Endless Wait

ere’s wishing all Endless Waiters a wonderful new year!!

Whether 2010 sees a CIR bill passed or remains in CID (comprehensive immigration delay) mode and whether you get your green card or another RFE ;), we all need hope and some celebration for new year’s eve.

So here, you go - two $25 gift certificates to a US-based restaurant to anybody that responds to this post with a comment or even better, writes about it on their blog. You could write about:

What’s the most interesting immigration related story that you or your family/close friends have experienced?” . You could write about a friend (a real one, not an imaginary dude) that got deported, a friend that got stuck in Mexico, that weirdo at the Airport customs that asked you about your bindi, USCIS losing your application in the mail, your first day in the US, changing 8 jobs on AC21, participating in H1B fraud (ok, that was not funny - do not post any illegal stuff - we hate them as much as you do) or just ANYTHING about your immigration experience that you’d like to share with us.

OR

What would you do if you had a green card today?

OR

What are your your thoughts on improving endlesswait.com. Write about it on your blog or website and post a link to it in the comment or just write a comment directly. Don’t forget to mention how wonderful Endlesswait.com is - just kidding.

The winners will be chosen on January 31st based on a random draw from the comments. The best comment will be posted as a separate blog post as well. The winner will be notified via email that is used when the comment is posted. Note that any comments that appear irrelevant to this post will not be considered.

******** UPDATE: FIRST CERTIFICATE WON BY CORINA!! Congratulations Corina and thank you so much for being a part of Endlesswait.com. The second certificate is still up for the taking - deadline is January 30th.

Why are we doing this? To get the word out and for more people to join in as authors and write at endlesswait.com. Last year, over 200 people joined as authors for Endlesswait.com. But not many actually wrote a post. Feel free to post this contest anywhere you please…your facebook, twitter, digg, myspace, Etc. You’d be helping us get the word out and helping someone win a $25 gift certificate.

Regarding the gift certificates, note that they are for select restaurants in all major cities/towns in the US only. Also note that most of them come with some terms and conditions - usually a $35 minimum order and 18% gratuity on total order before the $25 off.

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog and wish for your wait to end in 2010!

Immigrant’s List Reported today -

In addition to debates on health care, energy, and spending, on Dec. 15, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) officially added immigration reform to the list of issues Congress will confront next year by introducing the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009.

More hope for 2010..

I had a small, Twitter-hosted dustup recently with Trevor Loy, a pleasant fellow who, when he is not Twittering, brings truth and justice to the world via the agency of venture capital. Loy was hot and bothered over some turn of events in Congress having to do with immigration policy. Many entrepreneurs are immigrants, you see. And because venture capital equals entrepreneurialism, the proposed congressional action might harm VCs, which, in turn, would grievously harm the U.S. economy. This, Loy, explained, is because fully 21% of the U.S. economy is attributed to revenue earned by “venture-backed” companies.

Let us praise the venture capitalists - Fortune Brainstorm Tech.

How many times have we heard a similar argument. TWENTY ONE PERCENT!!! If immigrants are not given their fair share of opportunity to do what they want to do and what the country will clearly benefit from, the country is bound to suffer. Washington, and DOL in specific, with their old archaic 18th century-ish ideologies on immigration/ Diversity based immigration instead of NEED or merit based immigration in the world’s largest economy is a JOKE that not only affects America but the rate of the progress the world and civilization as a whole is making. America might be a capitalistic economy but our immigration policies would better be classified as…..MYOPIC….

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/14/immigration-bill-promoted-for-2010/

Widely believed as one of our last hopes for a reduction in the often decade long wait for permanent residency, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill might come back into life early in 2010.

#3 on Obama’s Presidential campaign promises for top goals for his presidency, the CIR had taken a back seat under the weight of the health care reform bill which too much greater priority and the recession, which many believe, makes this a bad time to discuss legal immigration issues. Even if the CIR does pass next year, many now believe that it might get changed to focusing only on illegal immigration and not on the plight of legal immigrant candidates.

All that’s speculation though.

Washington Times reported today:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the federal government has done its work and now it’s time for Congress to pass a broad bill to legalize illegal immigrants. Her speech signals President Obama will make good on his promise to push Congress to pass an immigration bill next year.

Is it too optimistic to even think that CIR has a chance to get legal immigration policy to make more sense or is this remark truly the turn of events? We’ll find out..

***** THIS POST WAS CONTRIBUTED BY CAMERUNRO   ***

Today, 10/13/2009, in Washington, Congressman Luis Gutierrez will introduce the principles behind his plan for comprehensive immigration reform. This is the kickstart that Congress needs to begin working on immigration reform. But unless they hear from you and your family and your friends, they won’t know how powerful our movement is and how much we’re supporting real change from the failed policies of the past.

Go to http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?key=328170518&url_num=4&url=http://actions.reformimmigrationforamerica.org/t/5174/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY%3D3009 or click on the “Write to Congress” banner of the right side of this page in order to send your message to Congress. You can personalize the message to include the legal immigrant’s issues, as Reform Immigration for America is an organization that focuses mainly on the illegal immigrants.

Most people that I have talked to about their new website and the new initiatives to re-design the technology behind the immigration system over the next 4 years, seem positive on it. However, when I bring up the fact that such overhaul costs millions of dollars and USCIS runs on application fees from immigrant petitions, which means we will are likely to bear that cost, the discussion takes a different turn.

A H1-B petition costs about $3000. A transfer costs $1000 or so. Recently, due to layoffs, several immigrants have had to go from H1 to H4 and back to H1. Several others have had to transfer their H1’s to a new employer (if they were fortunate). Between all the stresses of joblessness, uncertainty of their future, unclear laws that don’t clearly specify what your status is the day you are are laid off, Etc., you are also expected to shell out thousands which might be possibly going down the drain! Talk about compassion from the USCIS. The govt. uses our money to bail out banks that were irresponsible but never cuts us any slack when it comes to application fees.

When that’s brought up, people start debating how useful the glamourous typo-ridden changes on the USCIS website really is. Personally, I do feel it’s a move in the right direction, overall, though there is a lot more information that the USCIS could potentially present that would make such a move worthwhile. A quick look at Trackitt will provide a good example.

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I reported about the new USCIS website launched September 22 yesterday. Looks like that wasn’t all.

A friend and fellow endlesswaiter forwarded me this piece that you’ve got to read -Q&A on pending I-485 applications. The report at the bottom of this page shows the exact number of EB3 immigrant applicants from India that are waiting in line. Within minutes, I could calculate, based on the fact that my priority date is on April 2007, that there are 59,404 waiting in line ahead of me. That’s a LOT of people, from just one country! These reports reveal a lot of numbers. The statistics are painful, to say the least, but at least make these details transparent. USCIS must be commended for taking the initiative to come out in the open about such details.

At one point in the page, they say

“See the “Pending Employment-Based Form I-485 Report” link to the right.”

But no link

This guy, founder of Euro Pacific Capital, speaks with TheStreet.com’s Gregg Greenberg about the dollar, US economy and outsourcing. This guy’s views make sense to me.

Regarding outsourcing, one of the key things he points out is around 3-4 minutes into the video. He says “Outsourcing is not about low cost labor alone. Germany has higher wages than the US but still has a trade surplus with China”. Interesting viewpoint…I wonder if he is just saying that or actually has numbers to back that claim…If that is indeed true, then I do think this is a super important thing that the Obama administration should take a serious look at.

The new USCIS Directory, , announced the launch of the new http://www.uscis.gov website today.

Today our agency took a major step forward to put these ideas into action. After much hard work, including substantial feedback from the public, we launched a new and vastly improved USCIS.gov website. This new one-stop-shop will provide a range of tools and features for those looking for information, including case status updates. For example:

* The site features a My Case Status tool that allows users to type in a receipt number and find out what processing step their case is in, how that fits into the overall process, and what the local case processing times are.

* A National Dashboard that allows the public to compare national processing volumes and trends and download raw data.

* A better search engine so it is easier to find what a user is looking for.

* New options to receive status updates via email or text alerts

Leadership Journal: Exciting Changes at USCIS.

This website is considered by many, based on USCIS announcements earlier this year about technological improvements to its systems via their partnership with IBM, as a precursor to more detailed changes that will help USCIS achieve its 4 month processing goal.

The point about a national dashboard that allows public to copmare national processing volumes piqued my interest the most. So are they planning to offer something like Trackitt? I set out to their website to find out.

Right off the bat, I noticed the cleaner, nicer-looking home page that finally reflects some class for a website that must have a whole team updating/maintaining it. The improved search functionality does work, unlike in the past, where I constantly had to save bookmarks or spend a while trying to find things on their website. A search for “case status online” results in dozens of results, and the top result is not the actual case status tool but some press release that the USCIS released about the case status tool. I wish the search returned fewer results with higher relevance. Not an easy task, but hey, we pay TOP dollar on our application fees, annual renewal of Advance parole and EAD, fees with every H1 transfer, H1-stamping, H1-to-H4 transfer…and the list goes on. Anyway, at least it works.

Since they talked about imoroved case status, I thought that the improvements would be in features available after logging in to my account. But I was wrong, no changes there. The changes are on the public features.For instance, you are able to look at the average processing time for your petition at your service center without having to read the NSC, TSC, etc. processing times page. OK, helpful, but for someone like me, this is just a presentation level improvement. No new data surfaced to me yet.

USCIS Processing Times New Display

The other feature is to visually view the status of your petition by entering your Receipt number on the screen -

USCIS Petition Status Graphical Display

Alright, that’s good, but again, just aesthetic in my opinion, more than anything else. But now comes the really useful stuff. They have trending and volume charts for most petitions - by service center. See a report below that I ran for I-485 petitions at the Nebraska Service Center. This is great stuff. More accurate than what TrackItt offers without having to dig into USCIS and DOL document releases in their archives. Finally, one thing useful out of my tax money!

I haven’t really had a chance to play with this too much but overall, I’d say - good start! This provides a ray of hope that other processes in USCIS will also start to improve. And while we are on that optimistic note, may be, just may be…that decade long wait for a green card might ease up on us a little bit? I know, who am I kidding?

********* THIS POST WAS WRITTEN AND CONTRIBUTED BY LISAKI ***********

I’m about to apply for H1B extension, as I’m in the EB3, “endlesswait” category, and my 6 year H1B is going to expire next year.  I’d like to know how this new H1B extension is different from my previous H1B.  For instance, am I able to change the job with the H1B?