According to the sample image above from the USCIS, you will get a green card that is valid for one day if you were born in 1920 and looked like the picture above when you applied. That would easily be 50+ years. But you may draw your own conclusions, after all the recipient is from Utopia 
Here is the original post on the thread deleted by IV: (they didn’t actually delete it, they just made it so that only I can see it – an ingeneous way to make sure that I don’t know that it is deleted). Here is a link to the thread -
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26320
1. S 1085 – Reuniting Families Act (4 sponsors)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Vote this Up on Ideascale – Obamas official idea submission site
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – Visa Recapture, Increase country quota to 10%
2. H.R. 2709 – Reuniting Families Act (58 Sponsors)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – Visa Recapture, Increase country quota to 10%
3. H.R. 264 – Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2009 (1 sponsor)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – - GC for long term residents of US (5+ years and are not even subject to quota – the wording is unclear to me but it might just be that if you are in the country illegally for 5+ years, you are now legal), Aged out Children, Widow Penalty
4. H.R. 182 – Parents of Citizen Children (21 sponsors)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – Will allow immigration judges to determine if alien parent of citizen child will be allowed to stay in US
5. H.R. 1791 – Staple Act (1 sponsor)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – GC for folks with PhDs
6. H.R.1868 – Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 (74 sponsors)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration – no citizenship for us born children of non-GC holders
7. S.887 – H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009 (2 sponsors)
GovTrack Link
OpenCongress Link
Relevant to Employment Based Immigration -
Bad: More stringent requirements for H1 employers – online ad for 30 days, negative impact on H1B/L1 contractors, stricter application review by DOL (marginally), new requirements for hiring at new company locations or at startups
Good: Fairer pay requirements, Employer punishment for abuse of H1B/L1 workers
Some notes about the above bills
1. and 2. were also introduced in the 110th session. 1. had only one sponsor and 2. had only 4 sponsors. This time they have 4, 58 sponsors respectively so the idea that something needs to be done is spreading.
The above thread was hidden because of the following posts:
So tell us exactly what the money is for. Be transparent. Give us quarterly or monthly reports on how the money is spent, how much is collected.
Something simple like:
1Q 2009
Carryover from before: ##,###
Total Collected: ##,###
Spent on Lobbyist for XYZ: #,###
Spent on Organizing XYZ: #,###
Spent on travel to meet REPs XYZ, ABC, QWE: #,###
Spent on the Website: ###
Total Remaining: ##,###Then you can say.
Please donate. We need ##,### more for ABC, XYZ, ASD etc.I can tell you this. I don’t trust anybody. So unless there is some transparency, there is no trust.
and
Originally Posted by gc_on_demand
If you need inforamtion regading account .. you can find online. If you need link to that site PM me . I think IV had concern that anti immigrants will see our financial strength and also none of non profit org out there puts there financial information online. ( I have none seen so far ).http://indiapartners.org/about/financial.php
http://www.redcross.org/pubs/ – See 2008 – there is a financial report and tax returns
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/fin…nfo/index.html
http://www.africare.org/aboutus/financial/index.php
http://www.scouting.org/About/Annual…tatements.aspx
http://www.voa.org/NewsPublications/…2/Default.aspx
http://www.good-sam.com/finances/information.asp
http://www.aclu.com/about/financiala…rts/index.html
http://www.numbersusa.org/forms/irs_form_990.pdf (even numbersusa publishes their numbers)
Actually there is not a single non-profit that does not post its financial info. Nobody would give them any money if they hid their financials. Every month I contibute part of my paycheck to Indiapartners. The University offers us a complete list of Charities that we can automatically contribute to and they not only have financial information they also need to show how much actually goes in charity work compared to overhead e.g. for Indiapartners you can see that 93% of their money goes toward actual charitable purposes.
If they did not do this, how would you know that they are not stealing your money?
For a non-profit Immigration Voice is highly secretive. They keep on deleting posts related to transparency and posting their tax returns online.
IV has been a great resource for me throughout my immigration process but lately there have been more and more pushes for donations. But when asked about financials or transparency, they just delete those posts. So I dug up their tax returns for the last couple of years and here they are
They also delete/hide all threads that ask for transparency or financials. They even delete threads that discuss relevant topis if someone asks for transparency in the thread. See my other post about this.
Also there are some dicrepancies between what they claim and what’s on the tax returns. For example they claim that they have hired Patton Boggs as a lobbyist but the tax returns show that payments were made to Quinn Gillespie. Also some of their budget items sound pretty suspicious like a 39,000 travel budget and a 27,000 advertising budget.
If I were contributing money to them, I’d seriously like to know whether the organization members are taking vacations with the travel budget or are they really doing something.
I worked for a research center at the Unviersity of Virginia, which sponsored my original Green Card in a category called EB2 – for positions that require an advanced degree. However thanks to this ridiculously idiotic concept called retrogression, I could not file for the last stage of the process (I-485). At one point my entire team formed a startup and moved our research there. But I didn’t move because
So I switced to a different department at the University only to find that Green Card sponsorship is for that exact same position. So my new department started a new GC process for me (this one is a lot slower called EB3 because the posted position did not require an advanced degree).
Since my original position moved to the startup, at my request they continued my original Green Card process and filed new documentation showing that my position moved from the university to the startup and they would like to Substitute Employers (a process USCIS makes available in Successor in Interest cases) and at one point I could also file my I-485 along with a new second stage (I-140).
However USCIS rejected my I-140 because according to them this is not a successor in interest case and the position at the startup is not the exact same as the one at the Unviersity. At this point including filing fees, lawyer fees etc., I’m out more than $6000. My lawyer, Helen Konrad at McCandlish Holton has now given up telling me that pursuing this further is a waste of money.
Also my third stage is in limbo. I have requested that it be attached to my other green card application but nobody knows if USCIS does that or not. There is no form for that, nor is there any proper procedure. One can only hope they do it in time. People can only switch jobs safely once the third stage is pending for more than six months. They can travel outside the country and do other work without being bothered about getting visas stamped**
Now I call this retrogression idiotic because, were I from some country other than India (where I’m from) or China, like for example Iraq or Afghanistan, I would already have had my green card, never would have had to deal with employer substitution or been unable to file my I-485 and deal with the nightmare that is American Immigration laws.
Luckily for me I have my other application which will take another 5 years, maybe? Maybe more considering that dates (the date by which you have to have filed your application to have it processed) have not moved forward much in the last three years:
Oct 06 EB3 dates – 22APR01
Oct 07 EB3 dates – 22APR01
Oct 08 EB3 dates – 01OCT01
Current EB3 dates – Unavailble until Oct 09, possibly still somewhere in 01
Last Known EB3 dates – 01NOV01 in Apri 09
My filing date Nov05. Now if you do the math, the situation is so bad that it is ridiculous. Inspite of the sorry situation for people who are in this country legally, Immigration reform always puts Illegals before legals.
**Without Visas is not as simple as it sounds. You need to pay USCIS $325 to provide you with a travel document that is only valid for one year. So Parchayi and me paid then $650 just so we can travel to India. To work you need to apply for an EAD (I forget how much that costs), which used to be for a year. But these days they are valid for two years.
How simple is the solution to this problem? It is really really simple. All that needs to happen is people need to be able to file their third stage even if there is retrogression. They can process the third stage after retrogression is over or whever they want. But just the ability to apply is good enough to solve this problem completely. I’m in no hurry to get my green card as long as I know I’ll get one and I can still do whatever I want instead of being tied to one employer only, not being able to start my own business or do some freelancing without getting into sticky visa situations.
So all in all, US Immigration is messed up. With the upcoming CIR it is very well possible that you will be better off coming to US illegally and the smugller who gets you across will charge you a lot less than USCIS and immigration lawyers and it will be a one time fee intead of the constant money-grubbing that USCIS will do with you.
How much do you think it costs to replace a lost document with USCIS? The answer is $340.
If you had to travel out of the country in an emergency, how long would you have to wait to get back to the US? The answer is 3 months? maybe?
If you want to read about even worse horror stories – Widow Penalty, Aged out kids, Illegal Citizens? – there are plenty most of which are caused by inefficiencies in the process and ridiculous laws that are never changed or have unintended effects.
We were in DC last weekend for our skin test (got an RFE from USCIS for that – even though we had submitted negative xrays last time and we are known positives for the skin test) and ate at Wah Taj, which is the complex neigboring the one with Minerva and Curry N Kabob.
The Indian Chinese at Wah Taj was fantastic – the Chili Paneer was exellent and reminded me of Bombay and the rest of the chinese food was really good to. We also got takeout Indian from there and that was also good but not really spectacular.
The next day we ate at Hot Breads in NoVA, which was a disappointment after the excellent experience with Hot Breads in Richmond the previous weekend. The NoVA one didn’t have much of a menu, no dosas, no Indian Pizzas, just a few sandwiches and Pav Bhaji. The Pav Bhaji was just ok, the sandwiches were also just ok. The Richmond Hot Breads dosas were good and Pizza was also nice.
An update on Curry N Kabob, our old favorite in Herndon from a friend who lives close by – he stopped going there because he once found a cockroach in his food. Yikes! It still tastes as good though but eat at your own risk.
On Sunday as a change from spicy Indian food we went to a brunch place called “Waffle King’s Virginia Kitchen” and I have to say I have never eaten such bad waffles. My waffle was chewy and leathery – I would rather eat a Frozen toaster waffle than this again. I though it might just be mine but everyone elses waffles were the same. The only good thing here was the fresh sqeezed orange juice.
A few weeks back I blogged about Bill H.R. 5921. This is a part of three bills introduced by Rep. Lofgren. The other two are H.R. 5882 and H.R. 6039
On Jun 12 there was a Hearing on the Need for Green Cards for Highly Skilled Workers and industry groups came out in support of all three bills. Out of five panelists, only one was in opposition to the bills with some bogus arguments based on the assumption that Employment Based immigration is supposed to be for geniuses and most people who do that are not geniuses. However the purpose of E.B. immigration is to reduce a shortage of skilled workers and make America more competitive. The current immigration process is known to be broken and any one of the above bills will make things better for legal immigrants who have been waiting for upto a decade to get green cards.
Most of the problems arise because of inefficiencies in processing applications. Even processes designed to speed up parts of the process such as the the new PERM labor are now completely broken.
Bill 5882 will reduce the problem of Retrogression and 6039 would completely elimiate retrogression and as such some of these could indirectly stimulate the economy. There are many immigrants who will not rick buying houses until they have a green card, cannot start their own business, some even don't get raises and promotions! There are people who complain that companies like foreign workers because they are cheap. What people don't realize is that the cause of this is a broken immigration policy.
Visit Immigration Voice for more information and discussions about these bills
For a change, a new bill with a great idea has been introduced by Congresswoman Lofgren and Congressman Goodlatte that will eliminate per country limits in Employment Based Immigration. More details here
The per country limits in immigration are understandable for promoting diversity but are totally brain dead when applied to employment based immigration. Not only is that bad for American business, it discriminates against employees from countries like India and China because there are several years (from 1 – 5 depending on how lucky you are) for which they cannot switch jobs or move as a result of backlogs in immigration, some caused by incompetance and most caused by the per country limit. Also being laid off etc. often requires restarting the entire process again at the new employer.
Also, the problems of legal immigrants don’t get as much press time as those of illegal immigrants. In fact many proposed bills for illegal immigrants make it more worthwhile to be an illegal immigrant than a legal one, especially for people who have teenage children and are stuck in the immigration queue for years on end.
Thanks to protests in flowers, tens of thousands of emails sent to senators and congressfolk (atleast one of whom grilled Chertoff), a rally in San Jose and the threat of lawsuits, the USCIS finally retracted its amendment to the July Visa bulletin and is accepting applications from everyone who was current in the July Visa bulletin until Aug 17. The fees still go up on Jul 31, however.
For the complete story, visit BusinessWeek’s Coverage
Update: The fees only go up if you do not qualify to apply in the July Bulletin.
This morning USCIS announced that retrogression is back and all Employment Based (EB) numbers are Unavailable until they announce new dates in October 2007.
In the middle of Jun USCIS announced that all EB categories will be current in July effectively making it possible for everyone to at least file their I-485 (Adjustment of Status) applications. However, this it turns out was just a cruel joke. Today, on the first business day of July they come up with a revised bulletin.
Effective Monday July 2, 2007 there will be no further authorizations in response to requests for Employment-based preference cases. All numbers available to these categories under the FY-2007 annual numerical limitation have been made available.
Most people were of the view that all applications filed in July will just be sent back potentially wasting thousands of dollars for applicants in legal and medical examination fees! However it is impossible to say from the bulletin itself whether this is the case. So just to clear everyone else’s doubts, they issued this press release, which states that –
As a result, beginning today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is rejecting applications to adjust status (Form I-485) filed by aliens whose priority dates are not current under the revised July Visa Bulletin.
which means basically that all employment based applications will be rejected. Best of luck to everyone in this boat!
IMHO, US needs to do something to help legal immigrants before they attempt to help the illegals. Also by not allowing people to file their I-485s, USCIS prevents wives and children of legal immigrants from working legally in the country, essentially paving the way for more illegal workers. I for one do not understand the whole concept of not filing I-485s. They can retrogress all they want but why not let people file I-485s whenever so they can get promoted, switch jobs if their employer goes bust, allow spouses to work legally etc. instead of this obviously broken system as it stands.
Visit Immigration Portal and Immigration Voice to keep abreast with updates.