Articles Posted in News

President Obama said “We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests.” “We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”

The President was talking about the historic health-care overhaul that passed the House 219-212 last night and is now headed to his desk for signature. Let’s hope his statement foreshadows what he will say about immigration reform in the months to come. The health-care battle demonstrated the fight for immigration reform will be tough. But we knew that. Now, at least, we know that an immigration overhaul is possible.

It was symbolic that Sunday’s immigration reform rally in Washington, which according to reports was tens of thousands strong, was overshadowed by the drama that played out in the Congress over the health-care bill. Since the Administration took office in 2009, immigration reform has played second fiddle to the overhaul of the health-care system. But now that health-care reform has become a reality, it is time for the Administration and Congress to get to the hard work of overhauling our badly broken immigration system.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that it has posted a revised Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, Form I-485. In addition to a revised form, there are new filing locations. The changes are part of an overall effort to transition the intake of USCIS benefit forms from Service Centers to Lockbox facilities. Centralizing form and fee intake allows USCIS to provide the public more efficient and effective initial processing of applications and fees.

Beginning February 25, 2010, most applicants must submit Form I-485 to a USCIS Lockbox facility, depending on the eligibility category under which they are filing, as provided in the form instructions. USCIS Service Centers will forward all Form I-485 applications to the appropriate Lockbox facility until March 29, 2010. USCIS will accept previous versions of Form I-485 until March 29, 2010. After March 29, 2010, USCIS will only accept the Form I-485 dated “12/03/09.”Any previous versions of the the form that are submitted will be rejected. After the transitional period, the Service Centers will return any incorrectly filed Form I-485 with instructions to send the application to the correct location.

At this time, applicants should not concurrently file Form I-485 with an Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Form I-140) at a USCIS Lockbox facility. Refer to the Form I-140 filing Instructions for information on how to file forms concurrently.

On March 1, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services welcomed 50 new citizens at a special citizenship ceremony at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice’s Great Hall. U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez delivered keynote remarks, and USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas will administer the Oath of Allegiance.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants choose to become American citizens by taking the Oath of Allegiance at naturalization ceremonies across the United States and overseas.

Here are the Citizenship Statistics:

The Bureau of Consular Affairs with the Department of State has issued a proposed rule to increase certain immigration fees on Dec. 11, 2009. According to the notice, the fee for processing applications for most non-immigrant visas that do not require petitions and adult Border Crossing Cards will be increasing from $131 to $140. Additionally, some petition-based non-immigrant visas, along with the treaty trader and investor visa, will also see an increase in application fees. The rule will also increase the fee for Mexican citizen minors who apply for entry from Mexico and whose parent or guardian either has a Border Crossing Card or is in the process of applying for a card, from $13 to $14.

These fee increases are being implemented, the Department of State says, in response to results from a recent independent cost of service study that found that the U.S. Government is not fully covering the expenses of processing these visa types with the current level of fees. Written comments regarding this proposed rule may be submitted up to 60 days from the publication of this notice in the Federal Register. We keep you posted on this.

Excellent article from Businessweek, instead of encouraging the first brain drain in U.S. history, the country should create a program to welcome funded startup entrepreneurs.

Vivek Wadhwa argues that

It’s time to bring the immigration question squarely into the debate over jobs. A change to immigration policy could help create jobs and rev up economic growth. It’s a change that wouldn’t be hard to bring about. I’m talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program.

The program would make it easier for those with great ideas and the desire to start a company to live and work in the U.S. The idea is simple, yet powerful. By letting in company founders, the U.S. would bring in risk-takers who want to create jobs and potentially build the next Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), or Microsoft (MSFT). This is an excellent idea, as such founders will create jobs for Americans. Currently, only the E2 non immigrant visa and EB5 Immigrant visa allow self starters to create compnaies by investing funds. While the E2 and EB5 are good options, they are not addressing the need for a specific visa for brainy individuals that have great ideas, but are lacking funds. We still need them to fuel the next big discovery that will lead to that start up creation.

Vice President Joe Biden said that Obama administration’s new surge-and-exit troop strategy in Afghanistan is aimed more at wringing reforms from President Hamid Karzai than mollifying a war-weary American public. Appearing on network news shows a day after President Barack Obama announced his plan to send in 30,000 more U.S. forces, Biden said the principal aim of the new policy is to protect the United States from further terrorist attack while also keeping the Taliban from overrunning the country.

Biden also added when asked about doubts he was said to have had about escalating the war. Biden said “I’ve never publicly said what my position is because I reserve that for the president,” he replied. “But I was skeptical of taking our eye off the ball. The ball is al-Qaida. That’s the reason we’re there. They are in Pakistan, the Taliban leadership is in Pakistan. And I wanted to make sure the focus stayed on those two elements of our concern and didn’t sort of morph into a nation-building exercise that would tie us down for 10 years and in fact not be of any assistance in meeting what is the real threat to the U.S. – that is al-Qaida and the most extreme forces that are in Pakistan and wanting to topple Pakistan.”

Democrats complained about Obama’s escalation of the 8-year-old war, however. And Republicans are unhappy with his promise to withdraw troops in 18 months. But Congress appears nevertheless willing to approve the buildup’s $30 billion price tag. Many Democrats said they weren’t convinced that sending more troops would hasten an end to the war. They also question whether the money used for troop deployments will drain resources from other domestic priorities, like health care and job creation.

We can all laugh to a good joke form time to time, but this story is not funny at all. Target Corp., based in Minneapolis, has apologized for selling a Halloween costume that came under fire for its “illegal alien” theme.The company said it was sorry for selling the $39.99 costume that included an orange jumpsuit emblazoned with the words “illegal alien,” a large imitation green card and a space alien mask.

Read more here…

India has expressed its concern to the Chinese government over Beijing issuing visas on a separate sheet of paper to Indian nationals from Jammu and Kashmir instead of stamping them in their passports. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India strongly believes this, as a well-thought-out strategy to question the status of its state Jammu and Kashmir. It has been issuing visas stapled to passports to people from Arunachal Pradesh who have traveled to China since 2007.

MEA spokesperson Vishnu Prakash says “We have conveyed our concern to the Chinese government in this regard. It is our considered view and position that there should be no discrimination against visa applicants of Indian nationality on grounds of domicile or ethnicity.”

It’s not clear when the Chinese started issuing visas on a separate sheet of paper to Indian travelers of Kashmir. The matter came to light when immigration authorities at New Delhi International Airport, India turned away Kashmiris carrying the standalone visas, assuming they were fakes. The Chinese embassy however issued letters confirming that it had issued valid visas. The matter was then brought to MEA’s notice, prompting it to take up the issue with Beijing. Immigration authorities have been directed to treat the standalone visas as invalid.

Wilmer Rivera Melendez, 61, pretended to be a lawyer and offered to help more than a dozen undocumented Guyanese immigrants in Brooklyn to get green cards, has been indicted in an immigration fraud scheme in which he is accused of offering to marry two illegal Guyanese immigrants in Brooklyn to help them gain legal status. Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, also added that this man was earlier convicted of bigamy in Georgia six years ago.

Mr. Morgenthau claimed himself having 20 year of experience as a lawyer, filed documents with immigration authorities for “withholding of removal” that would have allowed immigrants to remain in the country and obtain green cards, which is actually does not allow one to obtain a green card. Instead, Mr. Melendez’s actions led federal immigration officials to begin deportation proceedings against the 14 Guyanese immigrants. The law provides for illegal immigrants who are victims of violent crime to receive temporary visas, but not victims of fraud.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that on September 15, 2009, the worst recession since the 1930s is probably over, although he cautioned that pain – especially for the nearly 15 million unemployed Americans – will persist. Bernanke said the economy likely is growing now, but he warned that won’t be sufficient to prevent the unemployment rate, now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, from rising. The recession, which started in December 2007, has claimed a net total of 6.9 million jobs.

With expectations for a lethargic recovery, the Fed predicts that unemployment will top 10 percent this year. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982. Some economists say it will take at least four years for the jobless rate to drop down to a more normal range of 5 percent.

Analysts predict the U.S. economy is growing in the current quarter, which ends Sept. 30, at an annual rate of 3 to 4 percent. It shrank at a 1 percent pace in the second quarter, much slower than in previous quarters. While many on Wall Street have been encouraged by early signs of stabilization in U.S. home prices and hope the housing market may have hit bottom, others aren’t so sure.