visapetition

Hi guys, just letting you know, my parent petitioner became a citizen and I got my interview scheduled for May, therefore I'm no longer a representative beneficiary for the 2nd preference category. My heart, however, is still with all of you in F2A and other familiy categories. Be strong and optimistic and become a citizen as soon as you can. Go February 2010 and beyond for June!

Hi guys, just letting you know, my parent petitioner became a citizen and I got my interview scheduled for May, therefore I'm no longer a representative beneficiary for the 2nd preference category. My heart, however, is still with all of you in F2A and other familiy categories. Be strong and optimistic and become a citizen as soon as you can. Go February 2010 and beyond for June!

Congrats kishorev1 and visabulletin861!

Waiting for the ball to roll to Fall 2009.

Testing table

[table]

[tr]

[th]Name[/th]

[th]Age[/th]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]John[/td]

[td]65[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Gitte[/td]

[td]40[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Sussie[/td]

[td]19[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

The waits for countries that are not oversubscribed now will likely get longer (if it passes the Senate also). The stated implementation period is 3 years.

Hey, was wondering, why are BBCode and HTML entry disabled on the forums?

Wouldn't it be nice to enable either to make maintenance of threads like this http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/335546-f2a-watch-list/ easier (by using a <table> tag)?

I think the conclusions made about the final cutoff date are a bit premature - it's just the 1st day of the month. Just wait and see, move it still may.

Congratulations, marga14, may we all travel in the footsteps of your journey.

According to the "Estimates of the Legal Permanent Resident Population in 2010" report released by DHS recently, in 2010 there were 12.6 million Legal Permanent Residents living in the U.S., out of which 8.1 were eligible for naturalization (and presumably decided not to naturalize).

What possible reasons can people have for not naturalizing when they can? Also, does it affect how fast the things are going for those of us waiting to get a Family-Based Visa and a green card?

Source: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_lpr_pe_2010.pdf

Hope Halloween will bring good news.

And now they've cancelled the cancelation (in Ukraine): http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/115182/ ... Such stalwart permanence in the region these days...

Guys, see this. Oppenheim is going to screw us - Family absed immigration applicants - big time

I don't think that reasonable slow movement to accomodate everyone in the category qualifies as "screwing us big time".

your argument is very very weak....as you are saying that giving IR status to LPR spouses and childeren will increase filing in F1,F2B,F3,f4....its not possibe my friend bcaz spouses and children dont have child more than 21 years old...do you think spouse of f2a can have child more than 21 years????? (only in few cases, where petitioner is on h1b or work visa and got green card then and only then it may possible but in that case spouse is already in usa and children also may be) ...so F1 ,F3 and F2b will not be affected by this at all....and F4 may affect after 5 yrs when spouse become citizen but this petition will not affect F4 in the near future....so currently filed f4 cases also will not be affected by signning this petition.....

so when i told it may benefit other categories too....i mean it may possible that congress may remain 226000 visas intact and other categories may benefit

Actually, you are right. I haven't thought this through as to the F1, F2B, F3 - most likely for the majority of cases these will not be an issue. One possible situation is if the spouse has a child from a prior marriage / relationship, who is left behind because he/she cannot be petitioned for at the same time with the spouse (not a biological child of the petitioner) and who ages out of F2A. This is actually my case (I'm the child, though not aged out yet) and therefore I've made a fallacy of assuming this to be far more common than it probably is.

As to the siblings, based on the statistics I provide in the previous post, we can assume that on average there should be approximately 1.59 per person (as there are on average 2.59 children born to each female in the world and we can assume that the applicant pool sample approximates the world population).

Thus, if each F2A-turned-LPR petitions for his/her sibling, we can expect <number of F2As> x 1.59 new filings in F4, or more than the number of freed visas. But there are other factors - not everyone has a good relationship with their siblings, not all siblings want to emigrate etc.

Having been convinced, I tentatively withdraw my objection - F1, F2B, F3 - please sign the petition, it might help you too. F4 - judge for yourself.

Caution: Long Reply. For the gist of my argument, skip to the conclusion (highlighted in bold).

r u serious??? will it end up in longer waiting time for other categories??? i think u r more than a brilliant personality.......who even dont understand the simple calculations that if f2a will be given IR status,the visas alloted to other categories may increase( no way it will decrease) and can you prove ur argument that it will decrease or adversely affect other categories??? if yes then give us detail ..dont construct castle in air.........and most of the person in this forum are ethical and honest ...we are not here for damaging eachother...this forum is for each others help....so mind ur language....

I apologize for the harsh wording used. Saying that this petition _might_ help other categories is indeed not saying that it _will_, so no outright dishonesty here. Hard day, I'm sincerely sorry.

To reiterate my points as to why it _might not_ help them in somewhat more detail:

Hypothetically speaking, I think that it is _quite a real possibility_ that Congress may decide to simply annul the freed up 88k visa numbers instead of dissipating them to other categories as a part of any reform that involves removing numerical limits for F2As.

The newly admitted LPRs will start petitioning for:

• their Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21+), adding to F2B demand
  after becoming U.S. citizens:
  
• their Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21+), adding to demand in F1
  
• their Married Sons and Daughters (and their families), adding to demand in F3
  
• most importantly, their Siblings, adding to demand in F4
  

The level of demand in these categories is directly correlated with the total number of LPRs. The petition at hand proposes to increase the number of LPRs to unprecedented levels. More LPRs - more new filings of form I-130, more people in the line.

In this case, non-F2A categories are getting the worst deal - no new numbers and a spike in demand. How big a spike?

Even granting your assumption that 88k visa numbers will not be annulled and will indeed be utilized for other categories, here's a map of the World Statistics for Fertility rates (Children per Family): http://www.pregnantpause.org/numbers/fertility.htm

Using Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+fertility+rate), we get a world average of 2.59 children per female. More than that in the developing countries that also happen to be some of the most oversubscribed. That means that an average person will have more siblings than spouses at any given time, or approximately 1.59.

What is the latest waiting list data for F2A - 361,038 people? (http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/WaitingListItem.pdf)

Most of these become LPRs if the White House petition advocated here succeeds.

Let's be pessimistic and (using the above statistics as the basis for our assumption) assume that on average, each of the new arrivals has 0.5 of either siblings, unmarried sons and daughters or married sons and daughters left in their home country or elsewhere in the world that they would like to bring to the U.S..

361,038 x 0.5 = 180,534 of new eligible filings.

That's well above 88,000 additional visa numbers that they may or may not be granted if the numerical limit for F2A is removed. Such an influx has a real potential to clog non-F2A categories and as a consequence, have cut-off dates for these categories moving even slower (slow as they are already).

The conclusion holds even if we downgrade the assumption to 0.3 and it holds to as low as 0.24, or in other terms, if, roughly, 1 in 4 of the F2As has at least one brother, sister, son or daughter - a reasonable assumption, in my book.

Therefore, to summarize, the removal of numerical limits for F2As _might_ benefit other categories to a higher or lesser extent only if we assume that: a) 88k of freed visa numbers will not be simply annulled; b) the number of people in other categories in whose name people currently in the F2A waiting list will be able to petition is on average less than 0.24 per person.

How much credence one would give to the idea of removing F2A numerical limits benefiting everyone else would depend on how they view the likelihood of the two factors above being true at the same time.

To be clear, I do not deny that the petition is very good for F2As, I'm just trying to say that it is not patently beneficial for people in other categories.

come on friends.....just sign the petition for us....it might benefit other categories too...bcaz if relative of permanent resident will be given status of immidiate relatives ,f2a is out of visa categories in 226000 visas ....and 88000 of f2a visas will be awarded to other categories....so all other categories may benefit from this ......

I think it is not immediately clear that removing the numerical limit for F2A will benefit other categories as well (1st, F2B, 3rd, 4th). If anything, it can create increased demand and a political backlash that would lead to even longer waits in those categories. Who says that those 88k visas will necessarily "spill over" and not be eliminated altogether?

What the petition is essentially asking in its present form is to give preferential treatment to F2A, how it will impact other categories is not provisioned for and remains to be seen.

I think it is, therefore, unethical and dishonest to lure people into signing something that can harm them.

I'd also sign a petition that would ask Congress to create a special visitor's visa for beneficiary's of a family preference visa petition that would allow them to stay in the US as a GUEST until their priority dates were current. The visa should prohibit adjustment of status (they have to return to their home country to interview for the immigrant visa), employment, and use of any taxpayer funded service (including public schools) unless the petitioner/sponsor paid the full costs of the service. Aside from occupying space, someone in the US with one of these visas would have zero impact on anyone else in the US, including the job market or the taxpayers. That would satisfy the intended reasons for having numerical limits.

I think reinstating the nonimmigrant V visa in one form or another (e.g. for petitions filed before January 1st, 2011) might be an interesting temporary measure to alleviate the pains of those affected by the prior retrogression. Psychologically, the bulletin jumps were the case of too much carrot, then too much stick.

I have no argument against allowing spouses and minor children of permanent residents to be united more quickly, but I'm firmly opposed to any effort to eliminate the numerical limits. I'd be much more amenable to a special visa class for family preference immigrants waiting for their priority dates to become current, as long as it didn't allow for a work permit, and that any tax supported benefits they receive be paid in full by the sponsor. In other words, they would be treated like visitors until the United States is ready to assimilate them.

JimVaPhuong, thank you for remedying the ignorance as to the Social Security system and providing a more politically sound solution. A temporary visa would indeed accomplish the desired effect (bringing families together) and barring the beneficiaries from riding the system for free would also prevent a possible economic downfall. If there was a cause to bring this about, I would rally behind it enthusiastically.

There are ways that Congress could have accommodated this, but they didn't. For example, a temporary visa for intending immigrants that allows them to remain in the US with their sponsoring family member until their priority dates become current. The caveat would have to be that they can't get a work permit or green card until their priority dates are current, and they'd have to pay for any tax supported services they use, including public schools.

Is there any pending legislation that proposes something like this?

Remember that one of the intentions of numerical limits is to manage the impact that immigrants have on the people who are already here. If I was writing the legislation for this visa then I'd also require the sponsor to provide medical insurance for the alien.

Those limits exist for a number of reasons. The first quotas were established by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and the primary intention was to control the disproportionate number of immigrants coming from Europe. The quotas were reduced and made permanent by the Immigration Act of 1924. Interestingly, neither of those acts imposed quotas on immigrants from Latin America. There simply weren't very many Latin American immigrants in the US at the time. The law has been rewritten and revised several times since then, but a system of numerical limits has always been part of it. Curiously, in the original Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 it was the one of the primary goals of Congress to restrict the influx of "undesirables" and people with political goals contrary to the interests of the United States - in other words, communists and communist sympathizers. The numerical limits have been revised numerous times since then, for a variety of reasons, but being a member of the communist party is still an inadmissibility.

Other than:

- potential to increase unemployment and drive down the wages

- burden on the health care system

- other tax-supported services

... what does the list of common objections to removing the numerical limits, as seen by legislators today, include?

Am I correct in guessing that yours also includes issues of assimilation?

The per-country limits are not discriminatory because they treat everyone equally. The 7% cap applies to every country. The reason that India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines have longer waiting times is because those countries are oversubscribed. Would it be fair to someone from Pakistan (for example) to have to wait years longer because they had to wait in the same line as the huge number of people from those four countries? Or, is it more fair to move the excess number of people from those four countries into a separate line and make them wait a little longer in order to give everyone else a more reasonable wait?

By that definition (treating everyone equally), the limits are indeed not discriminatory.

What seems objectionable to me is this: you take Earth, draw lines on it and circumscribe the people living within those lines as belonging to one or the other country/nation. (Disclaimer: I realize this is not how the historical process actually works, here, however, I take a position of a neutral observer).

Then you have situations like this: take two border cities, say Dunga Bunga in Pakistan and Padampur in India. It's an 8 hour drive, people living in one could easily have friends and relatives in the other. Yet when two individuals with the same priority date stand in line for their visa, the one from Padampur would get it later, at some stages in Visa Bulletin history - significantly later, than the one in Dunga Bunga. Based on nothing more than the collective decision of people living within the respective circumscribed territories to apply for visa in the same category.

In short, why should someone from Padampur be held accountable / suffer because of someone from Mumbai just because both of them have 'India' attached to them? Is he his brother's / "countryman's" keeper?

The 7% cap is appealing in that it creates a pretty diverse immigrant body, but because of the misgivings I describe above, I think I would have no problem with a common line for everyone, irrespective of their country of origin.

You hypothetical scenario is an ideal day scenario; unfortunately it does not work that way.

Your parents are paying the taxes coz they are earning. What I am saying is if you have a household of 4 parents + 2 kids govt does not tax you on the number 4.

If out of 4 husband is working he gets credit for kids + wife thus reducing his tax, in fact kids would be going to school for which tax payers have paid.

So lets say if guy was making 10k and he was paying 3k as tax which was going towards community, city, country. Now if his wife and kids join he would not be paying the 3k in tax as he would get tax credit. Yet kids would go to school for which someone else would be paying.

Here I agree with you. My scenario is for a perfectly free market situation. In the U.S. there's a number of social programs (I do not vouch to say whether it is good or bad here, that's a different argument) that are hardly sustainable as it is, like Social Security with baby boomers retiring en masse. True - more burden on these programs from new arrivals, who have not been paying taxes from the beginning, will have serious negative impacts.

The solution would be to limit the access of permanent residents to these programs until they naturalize, like it is already limited with regard to direct government support (the burden is placed on the affidavit signer). Then you'd be able to let more permanent residents in, but would also get some people objecting along the lines of "What, my baby cannot go to the public school?" or "What, I do not get the tax credit?". Can't please everyone.

But I'll tell you something else - while some would want to have a cake and it eat too, most of us here would gladly give away those privileges and more for 5 years, sacrifice access to any program the pundits tell us we need to sacrifice, if only we would be able to spend these 5 years close to our loved ones. Anyone would tell you that if there's a person you love, you know that any time it is better to go through the hardship together than to lead a well-to-do life alone, separated by thousands of miles from the person(s) for whom we live and the memory of whose warmth is the only thing that keeps us going.

And life in the United States, even with all the social programs and government handouts removed, is still a much better life than most of us are getting in places where we come from. When you do not rely on the government for support, you are only getting as much as you yourself earn, an _opportunity_ - the only road open to you then is to be a self-made man. And isn't this what America is all about?

Lot of you have been talking about H1 and L1, but you don’t realize how much they add to SSN, they would never be eligible for SSN money yet they are required to pay in the fund.

I concede that people specifically coming to work are a likelier group to benefit the economy than essentially random family ties. But let's not forget that H1 and L1 are dual intent visas, so saying 'would never be eligible' is rather harsh.

Also, let's not forget an ethical dimension of all of this. Who says the F2A limit should be 114,200 and not 114,201? Has someone done a back of the envelope calculation and determined that this is what will least likely harm the economy? Or are these quotas remnants of racist times long ago, when the goal was to keep the Asians out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924)?

Why do per-country caps still exist today? Isn't this the definition of discriminatory treatment - against people in India, Mexico, China, Philippines?

All we ask for is to be treated equally, to have equal chance to work hard, to support our families, in short, _equality_. And isn't _this_ what America is all about?

To open the borders completely is just a wistful fantasy of mine - the goal of the petition at hand is much simpler, a more pragmatic and humane goal - to let the immediate families be together. We do not ask President Barack Obama to let everyone in, just our most beloved - the spouses and children, and it would be fine with me if there will be checks and limits in place to prevent this move from bringing in more and more immigrants (for example, put a 10 year limit on further petitions by new arrivals). But please, give us mercy, remove the restrictions that prevent spouses and children of legal permanent residents from being reunited with them.

So you think if govt opens the gate and lets everyone in... it is not going to impact the economy?

Respectfully, this is not what I am saying at all. Letting more people come legally _will_ impact the economy, that's a given. What I am doing is calling to doubt the default assumption a lot of people seem to have, namely that it is going to be necessarily an overall _negative_ impact.

Let's look at some of your objections to that idea:

More ppl means more ppl need more jobs......more infrastructure, more cars more roads, more medical needs

Basic economics tells us about the law of supply and demand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

When there's a demand (infrastructure, cars, medical needs, food, entertainment etc.) - there's going to be a person, business or businesses that see it as their opportunity. They will try to fill that demand by producing more of the product/service. To do that effectively, they will need workforce, raw materials and related business operation products and services (office supplies, logistics, you name it).

The workforce they will get by offering openings to the people, thus creating the coveted jobs you mention.

The raw materials they will buy, helping the industries that extract them.

The business operation products and services will also be bought from other companies providing them, helping them to stay in business.

The equilibrium principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_equilibrium) tells us that these will tend to balance out any impact the new immigrants might have.

You thinkg illegal immigration drives down the wages ..... good so when you have 100s of thousands of ppl looking for job would your wages not drive down? Would the employeer not have the option to choice?

Let's look at a hypothetical situation: a spouse with an engineering degree legally joins her permanent resident husband in the United States. She gets a job paying $2000, whereas a U.S. citizen, wanting $5000, doesn't get it.

Where does the $3000 difference go then? The employer can either devote it to discretionary expenses - buying goods and services. This helps the businesses he buys from.

Or, the employer can create another job, paying $3000 per month. That's two jobs where there used to be just one. More jobs - less unemployment; where's the wrong in that?

Also, because the product is now cheaper to produce, the business can sell it for less, and the U.S. citizen from before can easily opt for a $3000 job and still be able to lead a comfortable life.

Everyone is happy, everyone is employed and families are not separated.

P.S. And, by the way, this:

unfortunately govt does not tax per person in your family, in fact your tax would go down as you now more deduction.

Means less money for govt and they will have to provide more with less money.

... is false. Once the beneficiary becomes a permanent resident (gets his or her green card), they pay the taxes like everyone else. I should know, my parent is a permanent resident and Form 1040 is a yearly pain.

It's the same with Ukraine. Wouldn't your leaving the U.S. need to be recorded somehow, i.e. wouldn't they be surprised to see you entering from Ukraine, while thinking that you've never left?

It took USCIS about 1 year, 4 months, and 15 days to approve the petition for your son. This means that he gets to retain the F2a category if his PD became current before he reached the age of 22 years, 4 months, and 15 days.

His PD became current in August 2010. It retrogressed on Jan. 1, 2011.

On August 1, 2010, your son's real age was 22 years, 3 months, and 1 day.

As long as he filed his DS-230 before Jan 1, 2011, when his PD retrogressed, his CSPA age was locked in as of August 1, 2010. This means he will be allowed to stay in the F2a category.

Wait, CSPA covers the retrogression scenario? Does it mean my age is locked too?

This would be great news, is it mentioned anywhere at travel.state.gov?

Add me to the club as well, please.

What if the card was lost en route and they mailed a replacement - would the date still be the old one?

In Ukrainian, chapa, chap (чап) means roughly small/baby steps. The derivatives are chapaty (to make baby steps) and chap-chap (sort of like come-come).

(just like in 2009 when they sent me straight back home)

Did they tell you on what grounds they did it? (are they even required to?)

Misleading title of the article. Perchlorate has been linked to thyroid and cancer at elevated levels. Yes, it does occur naturally in the ground, but it is also used in rocket fuel. I'm not comfortable with it being used in farming where through irrigation can contaminate the ground water and food supply. Sorry, but the EPA is not some gestappo organization, it is protecting your food and water supply, even if you don't give a sh!t about it.

Mr. Lebowski?