S. 1932 Status

I hate to sound like a broken record but....

Please sign up at http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=198900 with your name, email address, and state.

As you know , a bill will be introduced for spring. There is NO POINT in lobbying just before the bill. If we want to bring our concerns towards the lawmakers, we have to start now (and time is very short).

PLEASE SIGN UP. Over the next 3-4 days, we can decide how to organize this effort. We will have to be more efficient & organized (not just blindly sending faxes or calling).

And we have to frame the proposition in such a way that it is a win-win for everybody.

There are over 100 sign-ups. I want ot see over 500 sign-ups. Once we have this quorum, we can organizeand prepare a plan of attack.

THe article about the green card slavery was very powerful. The author was a very good writer & very powerful in the imagery. I want to use it
 
drforgc said:
Hagels bill number is S 1918. Read twice in the Senate and referred to Committe on Judiciary on 10/25/2005. The Section 202 of this bill reads "Aliens who have earned an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math and have been working in a related field in the United States under a nonimmigrant visa during the 3-year period preceding their application for an immigrant visa under"
Click to expand...


From what I understand there is going to be 'one' comprehensive immigration bill out of all these different bills that will be taken up for debate / discussion.

Senator Hagel has been very unsuccesful in the past getting his bills passed. So, if at all we focus on one group, it will have to be Senator Kennedy...
 
This is first draft of what I plan to submit: Sunjoshi, Nozdam Superman.... take a lo

Guys this is what I plan to send to the lawmakers. Guys I will appreciate if you add points to it but don't take out any point as every point here is important. I urge the Big bos here, Sunjohi, Nozdam etc. to take a close look at it modify what you think is right and get a single version. We'll get this out by the end of this month to every damn lawmaker and media.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir,

Sub: Please modify the current Employment Based Green Card System

I am writing this to you to draw your attention on an issue that is affecting millions of people living in United States. Your support can change our lives and can help us live a better and free life in this great country. I have been living in United States for 6 year now on H1B visa. I had lived here legally all these years, paying taxes and abide to the Law of the Land, following all the rules and regulation. My children are born here and go to the public schools. My problem is, in spite of having rare technical skills, and being employed all the time I was in U.S. I still do not have a green card, as current Employment Based Green Card system sometime will require you to stay with your current employer for half a decade or more. The skills I have may be needed by one employer for 2-3 years after that he may not need me as their job is done, but there are 100s others who need me, but because of the current restriction, I am bound to stay with my current employer. Please look into this matter and do something to modify the current system. Here are some points which can help millions of people live with more freedom as we are badly affected by backlog in Labor certification and Green card retrogression.

1) Make Employment Based Green Card, independent of Employer after a certain period of time say 2 year. Currently it depends on certain stage of process. Because of the backlog at each stage, even after being employed for the same employer for years one cannot change employer.
2) Please allow applying for adjustment of status a time bound process rather than attainment of a certain level . This will give opportunity to 100s and 1000s of legal workers to adjust their statuses, so that they can work independently rather than being bound to work for 1 employer for endless number of years.
3) Please recommend for H1B extensions be given for 3 years rather than just 1 year if the Labor Certifications is pending for more than 1 year. Current scenario has changed immensely since this law was made, as of now it is taking years and years for each stage, so 1 year extensions are not enough. State department has stopped Visa stamping in U.S. so we have to travel to our home countries to get our passport stamped every time we get new Visa, for that 1 year extension is not enough time. And also the H1B fee has gone up from just about $185 an year ago, to about $2000. And we have to pay 100s of $s for depedents. And not to mention the mental stress one has to go thru all the time.
4) Increase the number of Employment Based Visas
5) Please make provisions to count only the primary beneficiary for the green card numbers.
6) Remove the country limit on Employment Based Green Cards, When H1Bs have no country based limits then why should Green Cards have a country limits. If 3-4 countries serves in most of the areas where U.S. is seeking workers, than that should not be a disadvantage of the people of those country when they seek Green Cards.
7) Please recognize 100s of 1000s of Legal hopeful immigrants. As we are always counted along with Illegal immigrants. We are 100% Legal residents seeking legal immigration.

Please work towards making things easy for the Legal immigrants rather than difficult, which is the direction current system is heading towards.


Thanks you very much.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
somebody has been unsuccessful does not mean that his current proposal lacks merit. it is pretty similar to what the UK does.
my preference for supporting bills would be Hagel's and then McCain-Kennedy.
All these senators do not seem to be on very good terms with the current White house occupants.
indio0617 said:
From what I understand there is going to be 'one' comprehensive immigration bill out of all these different bills that will be taken up for debate / discussion.

Senator Hagel has been very unsuccesful in the past getting his bills passed. So, if at all we focus on one group, it will have to be Senator Kennedy...
Click to expand...
 
Do not support S.1438 : support S.1033

rayyan said:
Hello All,

Can we discuss this under S.1438- Immigration Reform Act of 2005 (Feb 2006) thread .The title of this thread may be misleading to the newcomers. Also, the Immigration Reform Bill is a totally different bill.

Thanks
Click to expand...

S.1438 does not increase any visa numbers, infact it reduces EB1 and EB2 visa numbers from current limit. DO NOT SUPPORT IT IN PRESENT FORM.

S.1033 (Secured america orderly immigration act) will increase EB visa numbers and reduces the backogs(recature). Go thro, the very good comparrision table by both OH law frim and AILA.
 
Shall we send this article to major media such as usatoday? If so, we might need the author's approval. Please list the article source

Life of Immigrant in 21st Century America

Ever wondered how life of an immigrant looks like in 21st century America? Well it is like a 19th century life when slavery was rampant and rights to free society was restricted for certain individuals with certain skin color. In 21st century this group is called Technology Slaves. These are folks from all around the world who were lured into American Dream by offering a Visa called H1B. Most of these folks are educated in the finest schools in America and possess a master’s or a doctorate degree. Unaware of what they have signed for they take a ride to their dream land and plan for a happy life in the land of immigrants. Their journey begins in an Airplane unlike their 19th century counterparts whose began in a storage compartment in a ship; unfortunately this is all that has changed then and now. Once in their promised land carrying a dual intent (strangely contrasting dual nature: means it is a non immigrant visa with provisions to become immigrant: More on it later) known the dreaded H1B. I call it “dreaded” because it is hated as much as by the immigrant having the visa as citizens of the country he is living in. Their life began with learning the accent, understanding the local lingo and culture. They start to grow and adjust in the land of opportunities, and some of these folks who like it decide to adopt America as the country to live. This might turn out to be the worst mistake they made in their journey. This is when the settlement phase and the most difficult phase of their journey starts. They quickly learn that they need a card called “Green Card” to live freely in the land of free claimed to have abolished slavery in Lincoln era. I wonder if H1B is modern slavery program initiated for the corporations in need of technology slaves.

Coming to terms with the reality these individuals realized that they are on a guest worker visa. The number of such visas a 3 times as much as number of Green Cards available. This is done to ensure that corporations can have steady supply of skilled labor at a reasonable rate. This not only impacts H1B holders but it also impacts locals whose paycheck is kept in check with this overseas supply of cheap labor. Now the vast majority of these temporary workers have to go through a lengthy and humiliating process to obtain green cards knowing fully well only 1/3rd will eventually get it. This process gives a complete control of the life of the H1B holder to the employer for a period of no less than 5 years. In this journey where only H1B holder has to adhere to the law as for everyone else involved like lawyers, government agency and corporations it is just a system to rake more money from the technology slaves as and when you can. To make things worse if a political agenda regarding illegal immigrant’s crop up there will be mass amnesty where law breakers will stand in the front of queue. The technology slave silently swallows all this with no complains as a price that he has to pay for a better life for himself and his family is his chosen land. He silently suffers through the broken immigration system that is designed to serve the needs of everyone except for the ones it is meant to serve.

Make no mistake these individuals seeks to settle in the country by fully legal means, paying taxes, contributing to medicare and social security taxes which they might never get to benefit from. I wonder what do government gain by doing all this? or is it simply a puppet of corporations as expected in a capitalistic economy ? There are close to 500,00o such highly educated folks who are probably seeking to live permanently in America after staying here for past 4-5 years and contributing to the society but things are made so difficult for them, on the other hand there are 8 million illegal immigrants who are given amnesty for breaking the laws and enjoy benefits more than those who play by rules and trying to settle in the country by legal means. There 50,000 green cards given to people from all across the world to promote diversity who have contributed absolutely nothing to the society so far but no consideration for people who have contributed to the society shoulder to shoulder with the citizens.
Think tanks have pointed out that engineering enrollment in US is in decline and 60% of the Master’s and Doctorate degrees awarded in American Universities goes to the foreign nationals. In order to keep America on par with other developed country aren’t we going to need these folks? This is what Intel’s Chairman Criag Barrett has said on the the subject “Barrett has some suggestions for fending off a brain drain. First, staple a green card to any master's or PhD degree [awarded to a foreign student] in the United States. You get the degree, here's a green card” .

What puzzles me is why America is so hard on there less then 1 million law abiding folks looking to settle down in the country the way immigrants have always been? What have they done wrong? What is it that they have done which makes them so despised and cornered by the government agencies in the very country that has welcomed immigrants for centuries? Shouldn't we learn from Canada, UK and Australia about how to run an efficient immigration program which will benefit the country as well as the immigrants ? These countries have immigration system with selection criteria based on the merit of the individual seeking to immigrate and the need of the nation as opposed to our immigration program which is nothing more than a puppet for corporate America and is twisted time and again to support political agenda and serve special interests.
 
With all this talk about the comprehensive immigration bill, I would like to point out one thing. This bill essentially addresses illegal immigrants. As you all know there is severe opposition to the guest worker program proposed by Pres Bush even within republican circles. When I talked to the Senators office initially about our plight they pointed to the fact that we should distinguish ourselves clearly from the illegal immigrants as this has become the taboo word now in political circles.

So, what good is it to get ourselves lumped along with them ? When they say 'comprehensive immigration' it does not necessarily mean us. To them it translates into "Latino votes".
 
Seems like its all Demand/Supply logic. Right now their need is not getting H1B folks (coz outsourcing saves the biz comp more money). And there are plenty of people like us. Unless they wake up and realize the contribution of immigrants, its going to tough. This is the worst in US History. Without a hope of GC, not many people are gonna want to come here.
 
Please cheer up!!

All,
I know every one is distressed and not able to digest the fact that the final bill neglected us after our all out effort. I am in the same boat.

The point is this is not the end of the world. I repeat, this is not the end of the world. We are not dying or caught by some terrorist threatening to behead us. There are a lot of people in this world that are in worse situation. The worst thing that can happen is, we need to wait for some more time. Please cheer up.

Here is what happened to me in the last one year. My PD is Aug 2002. Just when I thought I will get my labor cleared and get EAD, my application was sent to BEC. At that time, I was working for a big client for more than 3 years, leading a team to complete a project successfully above and beyond expectations. They offered me permanent job but could not hire me as I do not have EAD. Worse, they hired some one else in my place to lead the team (of course, they are paying the price for it now :rolleyes: ). This I thought was the worst thing that could happen to me. I had no option but to quit this client.

I talked to my employer and fortunately, he agreed to continue my green card even though I wanted to change companies. That was around my 6th year H-1B.

Joined new company, new client, new H-1, they filed for 7th year, got approved. My labor is cleared now and 140 is approved. But I cannot file 485.

Recently, I got another permanent offer from a better client. They are willing to do H-1. So, I will be joining them soon and they are filing for 3 years H-1 ext as I am eligible.

This is a long story but the bottom line is, good things and bad things happen to every one. After every bad thing, there are lots of good things in store. Be patient and hopeful. As some one said, life is too short to worry about things that are not in our control.

Good luck to all of us in the future.

Happy new year.
 
black_logs said:
Guys this is what I plan to send to the lawmakers. Guys I will appreciate if you add points to it but don't take out any point as every point here is important. I urge the Big bos here, Sunjohi, Nozdam etc. to take a close look at it modify what you think is right and get a single version. We'll get this out by the end of this month to every damn lawmaker and media.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir,

Sub: Please modify the current Employment Based Green Card System

I am writing this to you to draw your attention on an issue that is affecting millions of people living in United States. Your support can change our lives and can help us live a better and free life in this great country. I have been living in United States for 6 year now on H1B visa. I had lived here legally all these years, paying taxes and abide to the Law of the Land, following all the rules and regulation. My children are born here and go to the public schools. My problem is, in spite of having rare technical skills, and being employed all the time I was in U.S. I still do not have a green card, as current Employment Based Green Card system sometime will require you to stay with your current employer for half a decade or more. The skills I have may be needed by one employer for 2-3 years after that he may not need me as their job is done, but there are 100s others who need me, but because of the current restriction, I am bound to stay with my current employer. Please look into this matter and do something to modify the current system. Here are some points which can help millions of people live with more freedom as we are badly affected by backlog in Labor certification and Green card retrogression.

1) Make Employment Based Green Card, independent of Employer after a certain period of time say 2 year. Currently it depends on certain stage of process. Because of the backlog at each stage, even after being employed for the same employer for years one cannot change employer.
2) Please allow applying for adjustment of status a time bound process rather than attainment of a certain level . This will give opportunity to 100s and 1000s of legal workers to adjust their statuses, so that they can work independently rather than being bound to work for 1 employer for endless number of years.
3) Please recommend for H1B extensions be given for 3 years rather than just 1 year if the Labor Certifications is pending for more than 1 year. Current scenario has changed immensely since this law was made, as of now it is taking years and years for each stage, so 1 year extensions are not enough. State department has stopped Visa stamping in U.S. so we have to travel to our home countries to get our passport stamped every time we get new Visa, for that 1 year extension is not enough time. And also the H1B fee has gone up from just about $185 an year ago, to about $2000. And we have to pay 100s of $s for depedents. And not to mention the mental stress one has to go thru all the time.
4) Increase the number of Employment Based Visas
5) Please make provisions to count only the primary beneficiary for the green card numbers.
6) Remove the country limit on Employment Based Green Cards, When H1Bs have no country based limits then why should Green Cards have a country limits. If 3-4 countries serves in most of the areas where U.S. is seeking workers, than that should not be a disadvantage of the people of those country when they seek Green Cards.
7) Please recognize 100s of 1000s of Legal hopeful immigrants. As we are always counted along with Illegal immigrants. We are 100% Legal residents seeking legal immigration.

Please work towards making things easy for the Legal immigrants rather than difficult, which is the direction current system is heading towards.


Thanks you very much.
Click to expand...

Two years is too long. I guess we should ask for 1 year.
 
drforgc said:
Hagels bill number is S 1918. Read twice in the Senate and referred to Committe on Judiciary on 10/25/2005. The Section 202 of this bill reads "Aliens who have earned an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math and have been working in a related field in the United States under a nonimmigrant visa during the 3-year period preceding their application for an immigrant visa under"
Click to expand...

Here is the link to Hagel's bill
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.1918:

Section 202 refers to non-immigrant visas and hence must be for H1-Bs.

Definitely S1033 holds a lot more promise as it is bi-partisan but we really need to find from some insiders in Congress or Senate to find which of the bills is most likely to pass soon. Does anyone have contact with high profile lawyers? Would Specter's office or Cornyn's office be able to help us on it?
 
Guys. Please dont support any illegal immigration bill

All,

I am a silent viewer of this forum and had been following it without sleep for the last 2 days. I was more concentrating on getting some of my friends on board and was able to get around 50-60 to send faxes.

I dont see us benefetting much if we are to support any bill which focusses more on illegal immigration and has a few options for legal immigrants. I dont want to see we supporting it and the final outcome favouring more for the illegal immigration.

For the current 8001 provision, I strongly believe that compete america and other hight tech lobbying would have been involved and still they failed.

When similar lobbying was done for Schedule A people, they had Media, Hospitals and Country( Phillipines) lobbying working in favour.

Also we should try to unite all people and not get our efforts scattered in 3-5 different forums.

Let us decide on one platform ( website) , one agenda and not rush with any existing illegal immigration bill to support it. We should see the possibility of something similar to AC21. A seperate bill.

Guys, please dont loose hope. All the best and I wil continue in supporting all your efforts.

GC_vsc
 
nozdam said:
Indio i am TRYING my best to stay positive, BELIEVE me i am. If you have any tips on how to do so PLS share them with me. I have NOT been an idle observer, along with EVERYONE here, i have done my part, i Faxed a TON of times, wrote to the White house, Snail Mailed to the senators, Snail mailed ALL 19 of the Congressmen in PA, Actually MET the staff of my local Congressman, Called ALL the senators on the committee, called ALL the Congressmen on that committee, made my friends who are not on this forum call them, even called NumbersUSA to make sure they understand the difference between legal and illegal immigration. What the hell have i/we NOT done? Short of standing outside the whitehouse with placards we have done it ALL. What is next do we now stand outside the whitehouse with placards, saying "End EB retrogression"? Do we do on strike from work at our organizations?? What do we have to do get it thru these senator/congressmen's heads that we are here legally and not to punish US!!
Click to expand...


Nozdam: I absolutely understand your valuable contribution over the last few days. I was just trying to motivate, lift our spirits.
 
This is excellent article. Please post the source of this article and name of auther. I think it should go to each and every lawmaker and the President from thousands of employment based immigration community.




Noretro said:
Shall we send this article to major media such as usatoday? If so, we might need the author's approval. Please list the article source

Life of Immigrant in 21st Century America

Ever wondered how life of an immigrant looks like in 21st century America? Well it is like a 19th century life when slavery was rampant and rights to free society was restricted for certain individuals with certain skin color. In 21st century this group is called Technology Slaves. These are folks from all around the world who were lured into American Dream by offering a Visa called H1B. Most of these folks are educated in the finest schools in America and possess a master’s or a doctorate degree. Unaware of what they have signed for they take a ride to their dream land and plan for a happy life in the land of immigrants. Their journey begins in an Airplane unlike their 19th century counterparts whose began in a storage compartment in a ship; unfortunately this is all that has changed then and now. Once in their promised land carrying a dual intent (strangely contrasting dual nature: means it is a non immigrant visa with provisions to become immigrant: More on it later) known the dreaded H1B. I call it “dreaded” because it is hated as much as by the immigrant having the visa as citizens of the country he is living in. Their life began with learning the accent, understanding the local lingo and culture. They start to grow and adjust in the land of opportunities, and some of these folks who like it decide to adopt America as the country to live. This might turn out to be the worst mistake they made in their journey. This is when the settlement phase and the most difficult phase of their journey starts. They quickly learn that they need a card called “Green Card” to live freely in the land of free claimed to have abolished slavery in Lincoln era. I wonder if H1B is modern slavery program initiated for the corporations in need of technology slaves.

Coming to terms with the reality these individuals realized that they are on a guest worker visa. The number of such visas a 3 times as much as number of Green Cards available. This is done to ensure that corporations can have steady supply of skilled labor at a reasonable rate. This not only impacts H1B holders but it also impacts locals whose paycheck is kept in check with this overseas supply of cheap labor. Now the vast majority of these temporary workers have to go through a lengthy and humiliating process to obtain green cards knowing fully well only 1/3rd will eventually get it. This process gives a complete control of the life of the H1B holder to the employer for a period of no less than 5 years. In this journey where only H1B holder has to adhere to the law as for everyone else involved like lawyers, government agency and corporations it is just a system to rake more money from the technology slaves as and when you can. To make things worse if a political agenda regarding illegal immigrant’s crop up there will be mass amnesty where law breakers will stand in the front of queue. The technology slave silently swallows all this with no complains as a price that he has to pay for a better life for himself and his family is his chosen land. He silently suffers through the broken immigration system that is designed to serve the needs of everyone except for the ones it is meant to serve.

Make no mistake these individuals seeks to settle in the country by fully legal means, paying taxes, contributing to medicare and social security taxes which they might never get to benefit from. I wonder what do government gain by doing all this? or is it simply a puppet of corporations as expected in a capitalistic economy ? There are close to 500,00o such highly educated folks who are probably seeking to live permanently in America after staying here for past 4-5 years and contributing to the society but things are made so difficult for them, on the other hand there are 8 million illegal immigrants who are given amnesty for breaking the laws and enjoy benefits more than those who play by rules and trying to settle in the country by legal means. There 50,000 green cards given to people from all across the world to promote diversity who have contributed absolutely nothing to the society so far but no consideration for people who have contributed to the society shoulder to shoulder with the citizens.
Think tanks have pointed out that engineering enrollment in US is in decline and 60% of the Master’s and Doctorate degrees awarded in American Universities goes to the foreign nationals. In order to keep America on par with other developed country aren’t we going to need these folks? This is what Intel’s Chairman Criag Barrett has said on the the subject “Barrett has some suggestions for fending off a brain drain. First, staple a green card to any master's or PhD degree [awarded to a foreign student] in the United States. You get the degree, here's a green card” .

What puzzles me is why America is so hard on there less then 1 million law abiding folks looking to settle down in the country the way immigrants have always been? What have they done wrong? What is it that they have done which makes them so despised and cornered by the government agencies in the very country that has welcomed immigrants for centuries? Shouldn't we learn from Canada, UK and Australia about how to run an efficient immigration program which will benefit the country as well as the immigrants ? These countries have immigration system with selection criteria based on the merit of the individual seeking to immigrate and the need of the nation as opposed to our immigration program which is nothing more than a puppet for corporate America and is twisted time and again to support political agenda and serve special interests.
Click to expand...
 
We need our legal immigration bill!

gc_vsc said:
All,

I am a silent viewer of this forum and had been following it without sleep for the last 2 days. I was more concentrating on getting some of my friends on board and was able to get around 50-60 to send faxes.

I dont see us benefetting much if we are to support any bill which focusses more on illegal immigration and has a few options for legal immigrants. I dont want to see we supporting it and the final outcome favouring more for the illegal immigration.

For the current 8001 provision, I strongly believe that compete america and other hight tech lobbying would have been involved and still they failed.

When similar lobbying was done for Schedule A people, they had Media, Hospitals and Country( Phillipines) lobbying working in favour.

Also we should try to unite all people and not get our efforts scattered in 3-5 different forums.

Let us decide on one platform ( website) , one agenda and not rush with any existing illegal immigration bill to support it. We should see the possibility of something similar to AC21. A seperate bill.

Guys, please dont loose hope. All the best and I wil continue in supporting all your efforts.

GC_vsc
Click to expand...
 
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