprises.

Two contrdictory views

Informationweek H1 b article


ILW immigration survey

DOL released backlog FAQ, not sure if its by virtue of our letters, but this is welcome news. It seems like gradually DOL is understanding our requests.
Its quite elobarate. Once DOL answered many questions, now rules of the game has changed. We need to reformat our letters too.
DOL faq

 

[GCCovet]

I 2nd that

With never ending process of labor certificate, we would like to organize efforts to make related personnel aware of the problem. Here are versions of sample letters.

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1118834&postcount=1066
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1118174&postcount=1054
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1119124&postcount=1072 (revised version of postcount 1058)
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showpost.php?p=1117628&postcount=1021

Please post your suggestions and response here. Remember saying "do your work, you will get the result". Guys don't be passimistic, by sending email/snail mail, we have nothing to loose. All naysayers, please stay away, there are tons of threads to discuss your negativity. I saw someone talking about waiting till this summer is over, how many summer you waited ? 3 ? 4 ? If DOL can't clear out the mess in 4 years, how do you expect they are willing to do it this summer. You are just convincing yourself to not to do anything and just wait. We wasted 4 most important years of our life to realize that DOL is still data entering our file ? DO you think its tough to process 300000 application ? IRS processes millions of complicated application within a week (I agree staff at DOL is niggling, infact thats the problem). I tried many times on this forum to organize some kind of effort, but everything is in vain. Sometimes I feel like people are used to exploitation and slavery after 50+ years of independence (people from some country will understand what I am talking about). We need unity, thats what is lacking from our community.

I agree with you 100%. Remember, only lobbying works in this country.
1.The letter needs to be on Macro level.

2. Let's all take an incentive to send letters, person who thinks that other person will do it and does not send it is wrong. Each and every letter will surely make a difference. We want a big mass of letters. Don’t be indolent in printing and sending the letter, remember, every mail sent is going to make an impact! That is you …you and you too. Lets act, act fast.

3. Finalize a draft and a date, so that all willing people can send it at the same time. Also, All the addresses needs to be published here.

4. These letters needs to be sent several times after some interval (need to keep on sending reminders till the goal is achieved). The worst they can do is trash the letters. But hey, they will have to at least open it and read it.

5. The cost of sending the letter is less then a newspaper that you buy or coffee that you drink.

6. Lets get united and make them hear us.

God bless us all and Good luck to everyone who is in GC pursuit.

 

[triniti]

About the personnel limitations: They should charge $1000 (many people would be willing to give even more if necessary) per application so that there are no budget complaints and they have more people available both in number and talent.

If the real concern is not to approve so many people at once, that's what the priority date is for. That way, there is a clear definite rule (you may agree or not) and you know roughly when your file will be processed.

 

[BackLogGC]

Fax Number for Office of the Secretary

I got the Fax number for Office of the Secretary 202-693-6111. Let us start sending our messge to Secretary Chao.

 

[wlj_wzz]

Elaine Chao's email is:
secretaryelainechao@dol.gov

 

[GC_Lover]

I thought this was going to be "sticky" thread so it will always be on top, what happened?

 

[USCISisMockery]

I messaged moderator "usnycus" with the link to this thread to make it sticky.

 

[APD]

Count Me In

This is a very good idea.
All of us should bombard the DOL secretary with a standard FAX within say one week time.
I personally think that FAX is a better medium than email because it will be difficult for them to ignore and discard a FAX.

1st week of May is a good target. His desk should be piled up with at least 100,000 faxes. Remember there are 300,000 cases in backlog.

Let's take action
APD

 

[Days_go_by]

let's not stop

friends,
I was thinking that if we do not see any action with first phase of letters we should stll keep writing, week after week, case after case.
At one point they are bound to take notice.
good luck everyone.

 

[APD]

friends,
I was thinking that if we do not see any action with first phase of letters we should stll keep writing, week after week, case after case.
At one point they are bound to take notice.
good luck everyone.

We cam make it a monthly excercise.
1st week of every month bombard the Faxes.

 

[GC_Lover]

I have mailed my letter couple of days back. I plan to give it few weeks to see if I get reply or not. If not I sitll have more copies of that letter.

 

[USCISisMockery]

We gave "wait" quite bit of time, isn't ? I think in this world of microseconds, 3-4 years is humongous. There is no science or faith, its just lobbying that works in any democratic country. Media, congressman and lawyer rule this country, give it a try, shoot couple of letters/email and see how they could ignore half a million emails/mails. Without leting them know about our problems how your congressman knows whats hurting you. Immigration is very complex issue and nobody accept you understands the severity and effect it has on your life/family.

Get out of slave mentality, don't be lazy take action. Don't be encouraged by one or two approvals. I have seen many times when there is enough momentum to take some action, DOL will come up with some approvals and everybody goes into "faith" mode. Naysayers, please don't discourage and stay away from your personal agenda.

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but it seems like I am not geting the response that I had hoped for. Please comment, where I am wrong. I want help from someof you who are still not in "slave" mentality to spread the word. Keep adding new contact information and suggestions in the "sticky" thread.

 

[Garfield]

Just saw this thread. I'll be sending a FAX on may 1st. Good initiative by USCISisMockery. Thanks.

 

[lfgc]

Great going!!
I'll send in my letters/emails...
there is always hope!!
lfgc

 

[SIRIINFO]

backlog elimination

Hi,

The idea of raising awareness through fax,emailsetc is really good. I have couple of other suggestions too:

1.Have like a kickoff meeting in several U.S cities where we can invite a guest speaker (immigration attorney?) and ask people to join the meeting to raise the awareness on backlog issue.The guest speaker will talk about how we can lobby our cause to US congress more effectively. For example I live in bay area and I can advertise in sulekha website requesting people to come join us for the cause.We can also get petitions signed at the same time.
2.Ask people to volunteer in front of indian stores etc to sign petitions.(I have seen people asking for signing for petitions for eg in front of safeway stores etc)

This way we can get lot more petitions going on and can create momemtum.

I will be able to volunteer for this in bay area if I can get support for this activity. We can have similar arrangements setup in other parts of US too.

 

[bajaj_deepak@ho]

Labor cert is not a mockery as compared to Current GC process which is scam.

Think about following:-
(1) Why do USCIS need Labor certification?
If a person is gainfully employed here, for say, 4-5 years, earning above
benchmark salary, contributing to US, and helping himself.
Is not a criminal.

Then why does he need labor cert, if above is true, it should be apparent
to anybody, he is needed, is skilled and is hungry.

(2) 140 - employer verification
Why do you need it, didn't u do that as part of labor process itself.
Why the run the lap again the second time?

(3) Adjustment of status
Come on, in this age of computers and internet, it is hilarious to
presume that it is so cumbersome just to swap the stamp from
non-immigrant to immigrant.


I really think this GC process itself should be scrapped. It does nothing but
- allow attroney, lawyers, employess and USCIS officialdom to feed off
necessarily well meaning, honest and contributing workers, like you and me.

Imagine, if USCIS would do something like
anybody earning 100K or more, or working/paying tax in US for 5 years,
automatically would get his permanent residence. I think that would be fair.
It would have automatically established
- ability and credentials of the person to contribute to US, emplyers and
society in general.
and would allow the person, to grow his life and assimilate into US culture better. For now, the distinction is clear and we need to lower the barrier to entry and level the playing field for all deserving.

Current process is sham of greatest order, it allows relatives of numerous body shoppers, whose only credentials are there relative become a leach earlier, allows them to get GC, but not the well qualified individual who
- contributed to the US in a positive mannner


Don't you think, this GC is a such a joke, really...

Peeved by the attittude and in-the-box thinking of USCIS.

Cheerios,
deepak bajaj

 

[USCISisMockery]

I think this whole system is driven by lawyers who makes the system complicated so that average person always have to rely on them. Geting employment based green card should be very simple, if a guy is here working for 5 year, earning above average wage that proves that his skills are needed. Simple logic. I just don't understand what DOL role in this whole process in this world of globalization.
I think, rather than 5-6 years of formalities (DOL labor, 140, 485), USCIS team should visit each company, analyze their financials and validity, and issue green card to all willing/qualified (working in US for more than 3 years or something) employees on the same day. Okay I am dreaming, time for me to go to bed

 

[USCISisMockery]

Hi,

The idea of raising awareness through fax,emailsetc is really good. I have couple of other suggestions too:

1.Have like a kickoff meeting in several U.S cities where we can invite a guest speaker (immigration attorney?) and ask people to join the meeting to raise the awareness on backlog issue.The guest speaker will talk about how we can lobby our cause to US congress more effectively. For example I live in bay area and I can advertise in sulekha website requesting people to come join us for the cause.We can also get petitions signed at the same time.
2.Ask people to volunteer in front of indian stores etc to sign petitions.(I have seen people asking for signing for petitions for eg in front of safeway stores etc)

This way we can get lot more petitions going on and can create momemtum.

I will be able to volunteer for this in bay area if I can get support for this activity. We can have similar arrangements setup in other parts of US too.

we can also start petition online
http://www.petitiononline.com/

 

[GCCovet]

Great!

we can also start petition online
http://www.petitiononline.com/

USCISMockery,
This is great, Could you put a letter (general letter covering all our needs as discussed earlier) and we can start sending emails to fellow sufferers and friends asking them to sign the petition.

I am sure this will make a big impact.

 

[sanjay_41]

Why not try to publish letter in Wall Street Journal, NY Times

I agree with USCISmockery, and all the comments by our community. It has been transparent fact that BEC ( Backlog Elimination centers) are converting into BEC (Backlog Expansion Center). We need to try to publish the issue in leading news papers such as WSJ or NYTImes. etc. All of us know that there is problem and we know also what the problem is. Then why not just raise it with full throttle and bang. So everybody listens this.

Come on guys, let us get out of this slave mentality(wait and watch) and work for ourself. We have invested almost 6 to 7 most important years of our life and which will shape our next 10 years of career. If we just seat and wait for this cocomamy of LC, GC, we will loose almost all the important years of our life.

We need to send these letters to new paper agency also. So that the problem can be well heard.

I will not thank for reading this. I thank you for acting on this in advance.