Monday, July 4, 2011

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  • gondalguru
    07-11 02:03 PM
    I think all the unused EB1 and EB2-ROW visa number trickles down to EB2 - India/China and thats the main reason for a big jump in EB2-India cut off dates.





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  • singhsa3
    03-10 03:14 PM
    Folks,
    I am trying to set up an interview with Mercury News , San Jose, CA. I think , he will be mainly focussing on the reason why we are not planning to buy house. One reason of course is market condition but the primary reason is the uncetainity of the green card process. Personally, I avoid making any big investments, including new car, vacations etc because of my uncertain future here in the USA.
    Those who want to be part of the interview, please let me know. We can talk before the interview as to the points we can make.





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  • titu1972
    07-03 03:58 PM
    Please contribute...





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  • eager_immi
    01-25 12:10 PM
    please add sulekha.com


    www.rediff.com
    www.greatandhra.com
    www.idlebrain.com
    www.andhravilas.com
    www.sifynews.com
    www.samachar.com



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  • Legal
    07-04 07:58 PM
    EXCELLENT ANALYSIS. STILL THERE ARE PROBLEMS.

    The rough estimation is about 500K to 700K new 485s and same amount of EAD and AP applications will be filed in July.

    1. ARE YOU SURE THIS NUMBER IS ACCURATE? 700K? SEEMS TO BE EXAGGERATED.


    When they took inventory in May, there are about 40,000 documentarily qualified 485 applications were pending due to non-availability of visa numbers. The �documentarily qualified 485 applications� mean the application filed long time back and processed by USCIS and cleared the FBI name and criminal check, and found eligible for green card.

    2.IF THESE 40K WERE OTHERWISE QULAIFIED WHY WERE THEY SITTING ON THEM UNTIL MID-JUNE ....TO START WITH? IF THEY WERE SO EAGER TO FOLLOW THE OMBUDSMAN'S GUIDELINES WHY WERE THEY SO SLOW IN USING UP THE VISA NUMBERS UNTIL MID JUNE?

    However, the available visas are more than 40,000 (60to 70K). Then they made with out consulting properly with USCIS they made �current� for all EB categories. This is how they determine �current� or �over-subscribed� and how they establish cutoff dates.

    3.MORE PRECISE DESCRIPTION WOULD BE THEY WERE COMPLETELY RECKLESS..GIVE A S+I& ABOUT HOW MUCH THEIR ACTIONS AFFECT THE CUSTOMERS.


    For example, an EB3-Indian whose LC approved through fast PERM on July 30th 2007, can apply 140 and 485 on July 31st 2007 as per July visa bullet. For his PD, it will take another 10 years for the approval of 485. During this 10 year period, he/she has to live in EAD and AP and need to go for finger print every 15 month.

    4.OK..... WHICH PART OF THIS AFFECTED THE STAFF AT USCIS... THE FACT THAT MANY OF US WILL ONLY HAVE EAD FOR 10 YRS OR THE FACT THAT MORE EAD RENEWALS MEANS MORE CUMBERSOME WORK FOR THEM? I'M AFRAID IT IS THE LATER.

    Now, they used all 140K visas this year.

    5.AREN'T THEY REQUIRED BY LAW TO SPREAD THE NUMBERS FOR EACH QUARTER? DON'T THEY HAVE LIMITATIONS ON HOW MUCH THEY CAN USE FOR EACH MONTH ETC?

    The constructive approach is getting an immediate interim relief by legislation to recapture unused visas in previous years to balance the supply vs demand difference.

    6.I AGREE. THIS COULD BE THE ONLY >POTENTIAL <SILVER LINING. HOWEVER, OPPONENTS WHO FOUGHT THE PREVIOUS LEGISLATIONS IN FAVOR OF US WON'T LET IT HAPPEN THAT EASILY.

    THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE OTHER THAN TRYING..





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  • waitnwatch
    07-28 01:01 PM
    I did shake hands with Donald Duck, so did my 4-yr old daughter (in Disney Land), in hindsight I should have washed my hands well after that :(

    :)....See we could start a new thread discussing the repurcussions of shaking hands with Donald Duck.


    PLEASE EVERYONE: THE PERSON WHO STARTED THIS THREAD IS A FAKE. GO SEE THE PUBLIC PROFILE OF THIS PERSON.

    Sorry for the caps.....admins please close this useless thread.



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  • chanduv23
    03-09 12:31 PM
    VDLRao is ONLY a stress reliever - not to be taken seriously.
    I am surprised that the community still does not realize the gravity of the situation and still thinks and plays the "positive attitude" game on their own lives.

    Hello - economy is tanking and right now, we cannot see any positive movement in near future.

    Please be prepared to protect yourself from job layoffs and immigration challenges rather than sitting and playing the predictions game





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  • arsh007
    02-01 11:38 AM
    Looks like there is now an increasing awareness of how Desi Consulting companies are bringing in a bad name to the entire desi population in this country.

    Found this email from Google H-1B Group: from
    infoprovider_ 2 at yahoo dot com.

    Hi,
    I would like to inform you about the large scale fraud going in the
    technology world today in USA. I know of many small-mid sized IT
    consultancies in US, which are founded by Indians. They recruit people
    (1) with degrees from various fields, most of the candidates recruited
    don't ever have any experience in computers. They train them in some
    tools (2) and change the resume totally (3), someone who has knowledge
    relevant to the job takes the interview instead of the actual candidate
    and they get placed. Ironically, even though these jobs advertisements
    say that around 5 years of experience is required, usually someone with
    not so high aptitude and limited trainig in that parituclar tool (2)
    can manage to sustain in that position, this is very real, these jobs
    can be done that way. They manage to get jobs in the biggest of US
    companies (4).


    This consultancy fraud is know to almost every Indian working in the
    technology sector. The consultancies almost don't take any one other
    than from India and surronding countires like Bangladesh, Srilanka. 99%
    of those i have seen are from India and the remaining 1% from
    Bangladesh, Srilanka etc.

    How many are doing this?
    I believe there would be atleast a few thousands of consultancies.
    Wanna find them? SOme of them advertise in Indian content sites such as
    sulekha.com. Look at the right hand side of the page
    classifieds. sulekha.com

    Who is loosing due to this.
    If this jobs can be done by someone with no experience in that
    technology, can't these be done by those americans who have a better
    experience (say 2 years or even 1 year), these folks work sincerely and
    go with correct resumes get X dollars where as the fraudsters get 3X -
    5X dollars.

    I don't say that every one from India are doing this. But a significant
    many are doing this. I know around 30 people working in US in
    technology sector. Over 20 are working this way. I can confidently say
    hundreds of thousands are doing this today and each year at least 50000
    (from student pool, dependents pool, directly coming to the
    consultancies as H1b workers from India) are joining them. Also, I am
    talking about the small to mid sized (1- 1000 people) consultancies not
    the big Indian consultancies such as Infosys and TCS.

    Solution:
    A lot of things can be done. But the simple thing that's easy to
    implement by the americans and thus not impede their productivity by
    spending too much resources in verifying the authenticity is this
    Let the INS provide the details of the H1b holders to the companies
    when asked by the companies only (this is similar to letting others
    e.g., housing provider, know about one's credit history). So, with the
    applicants SSN the companies can see the basic information like when
    the applicant has got his H1b approved and the resume submitted by the
    applicant with his H1b application (usually not many applicants give a
    very wrong resume to the INS while applying for the H1b). This
    eliminates almost all the cases of fraudsters (since they can't come to
    US today, one or two years ago and say that I have been working here
    for 5 years). This is one simple solution, easy to implement.
    There are many othere solutions



    (1) Whom do they usually recruit

    Thousands of students come from India every year to pursue Masters
    degree. They come to pursue Master's in various fields, the fields in
    which they have done their bachelor's back in India. Only about a
    quarter of them manage to get jobs in the fields in which they have
    done their Master's as direct employees of the companies. The remaining
    join these consultancies as they can easily get jobs through the
    consultancies.

    Dependents, mostly those who come as spouses (coming as wives). They
    might have done some bachelors degree or Masters back in India in some
    field. Many of them not in computers. They don't have any experience
    there. They can easily be placed by the consultancies.

    SOme others pay these consultancies for sponsoring H1b visa. Typically
    the consultancies take the fee required for teh application and the
    lawyer fee (usually USD 2500-USD3000) . SOme of these cases are those
    with experience in IT in India. But significant number of the remaining
    are not experienced. Recently I have seen people who have been to other
    countries for their studies like Australia and Europe coming through
    the consultancies this way. Even most of these guys have no experience
    in IT, most experience in no field.



    (2) Which technologies they work in
    I have seen that the technologies they work in are in which the pay
    rates are high (because of lack of skillful people) like SAP,
    DataWarehousing tools. They also work in other fields like Testing etc.
    There are literally hundreds of thousands of jobs in these fields.

    (3) How much is the resume changed
    They change the resume totally. Every resume says the person has worked
    in US for over 4 years, doesn't matter if it is someone who came for
    masters to US an year or two years ago or someone who very recently
    came as a wife to someone.
    All most everyone's resumes have over 5 years experience where as in
    reality almost everyone don't have that much experience. If someone has
    that much experience they wouldn't go through these consultants who
    take a big fraction of the pay they get from the clients.

    Can't it be detected?
    No, in most cases its hard (expensive) for the recruiters (the clients)
    to find the authenticity of the resumes submitted. There is no proof
    that these resumes are authentic. Just in case some references are
    needed the consultancies give a dummy reference, and some phone number
    (they can ask some contacts, their acquiantainces working in some
    companies to take the call,if at all they feel that the client will
    find out from the phone number which company does this phone number
    belongs to, but most of the client companies don't go that far too, so
    a guy's mobile number who is working in the consultancy itself can be
    given as referencees contact number). It is hard to remember the voice
    by the interviewer after a few days of the intrview and usually these
    candidates join at least after a week after taking the interview (even
    if the candidate joins in 3 days, its hard to remember the voice as the
    interviewer usually interacts with many people (particularly they being
    in team lead or managerial positions)



    (4) I personally know people working in Microsoft, IBM, TEK systems,
    Cingular, Amazon, Accenture, Citigroup etc. This says such people are
    working in almost every technology company in USA
    So then, how is an American, like me, who spent tens of thousands of
    dollars to get thru 3 yrs. in a technical school that ended with a
    Bachelor degree in Science with Computer Information Systems, with
    honors, supposed to get a job in the IT community while these
    fraudulent (most likely illegal alien Indians) take the positions away
    from me? I worked my a$$ off studying hard, working hard, worked at
    the school, even took an extra course study in computer hardware
    configurations, and STILL, these IT companies DON'T want to even speak
    to me because they OUTSOURCE from these FRAUDS! How FAIR is
    that???!!!



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  • Openarms
    10-20 11:47 AM
    Well said... no other explaination is needed.

    Do you all ever wonder why 1996 to 2000 was great and the economy never went to quite the 2000 levels? It is because of useless wars and getting the job shipped to other countries. That is the republican agenda. If you think you will have a better chance of green card under Republican rule, you are sadly mistaken. The economy will continue to go down, while there will be another Iran war to turn the attention from problems with economy. We need someone who can think clear and be steady. It doesn't matter if the republicans have pro immigration stance or not. The economy is going to dictate if companies are going to keep us employed here. You need to see the bigger picture.
    Moreover it is during the democratic president that immigration got relaxed. At one point the H1 quota was raised to 200 thousand. It takes 8 or more years to get green card under republican rule. It wasn't the case during clinton years. Before you say that it is the house/senate that decides immigration policies, republican had control from 2000 to 2006. What has been done that has our chances improved?
    If the topic posted is political, then the discussion is bound to get political.





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  • vamsi_poondla
    02-13 11:02 PM
    USCIS did not form any new rule to create divide and rule. If we are divided that is because we are thinking of ourselves as ultimate judges of all events and think that our opinion is right.



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  • samirpatel08
    03-10 01:44 PM
    I agree with 'rexjamla'. My lawyer said same thing. I am working on my EAD, and I have not submit anything to USCIS.

    According to my lawyer, AC 21 is a portability law which allow you to swith a job with same or similar work. Additionally, we need to have a valid job with the same job discription and pay(or higher pay) when our priority date become current.

    In my case, my previous company's lawer is going to take care of my case for the future. If you are changing your lawyer then I think it would be ok to send AC 21 papers to make sure USCIS update lawyer's informtion. The new lawer information would help USCIS to contact your new lawer for the future.

    If you are changing the job and if possible that your previous company's lawer going to work for your case....I think you do not need to worry about anything...At least... I have not filed anything...

    There is no need to let USCIS know about changing job after 180 days of 485 filing. U should have offer / empl letter from the employer when your priority date becomes current.

    Job title can be different but job duties must be similar.

    Salary difference is ok but it should not be less than what is mentioned in labor certification.

    In addition to this couple of my close friends got GC recently and they never notify USCIs about new job(AC 21).

    Cheers!





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  • Aah_GC
    12-12 03:01 PM
    Great point -- never thought of it this way before.

    addsf345, you are attacking people. Grow up and quit doing that. Attack my views if you want to attack. No one has answered my question yet - If we are so "highly skilled", why no one is listening to us in this country. Kavita, I do not know about your field but in my field, IT, I see so many people, wanting to live in this country at any cost. They would work for any salary, they are OK to get relocated 6 times in a year, they would put up with any BS imposed by desi employers, but they would never go back. Now, I do not think they are "required" here. They are fighting to survive here. Again, nothing wrong in fighting to survive but to say that I am "required" here is a bit far from reality. If they (so called required population fighting for green card) leave tomorrow, nothing will change.

    America wants us as a temporary worker, with emphasis on the word temporary. America has no incentive to give us Green Cards. You work for 6 years, pay social security and Medicare and then pack up your bag and go back. Thank you very much, we appreciate your business. Don't you see it written on the wall? Especially those who are in EB3-I category? I can see it!

    Is country quota in EB category justified? Hell No. But you know what - if you remove that then entire EB system would be high jacked by Indians, just like they have high jacked H1-B and L-1 visa category. So much so that IMHO H1-B visa has lost its sole purpose. It was designed to give American companies the ability to hire talented people from other countries. It wasn't designed for Desi employers to hire desi consultants and then make those desi consultants run coast to coast looking for projects. Infosys and Satyam can open up shops on US soil and can call themselves American companies but you and I both know the fact, how American those companies are! So, being in EB3-I category, and after living here for almost 8 years on temporary visa, I can feel the pain, but in some part we are also responsible for this mess.

    Once again, only grown ups are requested to reply. Thank you.



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  • hpandey
    01-18 12:34 PM
    What a stupid law. I have seen my couple of friends in the same situation too near the Canadian border where they were asked for their passports and they did not have them ( of course not !! ) . They were travelling to Vermont and never crossed the border .

    But one thing to think about is that is carrying your passport and your H1 ( or whatever visa you hold ) original documents with you at all times safe. There is a good chance of them getting stolen \lost since obviously you can't carry them in your pocket like your wallet .

    This is totally ridiculous. This is one of those strange laws that appear in news about states having silly laws ...





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  • kumar1
    12-15 11:01 AM
    gcisadawg,
    Very well said. What you said, also gives strength to my point. We are self proclaimed "highly skilled" workers. We shouldn't have been trained, we shouldn't have been air lifted by desi consultants. We shouldn't have been sold for short/long term projects after coming to the US.

    Actually, during 1999-2000 year, when I was about to graduate from IIT, yes, my class mates used to receive calls from Microsoft based in Seattle and Phillips based in Holland. Those companies paid final year graduating students (with good track record), a return trip to Seattle for interview. That was the real demand! And mind you, those students were very talented. They already had secured 100% aid from excellent US universities. So, it was a scenario of good company taking interest in excellent students and then filing for H1-B and subsequently green card. Can you imagine, Microsoft getting a RFE from USCIS to show "ability to pay"! We have so many people yelling on these forums because companies do not have the ability to pay to these "highly skilled workers".

    I can go on and on.....

    I do not agree with anyone who claims that we are really "required" here. We are fighting to survive here and we are fighting to get Green Cards. We have 50 million hate groups in the US that do not like us at all. It is a tough road ahead !





    kumar1,

    I agree to most of the points you wrote. I believe there is one thing that you missed.

    H1B is a dual intent visa that allows a foreigner to work in US and also apply for permanent residency. It was originally intended for American companies to hire people from abroad. But how many American companies hire people directly from abroad? Even if there is some, it would be very very minimal.

    Body shoppers are the one who take on the difficult task of interviewing/recruiting/sponsoring/air-lifting the foreigner to USA in addition to preparing the candidate to withstand the rigors of a visa interview.
    They give initial accommodation (agreed, a 1BR aptmnt cramped with many ppl), pay on bench ( accepted, not all), place the candidate on a project and get the foreigner US work/cultural experience. After they go through the whole nine yards, these American companies jump in and poach these H1Bs.

    Take the body shoppers and glorified body shoppers like TCS, wipro, infy etc out of the equation and you would have sheer wastage of H1B numbers since the American companies will not go abroad to recruit someone who is unfamiliar with US work culture.

    That is why congress came up with 20K quota for master degree holders who can be recruited directly by US corporations. In my opinion, US corporations should not complain at all since they were never interested in upholding the true spirit of H1B by recruiting people from abroad directly.

    -gcisadawg



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  • Jaime
    09-11 05:26 PM
    You've worked hard for what you have! VERY HARD!!!! Remember the grueling exams and study back home to be the best and get to the U.S. Remember your sufferin, hard study and hard work once in the U.S. to be the best and contribute to this country!

    Don't let the Reverse Brain Drain suck you in!!!!





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  • immique
    07-03 01:42 AM
    I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't see how the per country limit is unfair! It was set up so that immigrants from ALL nations would have EQUAL opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. and to prevent any one (or two) countries from monopolizing the visa numbers. Getting rid of the per country limit would most certainly lead to immigration from a limited number of sources (countries) and thus jeopardize the diversity of the immigration process. Getting rid of it would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul because those countries who are severely retrogressed now would only see limited benefits and those who are not all that retrogressed would fall backwards - is that fair!? It seems these forms are dominated by "certain" groups who have their own agenda and don't really care about ROW! It makes me feel uncomfortable being an IV member from ROW!

    how can you argue that quota system in EB categories is fair when there is no quota system in H1 visas? do you really think it is fair that a person from retrogressed country wait for 7-10 years in the same category or even a higher EB category when a similar person in other countries see their application cleared in a few months. just imagine yourself being in the less favorable/retrogressed category. EB system is based on qualifications and not the country of Origin. I don't have any issue regarding diversity. diversity is good but I don't think penalizing qualified individuals from a few countries just based on the country of Origin bodes well for the future of immigration especially when US is trying to attract high skilled immigrants.



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  • pitha
    06-12 02:42 PM
    very well said, some people here say (or is it hope) that getting an amendment introduced and passed is as simple as buying a ticket to a movie. After all the shock treatment given to us by durbin, kyl, kennedy some people just want more shock treatment

    it is very easy to say - support CIR and get our ammendments attached to CIR...we were not even able to put forth our ammdmt on the floor last time around....It is not as easy as 1-2-3 ...
    SUpport BILL - Get Ammdt attached- Live happily ever after....

    NUmber 2 above - Getting Ammddt attached - is next to impossible given the anti immigrant mood already persistant in senators (due to so many provisions for illegals) and also the Anti H1B lobbying thats been going on.
    Remember we are always grouped with H1B folks, when it comes to GC





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  • willigetagc
    07-28 08:22 AM
    Hi all,

    I am not sure whether I should add this over here or not but I could not resist and I don't know any other way.

    I went to a wine shop and was shocked to see cartoon of Ganesha used on the bottle of India Pale Beer. I am not a religious person but this thing made me nervous. Please let me know how this can be protested.

    Thanks

    ah! thats the perfect drink for the occasion when we all get our GC... :)There is no end to the things we could protest about...





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  • sureshj
    06-08 02:18 PM
    To solve the FBI name check problem, the following suggestions should be communicated to lawmaker if possible:

    1. Increase the fundings for FBI name check. The major reason of name check delay is due to lack of resources for manual name check.

    2. Introduce a conditional Green Card. Conditional green card is equivalent to green card, except with condition that it could be taken back IF AND ONLY IF the name check eventually fails to pass. Person with conditional green card enjoy all the benefits with normal green card, including transfering job freely, re-enter US freely, count years to citizenship, etc.

    3. People wants to file 485 can ask FBI do name check before they actaully file 485 with a certain amount of filing fee. So that the delay for FBI name check will not impact 485 processing too much.


    I could'nt agree with gcdreamer more...

    Consider this...
    1. FBI, I believe, has 2 rookie analysts dedicated to processing name checks and I heard USCIS pays $25 per name check.
    2. FBI has distributed databases in NY, CA, FL, etc. that are not networked. So they have to request name checks individually out of these databases.
    3. Name check ranks least in their priority list.
    4. FBI has increased their name check criteria from 2 (First name and Last Name) to, I think it is, 7 or 8 (part of the first name, part of the last name and few other combinations). This increases the chances of your name generating "hits" and falling into this blackhole.
    In addition to the above FBI (which normally receives ~1.5m name check requests per year) received ~6m in 2003. They are still recovering from that deluge. So now you see what's causing the delay.

    For USCIS this works out fine, since they rake in 15% of their annual revenue from EAD/AP renewals. They do not want to mess with this "free money" and reduce the processing time. And to top it all they can transfer the blame on FBI.

    In addition, to secure this "money train" USCIS cleverly issued a public memo earlier this year indicating WOM cases will be fought in court. To most this would have seemed like the end of WOM, but it is not. Applicants have since filed and won these cases. However the memo probably had its' desired effect...to discourage a majority of the applicants from filing WOM.

    I think USCIS has to be made accountable for the money they earn. The $25/name check is just not sufficient. More funding is necessary so that FBI can allocate more analysts to the job and also upgrade their IT infrastructure. Excuses such as "ball is in FBI's court" is just not acceptable. "Conditional Green card" (as suggested by gcdreamer) is excellant idea to alleviate the problems the "name check" victims face over the ~2 to 4 years they spend in this blackhole.

    PS: Just in case you are not aware of Senator Obama's initiative to address this problem here is a link where you can sign-up for whatever it is worth.
    http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?nc082505&1





    bigboy007
    07-18 12:47 PM
    I think all of us cautious at this time is very imp and we keep calling uscis pref next week so that we ensure we have enough backup avail and we have 30 days till.





    ps57002
    09-19 10:01 PM
    I didn't mean it in a "against illegal immgration" way. That's the downside of trying to communicate using words online, you can't tell the what other person is really saying at times. What I want (using other slogans if necessary) is to educate people that there is a difference in immigration. As soon as people hear the word immigration, to them it means "illegal" and there has to be some way (using appropriate slogans) to communicate that....that's all :)



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