Draft Petition is attached.
Please contact the governor's office and as many senators and congressmen as you can to present your case.
You can make any edits you like to the petition, the important thing is to send it out and be heard. We need some form of communication with the decision makers who can make things right.
Thx all.
Attachement was not showing up so I am posting it in the body text.
Respected Governor,
Subject: Severe Processing Delays at VA State Workforce Agency for Labor Certification Applications (RIR)
I am writing to you today to bring to your attention a momentous problem that has plagued Virginia’s State Workforce Agency and the tremendous suffering it is causing to thousands of legal immigrants who have to wait for several years until the agency processes their Labor certification applications. Since it being the first step towards becoming a permanent resident in this country.
These severe processing delays are affecting the lives of immigration benefits applicants tremendously. Important factors in our lives such as marriage, home ownership, education for our children and our well-being have been put on hold. Career advancement has been hampered since the applicant has to remain with the same respective employer until the application has been approved. The majority of the employers have taken advantage of these restrictions, created by the severe processing delays. Such restrictions again are affecting the livelihood of not only immigration benefits applicants but also the company they work for. An overall feeling of frustration is negatively affecting all of the immigration benefits applicants.
Northern Virginia’s economy in particular is the force that has supported the DC Metro area’s financial stability by providing a cordial, secure business environment where thousands of new businesses have flourished in the past decade and in turn have attracted a wealth of highly skilled resources from all round the world. The same immigrants when try to apply for the permanent resident status, they have to go through the SWA and obtain a labor certification for their respective position. After which the application is again reviewed at the federal level, and once approved there, an individual can file for "adjustment of status" which again takes a long long time to clear
To put the situation at VA SWA in to some perspective, we would have to look at the SWA stats for other 50 states in the country. When compared with them VA ranks 41st out of the 50 states. VA SWA is currently at average processing 1 weeks worth of applications in a month, when other states have been processing somewhere between 30-60 days worth of applications in the same time frame*. (The stats are for the so-called “Fast Track” method, also referred to as RIR or Reduction in Recruitment, numbers for Non-RIR cases is so shocking that it would require another lengthy discussion to make some sense out of it). At current pace it would take more than 3 years for an application that is filed today on 10/03/03 to clear the SWA alone, it still will have to go though multiple other certifications and approvals which can again take more than a few years.
This is an abysmal record for a state that considers itself immigrant friendly, and takes pride in being at the forefront in attracting new businesses and promoting itself as an economic powerhouse.
The current situation in the state does not create a conducive, desirable climate for legal immigrants to consider Virginia as an option, I know of many highly qualified individuals who have rejected job offers in Virginia because of the processing delays at the SWA. They simply opted for a state where the process moves much faster knowing that it will save them at least 2 years of their lives.
I would again like to stress the fact that individuals going through the labor certification process are all legal residents and majority of us hold Master’s or Doctorate level degrees from reputed US universities, we are law-abiding residents who collectively pay millions of dollars in state and federal taxes and contribute significantly to the growth of our respective organizations. Each individual also pays thousands of dollars in legal and processing fees and follows the rule of the law, only to be disappointed by the bureaucracy that manages and handles their residency applications.
We respectfully urge the Governor’s office to urgently look in to the situation and take the necessary steps to resolve the delays that are affecting the lives of thousands of families in Virginia.
*As published at
http://www.ows.doleta.gov/foreign/times.asp