hopefirst2008

I have a PD of Nov 2008. I am currently on my OPT. is it better to go back to school or get H1B? Any thoughts?

Longlivemania, we have same situation, so decided to go with H1B. H1B looks more stable then school or optional practical training for 2-3 years until the visa number comes. If you loose the job on h1B, you always can go to school again..

longlivemania, we are in the same situation. you only have 2 options: seek for employer who can give you H1 visa or start to study for other degree

HOPEFIRST2008(GBI)------04FEB08----------------------03FEB09 - AOS, when current

please update

Nothing interesting... just it is complete or not.. Actually I'm worried that still nobody received interview letters for April(((

Is there anybody in this forum who is in the USA now?

My son is in US already 4 years on student visa. PD is FEB 2008..

Married children and siblings have second preference now because they have their own families abroad, but most of unmarried children are completely alone overseas while whole family in US. Many of unmarried USC children are already living in US by different visas like student or H-1. they live here, work, pay taxes, but for example have to pay out of state tuition to study comparing to children of illegals who pay 5-6 times less (instate tutition) by new law (CA).So usually their USC parents pay that. This is nonsense. Especially because the number of the applied USC unmarried children is only ~280,000 (currently), this is minor number comparing to other categories, so I do not see any reason why government created this law and why it cannot be canceled if we try to convince them.

Read what congressman advisors say on the www.nfap.com.

"CONCLUSION

Family immigration quotas are inadequate and result in needless separation and long waits for Americans, lawful permanent residents and their close family members. Eliminating family categories, as some have proposed in the past, would go against America’s heritage and lead to false distinctions about the value of different family members. One way to look at this issue is to put it at the personal level. Most Americans – and Members of Congress – would agree they would have a difficult time welcoming the immigration of their 19-year-old son, while barring the door to their 22-year-old daughter"

Guys, let's run a petition to government to cancel the limit quota for F1 and make F1 applicants immediate relatives, like it was before. They remove per country limit, but do not increase the annual quota for F-1 at least, this is unacceptable.

WHY THE CALLS TO REDUCE FAMILY-SPONSORED IMMIGRANTS?

In all the various calls made over the years to eliminate family categories there has been no real policy rationale offered for inflicting a policy that would create so much hardship on so many Americans. The argument appears to rest on a presumption that the goal of U.S. society should be to keep as many foreign-born people out of the country as possible. Therefore, it is argued, Congress should eliminate at least some family categories, even if it serves no real purpose to do so.

The 65,000 individuals who enter through the sibling category each year equal about 6 percent of overall U.S. legal immigration in a given year. And the annual flow from the sibling category represents only 0.02 percent of the U.S. population. Similarly, the 23,400 in each of the categories for the sons and daughters of U.S. citizens – 21 or older, unmarried and married – equal only about 2 percent of overall legal immigration and 0.008 percent of the U.S. population annually. Eliminating these categories would produce only a small drop in overall legal immigration and lead to great hardship for tens of thousands of Americans and their loved ones. It is difficult to argue denying the reunification of these individuals with American families serves any legitimate policy purpose – and a general dislike of immigrants or immigration is not a legitimate policy purpose for a member of Congress.

Even if Congress eliminated certain family categories, it seems inconceivable Congress would do so without “grandfathering” in all those who already have pending family petitions and are waiting for an immigrant visa to become available. It would be an extraordinary act of bad faith to deny those who have been waiting for years the opportunity to complete the immigration process.

THE CHAIN MIGRATION MYTH As noted in a May 2010 NFAP report, one argument made for eliminating family categories is it would reduce something called “chain migration.” However, “chain migration” is a contrived term that seeks to put a negative light on a phenomenon that has taken place throughout the history of the country – some family members come to America and succeed, and then sponsor other family members.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Ombudsman helped illustrate how long it can take for even one person to immigrate to the United States,28 let alone the time it would take for that immigrant of the immigrant’s spouse to become a citizen, file the paperwork for a relative, and wait for that relative to enter.

MORE VISAS WOULD REDUCE FAMILY WAIT TIMES

The primary way to shorten the wait time for family-sponsored immigrants is to add more visas beyond the annual total of 226,000. Relaxing the per country limit would help those with the longest wait times, particularly from Mexico and the Philippines. The Chaffetz-Smith bill would move the per country limit to 15 percent for family categories, which would aid those who have been waiting a decade or longer in some categories. The USCIS Ombudsman has noted that between FY 1992 and FY 2009, 241,928 family-sponsored preference numbers went unused, primarily due to administrative issues within the federal government. If those numbers were made available, they would reduce wait times in the family categories. To the extent the annual quotas were raised for specific preference categories, then it would also reduce the wait times. For example, raising the annual quota of 23,400 for the unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens by 10,000 a year would, over time, reduce the wait times by a number of years.

CONCLUSION

Family immigration quotas are inadequate and result in needless separation and long waits for Americans, lawful permanent residents and their close family members. Eliminating family categories, as some have proposed in the past, would go against America’s heritage and lead to false distinctions about the value of different family members. One way to look at this issue is to put it at the personal level. Most Americans – and Members of Congress – would agree they would have a difficult time welcoming the immigration of their 19-year-old son, while barring the door to their 22-year-old daughter.

If Congress wants to increase the number of skilled immigrants in the country, the best way is through the existing set of temporary visas and the employment-based immigration system, not through reducing family immigration.

Denying U.S. citizens the ability to sponsor adult children, parents or siblings is unnecessary and politically divisive. The bill the Senate passed in 2006 raised quotas for both family and employment-based immigrants and Congress can do so again.

America’s legal immigration system is complex. It suffers from long waits due to inadequate annual quotas for both family and employer-sponsored immigration. Raising those quotas would serve both the humanitarian and economic interests of the United States.

The autor is Stuart Anderson

Stuart Anderson is Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy research organization in Arlington, Va. Stuart served as Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning and Counselor to the Commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service from August 2001 to January 2003. He spent four and a half years on Capitol Hill on the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, first for Senator Spencer Abraham and then as Staff Director of the subcommittee for Senator Sam Brownback. Prior to that, Stuart was Director of Trade and Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., where he produced reports on the military contributions of immigrants and the role of immigrants in high technology.

www.nfap.com.

N A T I O N A L F O U N D A T I O N F O R A M E R I C A N P O L I C Y :

http://www.nfap.com/

Waiting and More Waiting: America’s Family and Employment-Based Immigration System

PAGE: 22

times by a number of years.

***************

ABOUT THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN POLICY:

outlets. The organization’s reports can be found at www.nfap.com.

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Congress works. Or so it seemed for a day this week when the House of Representatives voted 389 to 15 to ease restrictions on the entry of highly skilled immigrants to the U.S.

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 was sponsored by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats alike. It avoided the political pitfalls of comprehensive immigration reform by focusing instead on a very narrow yet necessary change, eliminating country-specific caps on immigrant engineers, computer scientists and the like. In a measure of its broad support, the legislation is backed by technology companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and pro-immigration groups.

Under current law, immigrants from an individual country can claim no more than 7 percent of the 140,000 employment green cards issued annually. As Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, pointed out, that cap applies equally to Iceland (population 300,000) and India (1.2 billion and rising). Removing the caps will enable U.S. companies to retain more skilled immigrants from countries such as India and China, which have a surfeit of scientists and technologists eager to work in the U.S.

In addition, the legislation would raise the country limit for family green cards from 7 percent of a total of 226,000 to 15 percent, thereby easing backlogs for immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines, in particular, and helping, perhaps, to strengthen families.

What the legislation will not do is increase the total number of green cards dispensed. That's a shame because doing so could help boost a still-sagging U.S. economy. Only 15 percent of visas are granted for economic reasons, a policy that undermines U.S. companies competing in a global talent pool. Foreign students account for the majority of computer science and engineering doctorates earned from U.S. institutions. (In 2006, more than 4,500 foreign students earned engineering Ph.D.'s in the U.S., almost two-thirds of the total.) Yet there's no policy to allow, let alone encourage, them to stay in the U.S. after graduation.

Add in that immigrants have a much higher propensity to create new businesses -- a Duke University study found that they helped found more than a quarter of the technology and engineering companies established in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005 -- and one is left wondering why this simple visa reform didn't take place eons ago.

The answer, of course, is politics. Republican presidential candidates are busy competing to make the most nativist appeals for votes. After the House passed its legislation on Nov. 29, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, host of the upcoming caucuses, promptly placed a hold on the bill, which is expected to have broad support from his Senate colleagues.

The 112th Congress has made little progress of any sort and none at all on immigration. There is no reason a bill that passed the House by an overwhelming margin should be stymied in the Senate. For the health of the U.S. economy -- and perhaps for the health of Congress itself -- this eminently passable, aggressively unobjectionable, bipartisan legislation should be approved quickly..

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/01/bloomberg_articlesLVHXZQ0YHQ0X.DTL#ixzz1fRPs7JOY

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Congress works. Or so it seemed for a day this week when the House of Representatives voted 389 to 15 to ease restrictions on the entry of highly skilled immigrants to the U.S.

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 was sponsored by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats alike. It avoided the political pitfalls of comprehensive immigration reform by focusing instead on a very narrow yet necessary change, eliminating country-specific caps on immigrant engineers, computer scientists and the like. In a measure of its broad support, the legislation is backed by technology companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and pro-immigration groups.

Under current law, immigrants from an individual country can claim no more than 7 percent of the 140,000 employment green cards issued annually. As Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, pointed out, that cap applies equally to Iceland (population 300,000) and India (1.2 billion and rising). Removing the caps will enable U.S. companies to retain more skilled immigrants from countries such as India and China, which have a surfeit of scientists and technologists eager to work in the U.S.

In addition, the legislation would raise the country limit for family green cards from 7 percent of a total of 226,000 to 15 percent, thereby easing backlogs for immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines, in particular, and helping, perhaps, to strengthen families.

What the legislation will not do is increase the total number of green cards dispensed. That's a shame because doing so could help boost a still-sagging U.S. economy. Only 15 percent of visas are granted for economic reasons, a policy that undermines U.S. companies competing in a global talent pool. Foreign students account for the majority of computer science and engineering doctorates earned from U.S. institutions. (In 2006, more than 4,500 foreign students earned engineering Ph.D.'s in the U.S., almost two-thirds of the total.) Yet there's no policy to allow, let alone encourage, them to stay in the U.S. after graduation.

Add in that immigrants have a much higher propensity to create new businesses -- a Duke University study found that they helped found more than a quarter of the technology and engineering companies established in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005 -- and one is left wondering why this simple visa reform didn't take place eons ago.

The answer, of course, is politics. Republican presidential candidates are busy competing to make the most nativist appeals for votes. After the House passed its legislation on Nov. 29, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, host of the upcoming caucuses, promptly placed a hold on the bill, which is expected to have broad support from his Senate colleagues.

The 112th Congress has made little progress of any sort and none at all on immigration. There is no reason a bill that passed the House by an overwhelming margin should be stymied in the Senate. For the health of the U.S. economy -- and perhaps for the health of Congress itself -- this eminently passable, aggressively unobjectionable, bipartisan legislation should be approved quickly

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/01/bloomberg_articlesLVHXZQ0YHQ0X.DTL#ixzz1fRPs7JOY

We have to run the petition that government has to cancel the quota for the unmarried children over 21 of US citizens from the ‘rest of the world’ at all and make them like immediate relatives! Why does it make so big difference the son/daughter is 21 or 25, or 31? Or at least to increase the quota significantly. It doesn’t make any logical sense that now F1 category quota is significantly less than the quota for relatives of permanent residents. 23,400 versus 114,200. Talking about H.R. 3012 bill, I have to admit that this bill better would eliminate DV and per-country employment visa quotas numbers to increase the F-1 of “rest of the world” quota numbers..

that's looking better:

NAME----------------------PD----------NOA2--------CASE COMPLETED----------INTERVIEW

TAMEKA------------------20AUG04--------------------------------------------02DEC11

BEXTAVAZ----------------23MAR05--------------------------------------------03AUG10

ANSZE-------------------07APR05----------------------..DEC10---------------

ALENAJAFZADEH-----------..MAY05---------------------- (yes) ---------------

MR. LONGAWAITING1-------30JUN05----------------------16FEB11---------------

LONERGURL---------------..AUG05----------------------..JAN11---------------

CAST2006----------------..AUG05----------------------

GUVNOR2010--------------..OCT05----------------------17SEP10---------------19NOV10

JULIE-MC----------------..JAN06----------------------..SEP11

IOUKTA------------------..APR06----------------------..SEP10---------------

ONLY_WISH---------------..APR06----------------------..MAR11---------------

LOROKO01----------------..APR06----------------------01APR11---------------

IVEN321-----------------..MAY06----------------------

GREENCARDGO-------------..MAY06----------------------

WESTLINK----------------05JUN06----------------------08MAR11---------------

TANIKA------------------10JUL06----------------------

F1JUNKIE----------------07AUG06----------------------28JUN11---------------

LOUDOFF-----------------14AUG06----------------------

NEVERMINDVZ-------------08SEP06----------------------

JAVISAKID---------------05OCT06----------------------26JUL11---------------

AVG---------------------..NOV06----------------------..FEB11---------------

NNROSE123---------------13JAN07----------------------03SEP10---------------

RICK_ES_USA-------------30MAY07----------------------06JAN11---------------

HOPEFULGUY--------------..JUN07----------------------

GRISELITA---------------27JUL07----------------------

JULES SLAMA-------------..SEP07----------------------01FEB11---------------

GBI---------------------04FB2008------03FEB2009------

TENTH_WAVE--------------..SEP08----------------------

ARCHIENEIL--------------04JUN09----------------------

LAIN--------------------19OCT09-------06SEP11-------

Just added our case: (in blue)

NAME----------------------PD----------NOA2--------CASE COMPLETED----------INTERVIEW

TAMEKA------------------20AUG04--------------------------------------------02DEC11

BEXTAVAZ----------------23MAR05--------------------------------------------03AUG10

ANSZE-------------------07APR05----------------------..DEC10---------------

ALENAJAFZADEH-----------..MAY05---------------------- (yes) ---------------

MR. LONGAWAITING1-------30JUN05----------------------16FEB11---------------

LONERGURL---------------..AUG05----------------------..JAN11---------------

CAST2006----------------..AUG05----------------------

GUVNOR2010--------------..OCT05----------------------17SEP10---------------19NOV10

JULIE-MC----------------..JAN06----------------------..SEP11

IOUKTA------------------..APR06----------------------..SEP10---------------

ONLY_WISH---------------..APR06----------------------..MAR11---------------

LOROKO01----------------..APR06----------------------01APR11---------------

IVEN321-----------------..MAY06----------------------

GREENCARDGO-------------..MAY06----------------------

WESTLINK----------------05JUN06----------------------08MAR11---------------

TANIKA------------------10JUL06----------------------

F1JUNKIE----------------07AUG06----------------------28JUN11---------------

LOUDOFF-----------------14AUG06----------------------

NEVERMINDVZ-------------08SEP06----------------------

JAVISAKID---------------05OCT06----------------------26JUL11---------------

AVG---------------------..NOV06----------------------..FEB11---------------

NNROSE123---------------13JAN07----------------------03SEP10---------------

RICK_ES_USA-------------30MAY07----------------------06JAN11---------------

HOPEFULGUY--------------..JUN07----------------------

GRISELITA---------------27JUL07----------------------

JULES SLAMA-------------..SEP07----------------------01FEB11---------------

GBI---------------------04FEB08-------03FEB2009------

TENTH_WAVE--------------..SEP08----------------------

ARCHIENEIL--------------04JUN09----------------------

LAIN--------------------19OCT09-------06SEP11-------