Skilled Immigration to USA: Hidden Aspects

FBI arrests 2 Clinton men

2009-02-14T00:08:00.003-05:00

More crackdown on legal immigration.

Vineet Maheshwari, 35, and Fazal Mehmood, also known as Fazal Awan, 49, have been arrested and are set to appear for a hearing Friday in Des Moines.

Affidavits in the cases say both men were allowed to work in the United States because of employer documents filed by Worldwide Software Services or Sana Systems. Court records show that Mehmood and Maheshwari are listed in various immigration documents as president, director, vice president and manager of the companies

According to federal court documents, Maheshwari, originally from India, is accused of fraud and misuse of immigration documents; specifically, he is accused of knowingly and falsely making a document prescribed by statute or regulation as evidence of authorized stay or employment and knowingly making a false statement under oath in an application and document required by immigration laws

More here at: FBI arrests 2 Clinton men

11 Indians arrested for H1B visa and mail fraud

2009-02-13T23:29:00.006-05:00

DES MOINES, Iowa — Federal agents arrested 11 individuals in 6 states Wednesday as part of an investigation into suspected visa and mail fraud. Matthew G. Whitaker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, announced the operation, which was carried out by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in Iowa, California, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and New Jersey.

VISION SYSTEMS GROUP, INC., a New Jersey Domestic Profit Corporation, with a branch office in Coon Rapids, Iowa, was also indicted in a ten count federal indictment that included one count of conspiracy, eight counts of mail fraud, and one count of ‘Notice of Forfeiture’ in the amount of $7,400,000.

The people arrested are:

Shiva NEELI, Arrested in Boston, MA
Ramakrishna MAGULURI, Arrested in Atlanta, GA
Villiappan SUBBAIAH, Arrested in Dallas, TX
Suresh POLA, Arrested in Pennsylvania (SAC PHI)
Vishnu REDDY, Arrested in Los Angeles, CA
Chockalingam PALANIAPPAN, Arrested in San Jose, CA
Vijay MYNENI, Arrested in San Jose, CA
Venkata GUDURU, Arrested in New Jersey
Praveen ANDAPALLY, Arrested in New Jersey
Amit JUSTA, Arrested in New Jersey
Karambir YADAV, Arrested in Louisville, KY

More here at USCIS website

Follow up comes in TARP

2009-02-11T13:27:00.005-05:00

So, the ground work to introduce anti-H1B provisions was laid out in the AP article last week. As Greg Siskind analyzes below, this was just an attack piece conceived by the folks sympathetic to Programmer's Guild and their likes. In fact the only "experts" the article mentions are John Miano from the Guild and Ron Hira. The follow up to the article was introduced as an amendment to the stimulus bill and was passed by voice vote. As I said a few months ago, the restrictionists will have a party this year putting in all kinds of protectionist rules.

'Buy American' Comes to TARP

The U.S. Senate voted on Feb. 6 to put stricter limits on banks and other recipients of taxpayer money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, that want to hire high-skilled workers from overseas under the H-1B visa program. The Senate approved the measure – introduced by Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) – by voice vote as an amendment the economic stimulus package President Barack Obama is urging the Senate to pass.

The amendment that passed isn’t as tough as the one Grassley proposed on Feb. 5, which would have prohibited firms from hiring H-1Bs altogether. The modified amendment instead makes TARP recipients jump through extra hoops before they can hire those foreign workers. Specifically, it subjects recipients of TARP funds to the same rules so-called H-1B dependent employers must follow. (An H-1B dependent employer is one whose workers brought in with that visa comprise 15% or more of the employer's total workforce.)

Blame the foreigners

2009-02-11T13:07:00.003-05:00

From Greg Siskind's blog:

This morning the Associated Press is running one of the most unfair pieces I've seen in a long time regarding the H-1B visa program. I expect this sort of thing out of the xenophobic fringe press, but the AP is an organization that used to be known for objectivity. The story focuses on the hiring of H-1B workers in the banking sector and is running with the headline "Bailout banks tried to hire foreign workers." Ooh. That's really bad. Lots of Americans losing their jobs and here are these greedy banks hiring cheap foreign workers to replace them. The public has a right to know!

Let's discuss the facts cited in the article first and then we can move on to some of the really biased analysis. The AP's Frank Bass and Rita Beamish (it took two reporters to get a story this wrong?) tell readers that banks receiving more than $150 billion in bailout money hired more than 21,800 foreign workers. Wow. Oh wait, that's over the last six years. So we're talking about 3500 workers a year on average. And some of those years were in a pretty strong economy.

But how much does 3500 even mean? How many workers are there in the banking sector? Quite a lot, actually. According to the Labor Department, even with the economic downturn, there are still more than 8 million workers in the sector. And as of last year around this time, unemployment in the banking sector was just 3.2%. Most of the workers included in the 21,000 were brought in during this extremely low unemployment period.

So let's just be clear - banks seek to fill .04% of their workforce with H-1B workers. The horror!

The AP then goes on to mention that in fiscal year 2008, banks "sought" 4,163 H-1B visas. A couple of points that the reporters failed to mention:

- Fiscal year 2008 actually runs from October 1, 2007 until September 30, 2008. Because of high demand for the H-1B visa, applications must be filed six months ahead of the start of the fiscal year to have any chance so that means these applications were filed in April 2007.

- The number cited is the number of visas sought, not the number actually used. First, only about half of applicants actually got H-1B visas for fiscal year 2008 because of excessive demand. Second, many applicants who are approved for a visa by USCIS don't actually end up claiming the visa at a US consulate and entering to work for the sponsoring employer.

- A lot of those H-1B workers were educated in the US - many receiving MBAs at American universities around the country. We educated these folks so why should we not benefit from their work?

- Just how many H-1B workers in banking have been laid off? I know anecdotally quite a few because I've been helping many people facing sudden unemployment. This is absolutely critical to the story yet it is something left unanswered.

It became apparent to me reading a bit further in the article that this is just a hit piece set up by the same anti-H-1B folks in the high tech sector that have been pushing for protectionism for years. In fact, the only people quoted in the story are Programmers Guild members and Senator Chuck Grassley whose record on this issue speaks for itself. Funny how they can't find a single unemployed banking industry worker they can ask about supposedly training their foreign replacement.

And look at this statement in the story simply recited as fact:

Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.

Aside from the fact that this is patently untrue, the reporters don't even bother to cite any studies showing this is true. They just state that companies routinely seek to replace more experienced hire paid Americans with these workers. Of course, if this were really possible, I suspect we would see more than .04% of the banking sector filled with H-1B workers. These are greedy bankers after all.

When newspapers that are struggling to survive are shelling out big bucks to the AP to run their wire stories, shouldn't they expect better?

Alberta Welcomes H-1B Visa Holders and Their Families

2009-01-26T10:01:00.001-05:00

Temporary skilled worker visa holders: Alberta, Canada welcomes you and your family.

Even if you haven’t yet secured a permanent or full-time position in your field. With your fast-track Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program you could be granted permanent residency and you’ll never have to worry about your visa expiring again. And, you can move here right away. Alberta has the strongest and fastest growing economy in Canada, giving you the security and stability you’ve been searching for. The air is clean, the sky is blue and the people are as friendly as you’ve heard.

Link: http://www.albertacanada.com/immigration/campaigns/h1b.html

Visa Bulletin - February 2009

2009-01-22T23:09:00.001-05:00

Here's the latest visa bulletin, as you can see nothing much has changed.

	All Charge-ability Areas Except Those Listed	CHINA- mainland born	INDIA	MEXICO	PHILIP-PINES
Employ-ment -Based
1st	C	C	C	C	C
2nd	C	01JAN05	01JAN04	C	C
3rd	01MAY05	01OCT02	15OCT01	01APR03	01MAY05

New Year 2009

2009-01-22T22:57:00.004-05:00

Last year was a bad year for immigration legislation with the Presidential elections looming and no politician willing to take sides. This year with one political party getting a landslide victory in both the Presidential race and the Congressional elections, we may see policy shift to one side or the other. Not to sound cliche, but change is coming.

The economic meltdown means that pro-immigrant groups will have a much tougher job trying to push through their agenda as they try to make the case that immigration laws have to look past and ahead of year-to-year economic climate. Myopic anti-immigration groups will have a much easier task although many of them tend to be in the party that is not in power. We will keep an eye out for the circus to continue.

Visa Bulletin - December 2008

2008-11-07T17:10:00.001-05:00

The visa bulletin has been released and is available here:
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4384.html

	All Charge-ability Areas Except Those Listed	CHINA- mainland born	INDIA	MEXICO	PHILIP-PINES
Employ-ment -Based
1st	C	C	C	C	C
2nd	C	01JUN04	01JUN03	C	C
3rd	01MAY05	01FEB02	01OCT01	01SEP02	01MAY05

Massive Overhaul of Immigration Services Planned

2008-11-06T23:31:00.002-05:00

From Washington Post:

The Bush administration has launched a massive overhaul of the nation's long-troubled immigration services agency, tapping an IBM-led industry consortium to re-invent the way government workers help immigrants obtain visas, seek citizenship and get approval to work in the United States

The agency, which was spun off from the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services and merged into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, receives about 6 million to 8 million applications from immigrants a year, but relies on a pre-computer age, paper-based system of 70 million files identified by immigrants' "A-numbers" or alien registration numbers.

IT Firm Settles With DOL to Pay $1.7 Million Backwage Payment to H-1B Workers

2008-11-06T23:18:00.000-05:00

From Attorney Mathew Oh's blog:

DOL has announced that GlobalCynex Inc., a Sterling information technology company, has agreed to pay $1,683,584 to 343 non-immigrant workers after a U.S. Labor Department investigation found the company violated the H-1B visa provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. An investigation by the department's Wage and Hour Division found that employees hired under the H-1B program were not paid required wages from March 2005 through March 2007. Wage and Hour Division investigators also found that the company charged new H-1B workers training fees ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 that were in violation of the law. Globalcynex reportedly runs operations in Hyderabad, India, and provides offshore services. For the announcement, click here. Reportedly, if the settlement were split evenly among all 343 employees, they would get nearly $5,000 each, and the settlement is one of the largest of its kind involving the H-1B program.

Visa Bulletin - September 2008

2008-09-17T16:02:00.006-04:00

The visa bulletin is available here http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4357.html

E. EMPLOYMENT VISA AVAILABILITY
Item E of the May 2008 Visa Bulletin (number 118, volume VIII) indicated that many Employment cut-off dates had been advancing very rapidly, based on indications that the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) would need to review a significantly larger pool of applicants than there were numbers available in order to maximize number use under the FY-2008 annual limits. That item also indicated that if the CIS projections proved to be incorrect, it would be necessary to adjust the cut-off dates during the final quarter of FY-2008. The CIS estimates have proven to be very high resulting in: 1) the “unavailability” of all Employment Third preference categories beginning in July, 2) the “unavailability” of numbers for China and India Employment Second preference adjustment of status cases during September, and 3) the establishment of many October Employment cut-off dates which are earlier than those which applied during FY-2008.

Little if any forward movement of the cut-off dates in most Employment categories is likely until the extent of the CIS backlog of old priority dates can be determined. It is estimated that the FY-2009 Employment-based annual limit will be very close to the 140,000 minimum.

FAIR against legal immigration as well!

2008-09-17T15:51:00.003-04:00

The FAIR gang is out again with anti-immigration action alerts. Here's their latest. This shows that they make no distinction between legal and illegal immigration even though this bill doesn't add any new visa numbers but only reuses those that were wasted because of bureaucratic delays. Here's what they say:

House Judiciary Renews Consideration of Measures That Will Harm American Workers
FAIR Action Alert
Thanks to your calls and e-mails last week, efforts to pass four detrimental immigration-related bills stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, victory was short-lived. Committee leaders remain committed to passing these bills, which would flood the workplace with hundreds of thousands of worker visas.
The Judiciary Committee is meeting again Wednesday, September 17th for another try!
Three of the four bills to be considered in Wednesday's markup amount to nothing more than gifts to big business special interests seeking to dramatically increase the stream of cheap foreign labor coming into the American workforce during these tough economic times:

H.R. 5882 would reach back to 1992 and "recapture" employment-based and family-based visas, potentially adding over 550,000 new green cards.
H.R. 5924 would lift the cap on employment-based visas for nurses and physical therapists until 2011.
H.R. 6020 would grant amnesty to illegal aliens who are family members of armed forces personnel.

Anti-immigration groups go green

2008-07-26T19:03:00.001-04:00

Readers of the Nation and other left-leaning magazines may have noticed a new addition to the usual advertisements — full-page advocacy ads by an ad hoc coalition of anti-immigration organizations.

The ads place the blame for traffic and sprawl, frequent villains for urban-oriented members of the left, on population growth, another such villain. The kicker? That population growth is blamed on immigration.

Read more at Politico.

USCIS Announces 2-Year EAD Issuance Beginning From 06/30/2008

2008-06-17T13:44:00.001-04:00

The USCIS has announced that they will issue 2 year employment authorization cards beginning June 30, 2008. It only applies for those applicants who have filed an I-485 for adjustment of status and are expected to be in that status, waiting for a visa number for more than a year. This provides some relief for the vast number of EB-3 filers who have over half a decade long wait and had to file for an EAD every year. The cost of EAD filing was increased to $340 last July and asking people to keep paying that kind of money every year is nothing short of fleecing. What is the cost to reprint a card every year? Surely not $340! Looking at the card itself, I would be surprised if its anything more than $50. There is either a lot of inefficiency or unnecessary paperwork involved here. It would be shameful and immoral if this $340 repeat fee was used as a means to generate income for USCIS.

Visa Bulletin - July 2008

2008-06-13T16:30:00.003-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to gain permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the July 2008 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Nov 2001

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 22 Mar 2003

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Mar 2006

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Jul 2002

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	Unavailable	Was 01 Mar 2006

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's retrogressed by over 6 years now for applicants born in India.

Special announcement on EB-3 availability in the future:
Demand for numbers, primarily by USCIS for adjustment of status cases, will bring the entire Employment Third preference category to the annual numerical limit by the end of June. As a result, this category will become “unavailable” beginning in July and will remain so for the remainder of FY-2008. Such action will only be temporary, however, and Employment Third preference availability will return to the cut-off dates established for June in October, the first month of the new fiscal year.

NYT - The Great Immigration Panic

2008-06-03T14:52:00.005-04:00

Today's editorial in the New York Times though not related to skilled legal immigration but to the illegal kind, talks about the mood in the US on immigration in general and acknowledges the fact that legal channels are practically closed. Some excerpts:

Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, dreamed up by restrictionists and embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

The restrictionist message is brutally simple — that illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever Them and never Us, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.

Employment based bills not yet considered

2008-06-03T14:26:00.003-04:00

The US Congress is back from the Memorial Day recess and many of the bills that were introduced in the house are yet to be scheduled in the calendar. With election year politics, the remaining months would polarize the vested interests further and fail to pass any legislation that could bring about relief to the skilled immigrant community. Comprehensive immigration reform advocates do not want any immigration related bills to pass until the new president is sworn in and comprehensive reform is taken up for debating. In the meantime the agony for frustrated applicants caught in the retrogressions continue.

Michelle Malkin's Immigration Rants

2008-05-28T17:01:00.013-04:00

As one of the comments at Huffington Post said involving the Dunkin Donuts ad, "Why is malkin such a racist? I know she isn't white." to which one of the response was "The two aren't mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as reverse racism. Racism is racism." This may be true but while not all right wing whites are anti-immigrants but so far all anti-immigrants have been right wing whites. Michelle Malkin is the only exception and the reason she is given so much visibility by the right wing media is because she lends credibility to the notion that it's not just whites who oppose (illegal) immigration. Some would even call her leading a PAC "Immigrants against Immigration". It might be interesting to note that Malkin is of Phillipino heritage and as some of the very right wingers who seem to echo her would call, "an anchor baby".

I do not support illegal immigration and I certainly oppose public welfare for the illegal immigrants but I believe the US needs a whole lot of unskilled labor and needs to find a solution to the current problems to maintain their lifestyle. The reason I bring this up is because there are particular elements in the lunatic right wing who are implicitly racist by demonizing immigrants of a particular region and especially target their rants on issues involving immigrants from South America, Asia and Africa. Not many Middle Easterners immigrate to the US but they tend to club all these immigrants and their issues together in their self-feeding rants. To them being illegal or legal is a small difference that gets ignored in their rants. I believe while they may not show that they oppose legal immigration, they will do nothing to improve it but will do every thing to attack the racial aspects of illegal immigration and there by implicitly malign all immigrants with those backgrounds.

EU Blue Card Update

2008-05-27T11:37:00.004-04:00

A while back I posted about the 'Blue card' visa program from the EU to compete for the high skilled brains of the world. I recently came across one of the best analysis of this program here. You would think what is the motivation for the EU economies for such a program considering their large native population and generally better off economies? Well, here are some reasons:

85% of unskilled labor migration goes to the EU and 5% to the US, whereas 55% of skilled labor goes to the US and only 5% to the EU.

Imagine the scenario where even 25% of the world's skilled labor goes to the EU. What would that do to the US competitiveness?

In 2007, 270,000 high-skilled Europeans emigrated to the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

So, the region is experiencing a brain drain for better options but that only leaves openings for people from the rest of the world to fill in. I have to remind the readers that the looking at the June 2008 visa bulletin, you can see how much more quicker it is for people from Europe to get US permanent residency compared to the people from over subscribed countries like India or China.

1 EUR = 1.57 USD (as of today)

If salaries were a deciding factor, this equation above fixes a lot of the disparity. (As a side note, I just heard that a bunch of European tourists with their fatter wallets have landed in Martha's Vineyard for the summer. It's cheaper for them to vacation here than in Europe.)

In times of immense competition for the world's talent, only the most competitive immigration policies will attract the best talent. The US was the preferred destination for many of these but faced with the long and difficult immigration policies of the US, many of these would opt for the easier and better rewarding options in the EU.

Development of Immigration Legislation Proposals on the Senate Side

2008-05-19T15:22:00.003-04:00

From attorney Mathew Oh's blog

Thus far, it is the House that has been active in introducing immigration bills, particularly the employment-based immigration bills and the Senate has remained in low keys. However, according to the AILA, there was some movement on the Senate court as part of the Emergency War Supplement Bill. AILA reports that the following bills were introduced and added to the bill in the form of amendments to the Supplement Bill in the yesterday's mark-up session of the Senate Appropriation Committee:
- AgJobs bill, introduced by Sen. Craig and Sen. Feinstein
- H-2B bill on 3-year returning worker extension, introduced by Sen. Mikulski
- Bill on recapture of unused EB immigrant visas, and early adjustment filing, introduced by Sen. Gregg and Sen. Murray
- Bill to reauthorize the EB-5 Regional Center Investment Program
The movement in the Senate side took a strategy of attaching the immigration bills to another bill unlike the House approach to legislate the immigration bills as independent bills.

[Update: This bill passed the senate on 5/23/08 without any of the immigration related amendments fearing a veto from the White House.]

With H-1B in limbo, Congressional backers push Green Cards

2008-05-16T14:23:00.000-04:00

Efforts to increase the H-1B cap have been stuck in a legislative swamp, but U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has introduced three bills in the last few weeks to help foreign nationals already working in the U.S. to obtain permanent residency. She announced her latest legislative effort late Wednesday.

News Link: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=E9FCCA76-17A4-0F78-31943D83ADDC573B

Visa Bulletin - June 2008

2008-05-15T20:34:00.010-04:00

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	Advanced by 3 months
EB3	01 Nov 2001	No change

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2004	Advanced by 3 months
EB3	22 Mar 2003	No change

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2006	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Jul 2002	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2006	No change

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's retrogressed by over 6 years now for applicants born in India.

Special announcement on EB-3 availability in the future:
Demand for numbers, primarily by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices for adjustment of status cases, is expected to bring the Employment Third preference category very close to the annual numerical limit in June. As a result, this category is likely to experience retrogressions or visa unavailability beginning in July. Such action would only be temporary, however, and a complete recovery of the cut-off dates would occur for October, the first month of the new fiscal year.

Dollar's purchasing power

2008-05-06T11:25:00.012-04:00

Don't want to sound like an economist because I have almost no formal education in that field but from what I have read and understood, prices of everything is going up while the value of the US dollar is going down.

It started with the housing bubble as home prices shot up much faster than income due to greed and some creative financing from Wall Street . As it turned out, without a rise in income, there's no way these mortgages could be paid. The results were mortgage defaults and a fall in home prices. This resulted in a credit crunch were no one wanted to lend money to anyone because of fear of not getting their money back. To stave off a financial breakdown, the US Federal Reserve decreased interest rates to almost negative rates(real rates considering inflation) at a time when Oil was already trading at record highs. The smart money saw what was coming and invested out of dollars and into anything that is real and necessary. Oil, metals and lately food commodities have all risen in prices as a result.

I also don't want to sound political but I believe Oil prices are also a derivative of the Iraq occupation but this is where we stand now. Take a look at the chart below to compare what $1 in 1800 means today and more particularly the steep decline in the recent past.

Decline in the U.S. dollar's purchasing power (1800-2005)
Source: Barron's

So, you may ask what this has to do with immigration to US? Well, it only means that the purchasing power of the dollar is decreasing as each month goes by while the salaries are staying the same (actually going down considering inflation). So, consider this when you make the financial decision to relocate to a new job here.

Bills introduced to replace lottery visas with advanced degree visas

2008-05-05T16:03:00.004-04:00

Senator Judd Gregg (NH) introduced a bill "to replace the diversity visa lottery program with a program that issues visas to aliens with an advanced degree." This bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN). Sen. Elizabeth Dole (NC), Sen. John Sununu (NH), Sen. John Cornyn (TX), and Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT). These Senators are proposing to expand the immigration opportunities for Advanced Degree holder foreign workers in STEM or related fields without increasing the total annual number of immigrant visa under the current immigration system. Interesting legislative bill.

Some PR from the Senator who introduced this bill:

Sen. Gregg stated, "Talent is a nation’s most important resource in today’s information age, and our nation’s immigration policies need to catch up to this economic reality. In addition to increasing the number of H-1B visas and employment-based visas for highly skilled workers, I believe that Congress should realign our immigration programs so they better meet our economic needs, including the well-documented shortage of workers with advanced degrees in the math and sciences. By converting a lottery visa program that has marginal skills requirements into one that is focused on the best and the brightest, we strengthen our competitive advantage, spur economic and job growth here in the United States, and deter employers from sending work overseas where highly skilled talent is located. Our visa lottery programs should not just benefit those who are selected, but should have significant positive ramifications for our nation as a whole. I look forward to working with my colleges on this measure and other immigration proposal to keep America competitive."

New bills introduced to address employment based immigration issues

2008-05-05T16:01:00.001-04:00

There's new action appearing in the high skilled immigration circles. Some new bills have been introduced in Congress to deal with the employment(skill) based immigration issues. One bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D. CA) seeks to eliminate the per country limits on the immigration numbers and to end the spill-over of unused immigrant visa numbers between employment-based and family-sponsored categories. Finally, someone is trying to differentiate between skills and diversity.

Another bill brought on by the powerful healthcare lobby and introduced by Rep. Robert Waxler seeks to reserve 20,000 visa numbers out of the annual total for exclusive use by Nurses and Physical Therapists in the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. The healthcare lobby always tries to be non-controversial to mainstream America by demanding new visa numbers but at the same time not increasing the total numbers. This at a time when there's almost 6 years worth of applicants in the queue. Not to mention the fact that each year, there are a lot of visa numbers wasted due to inefficiency in communication between the agencies.

Economy, jobs and year 2008

2007-12-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

The housing correction is causing companies across the entire economy to reconsider projections for the next year. If indeed the economy goes into recession or at least slows down as it has already done this quarter, the possibility of wage appreciation is zero. The entire argument that foreign labor depresses wages becomes irrelevant if the economy falters, as there will be mass layoffs and possible wage decreases for newly hired positions even without any immigration. The effect of immigration numbers on wages is really minuscule compared to the overall health of the economy, assuming we believe that such a thing does happen. Far more consequential is what would happen to competitiveness, productivity, innovation and jobs if protectionist laws are implemented during times of economic slowdown. Next year will be interesting.

USCIS As a Business Entity in EAD and Advance Parole Policy

2007-12-21T13:32:00.000-05:00

From Mathew Oh:

The legacy INS and the USCIS had worked on a plan for a number of years to issue a multi-year EAD. It even conceived a plan to abandon a separate Advance Parole document and turn the EAD to function as the employment authorization document as well as overseas travel document for I-485 applicants. Indeed, the USCIS even enacted and released a regulation to issue an EAD card that can extend over a period in excess of one year. However, this regulation has never been implemented because of the alleged internal disagreement within the DHS leadership. Guess what! The sources of disagreement were reportedly "money, money, money!" By issuing such new multi-year EAD, the DHS was destined to lose a huge loss in the revenue of EAD card selling business.
Now what? Under the new filing fee schedule which took effect after July 29, 2007, issuance of EAD and Advance Parole for the post August 27, 2007 is "free, free, free" for the I-485 filers. Allegedly, the cost is incorporated in the I-485 filing fee of $1,020. The new regulation uses the term of "fee waiver" for EAD and Advance Parole for these I-485 filers. Now, you guessed it! Lo and Behold, the business calculation on EAD and Advance Parole has reversed. The DHS will lose a huge money by issuing single-year EAD and a separate Advance Prole document on a yearly basis over and over since they are free and they will have to keep producing it at no charge every year, which creates a huge workloads consuming its huge human resources and other production costs. This is particularly unacceptable to the agency under the predicted State Department Visa Bulletin for FY 2008 and in the future. Now, from the business standpoint, the DHS may make a huge money by issuing a multi-year EAD which will also function as a travel document. Ahah! No wonder why they are finally coming forward revealing their hidden agenda behind the new fee rule-making and EAD/Advance Parole reform business. Reportedly, Mr. Aytes of USCIS disclosed in a New York AILA conference that the USCIS was currently working on a single multi-year EAD card that will also replace the Advance Parole document. What a smart calculation it was in the new fee rule-making action.
It turns out that such single card acting serving as EAD as well as travel document for multiple years will serve the mutual interests of both the immigrants and other immigration stakeholders AND the USCIS. One interesting question is whether the DHS/USCIS will go all the way acting purely on business calculation or may extend some generosity and compassion for some I-485 filers as well. The answer to this question will also involve the timing of the change and the card policy. The fee waiver for EAD and Advance Parole applies only to the post July-2007 VB fiasco I-485 filers. Accordingly, the agency will make money from the post VB fiasco 485 filers and lose money from the pre VB fiasco 485 filers if the agency issues a new multi-year EAD card accross the board coving both groups. Even though the post VB fiasco I-485 applicants may outnumber the pre VB fiasco filers, the agency must be using calculators day and night to determine the answer for the agency's maximum benefits in terms of cost saving from the new policy. One option could be that they come forward with a new regulation that such multi-year EAD card will apply only to the post VB fiasco I-485 filers. The other option could be for the agency to set timing of the new policy such that a substantial number of pre-VB fiasco I-485 applicants leave the pipeline of green card process. The bad news for the second option for the agency is the State Department's Visa Bulletin predictions for FY 2008. It thus apepars that they will determine the break-even point or overriding cost saving point considering the pouring-in new I-485 applications in the future and the number of pre VB fiasco filers in its total pool of I-485 applications. The agency is likely to determine the timing of new card policy after a careful calculation of these factors. It will be considered a shameless act, should the agency adopt the first option, which will definitely face a legal challenge in courts from the standpoint of unlawful creation of classes in violation of the nation's Constitution and unequal treatment of the classes as well as a lack of fair play and fairness in administration of justice and government process.
Please watch carefully the upcoming move of the agency and how the business calculated new policy will unfold "how" and "when."

'Blue Card' Visa Program

2007-10-25T16:04:00.000-04:00

European Union recognizing their industry needs is gearing up to create a competing visa system for high skilled workers. This is in direct competition to the H1B visa in the US and work permits in Canada. Individual European nations do have some sort of immigration laws prior to this but the biggest advantage of the new system, one that is key to the foreign workers is the ability to work anywhere within the EU with one single visa. Here's the BusinessWeek article.

Meanwhile, US Senator Grassley is fighting to increase the H1B fees to almost $6000 per applicant to further restrict the use of H1B visas. Here's the new fee structure

$1,500 American Worker Training Fee ($750 if employs 25 or less employees)
$3,500 Supplemental Fee ($1,750 if employ 25 or less employees)
$500 Fraud and Abuse Prevention Fee
$320 H-1B Petition Fee
TOTAL=$5,820

That's progressive thinking from Sen Grassley and other LDAs (Lou Dobbs & Associates).

How about other nations impose similar trade restrictions on US goods and services. Here are few suggestions:

Impose 500% surcharge on Pepsi and Coke products for a cola worker training fee so they can learn to make good cola without having to import the technology from US.
Add $400 to every box of Microsoft Windows imported for a local software development fund. Use the money collected to build software indigenously without having to import US software.

If you think these sound ridiculous, that's exactly how Sen Grassley's proposed fees sound too.

Lou Dobbs and Associates fuming over Immigrants' success

2007-07-20T16:39:00.000-04:00

With the limited success the legal immigrant group has had by getting the USCIS and DOS to honor the original visa bulletin, and the media coverage this relatively small group has had, it seems now Lou Dobbs & Associates (loose term for Lou Dobbs and like minded extremists) are venting their frustration on the legal immigrants. It just solidifies the point that these people are pure restrictionists. Have a look at the responses to this article from BusinessWeek has had.

Bruce
Jul 20, 2007 8:40 PM GMT
No one is against REASONABLE number of LEGAL immigrants but the H-1B visa program is essentially a scam. It's simply a way for firms to reduce their labor costs by increasing the number of available candidates for employment. Truth be known, Indians are famous for taking advantage of the H-1B program, for cheating it by not exiting the USA when their visa expires which they are supposed to do according to the law. It's all a scam - just like the now defunct immigration "reform" bill in the Senate last month. Foreign lobby groups pay off US politicians to allow more of their people into our nation. Time for this corrupt practice to wind down.

RG
Jul 20, 2007 8:23 PM GMT
In case you "immigrants" fail to read your H-1B visa, it is called a NON-IMMIGRANT VISA. That means you are supposed to leave the USA when the visa expires. Understand? Not bring a dozen of your relatives here to live with you forever. Why don't more Americans go into such "great" fields as IT? Young Americans now know that that once good field has been so diluted with foreigners, and salaries have come down due to an excess of labor. IT is no longer a desired occupation.

These are examples of hate-radio listeners who are getting so emotional over something that hardly affects their lives. 140,000 immigrants per year in a nation of 302,000,000 people is not even 0.05 percent of the population. Are we supposed to believe that the tiny fraction of the Americans who are against this represent the 300 million Americans? It's a democracy and its the majority opinion that counts and majority of Americans want high skilled legal immigration, period. Amen!

The Gandhi Protests Pay Off

2007-07-17T22:46:00.000-04:00

Facing political pressure and legal action, the U.S. government may speed up green-card processing and make more slots available

Read the complete article at BusinessWeek

2007-07-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

This post at ImmigrationVoice's forum is worth the read:

I've had it, I am moving to Canada
byeusa:
Dear Friends, I had it... I am moving to Canada in the next 2 months to work for guess who? Microsoft. Came to USA in 1997 for my masters, worked at Legato, Documentum and Opentext. Had to restart my GC twrice, once as the company laid me off and next for career progression. GC is still years years away. Interviewed with MSFT last month and got an offer to work in their Enterprise Collaboration team. MSFT looked at the visa mess I was in and offered me to work in Vancouver. I get my Canadian GC in 6 months and my wife can work from day one. I am abandoning my US dream for good;guess I would be satisfied with touching my 4 year old son's American passport.

I worked for a canadian company in US and now would be working for a US company in Canada. This is globalization. True Globalization. Any for those whiners belonging to IEEE and its propoganda machine, I would like to mention that I drew salries which were above way above the norm. I am sure I would be drawing more than 2 of his programmers combined. Ron- ask your folks to learn to compete and update their skills. They probably studied studied 'history of mathematics' as a math subject in high school instead of calculus. They were happy that they had the coolest Nintendo games while many like me were burning the midnight old figuring out data structures at Berkeley.

I hope Berney Sanders and his club of the CIR days are hearing the developments. Berney, fix the broken education system for job protection rather than building fences to prevent legal workers to come to this gifted country. More companies will leave for nearshore if the mess continues. Fix the system by closing the H1B loopholes that a small percentage of companies are exploiting. Don't bad mouth the H1B system which has given you so much talent that you could have never groomed, the talented individuals who have contributed to the society, social security system and what not. Patch the holes in the fence, do not erect a higher fence for which people need to pay $ 5000 to cross. And by the way if you have the inclination and the time- fix the broken LEGAL High Skilled immigration system.

Fate of U.S. Senator Vitter on the Edge for Involvement in the Madam's List

2007-07-12T10:14:00.000-04:00

From Mathew Oh's website: This Senator from Luisiana who vigorously underminded and killed the CIR 2007 by introducing tons of amendments to S. 1639 for the purpose of filibuster turned out to be a customer of the madam services in the Beltway, according to the news report, and reportedly confessed himself that he was the sinner. He is the first term Senator. This has brought him to the edge of a thread for his political future. The madam's phone list has been recently released, putting a number of prominent legislators in the Beltway restless. The politcal enemies are fumbling through the stacks of phone lists to look for the names. Hmm.................................... Wonder who else are there?

Microsoft moves north

2007-07-11T16:33:00.000-04:00

Unable to meet its hiring needs because of U.S. immigration policy, the software company is opening an office in Vancouver

MICROSOFT CORP. is expanding in the Pacific Northwest, hiring several hundred software wizards to help develop new products. Instead of landing at the Redmond, Wash., mother ship, however, the new workers will toil in Vancouver, British Columbia. Here's why, according to the company's news release (emphasis added): "The Vancouver area is a global gateway with a diverse population, is close to Microsoft's corporate offices in Redmond and allows the company to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S."

LA Times link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-microsoft10jul10,0,3731138.story

A Gift From Gandhi - Floral protest

2007-07-11T16:16:00.000-04:00

Washington Post: Frustrated Green Card Applicants From India Use Methods Of Master

The idea for the protest began with the Indian immigration community on the online forum Immigration Voice, a site devoted to issues facing skilled, legal workers seeking permanent residence in the United States. Their method was inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who spent years campaigning nonviolently for India's independence from Britain

Reversal Frustrates Green-Card Applicants

2007-07-05T21:24:00.000-04:00

The government's surprise offer, then abrupt reversal, of an opportunity for thousands of skilled foreign workers to obtain permanent residency in the U.S. highlights the problems of the overtaxed immigration system and the frenzy that results from a chance to apply for a green card.

The scramble has put tens of thousands of workers and their families in limbo after many of them and their employers spent thousands of dollars in hopes of securing permanent residency. It may result in a class-action lawsuit against the government by frustrated applicants.

Article link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118359095890657571.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Citigroup to cut 17,000 jobs, but India headcount set to rise

2007-04-11T22:42:00.000-04:00

PTI reports World's largest financial services firm Citigroup Inc today said it will eliminate 17,000 jobs or nearly five per cent of its global workforce, even as it plans to move 9,500 positions to India and other low-cost locations.

The company could move a large chunk of its jobs -- which could be in the range of 5,00-8,000 -- to India, especially for equity research, investment banking and back-office transaction-related activities, sources close to the developeent said. The total number of jobs to be eliminated equal more than half of the total number of positions Citigroup added to its workforce in 2006.More than 9,500 jobs will be moved to lower-cost locations, both domestically and internationally, the company said.

ISB student bags $274,000 job offer

2007-04-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

From Hindustan Times:

In a world where any job offer is better than no offer, a graduate of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad has walked away with a Rs 1.18 crore (over $274,000) annual package at the end of another great year of placements at the campus. The student from the Class of 2007 attracted the highest international cost-to-company annual package of Rs 1.18 crore, while the average global CTC stood at Rs 59.5 lakh, the school's dean M Rammohan Rao said, announcing the results of the placement season.

IBS as some of you may know was founded on December 20, 1999 by a group of Fortune 500 entrepreneurs in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh's state government. Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the then chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh played a key role in establishing the institution. IBS partners include London Business School, Wharton Business School and Kellogg School of Management.

Signs of changing times?

March Visa Bulletin

2007-03-02T09:04:00.001-05:00

The reason I didn't blog the March visa bulletin is simple, it's exactly the same as the February visa bulletin. Absolutely no movement in any of the employment-based visa dates. So the USCIS is telling each of the half a million applicants, please wait another month to see if there is any change. What a joke! I can't believe this is supposed to be the most advanced nation in the world. If the USCIS were a company, they would be bankrupt by now!

Update on the Developer position

2007-03-02T08:59:00.001-05:00

It's now over three months since we started the job search. We had a candidate last week, who also got two other offers in much bigger firms. Come on all you unemployed, under employed programmers/developers, where are you? Ron Hira would like us to believe there are plenty of them but we can't find any!

Labor substitution to be eliminated

2007-03-01T18:41:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Department of Labor(DOL) is planning to eliminate a provision whereby companies who filed for Labor Certification for a candidate could replace it with another candidate. This may seem as if DOL is getting strict, but the fact is that companies use the approved labor certs to lure new candidates or even sell it to unscrupulous elements when the person for whom the original labor cert was filed is no longer with the company. With the backlog elimination expected to be completed by September, there are going to be a lot of older labor certs approved where the person is now no longer with the company. It is only fair for the people waiting in the retrogression queue to get the visa numbers before new candidates are sold these approved certs with earlier priority dates.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill

2007-03-01T18:30:00.000-05:00

It's round two of the CIR bill drama. Senator Kennedy (D-MA) is planning to introduce the bill in the Senate this month with most of the action due in April. Watch for more anti-immigrant rhetoric appearing among the "Faux" news crowd. Last time around, the Senate had passed the bill by a majority (and the Indian news media celebrated as if it was already a law!), but the bill was left in the dust by the House Republicans. It was election year and no one wanted to get caught with mud on their hands. This time around it's a different story, the Democrats control the House and the Republications who did the maximum mud-slinging, all lost their seats. It would be interesting to see what Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Co. do this time to stop this bill from being passed.

Another attack on H1 visas

2007-02-08T17:08:00.000-05:00

Ron Hira, the Indian born professor at Rochester Institute of Technology has come up with numbers that may pose this question. Indian outsourcers file the most applications for temporary H-1B visas. Are they using them to train staff for jobs abroad? Everyone knows that India is becoming the IT hub of the world. So is it any wonder that Indian companies use the most H1 visas? I wonder what he's trying to convey. That's when I did some research to find Ron Hira's history. (Note: Ron is not an Indian name, he probably changed it to Ron to make him appear more American, what a faker!)

Back in April 2005, he came out with a book, Outsourcing America: What’s Behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs. So that's what it is, he's a book salesman. He will continue to twist numbers to suit his views in the book. He make these ridiculous claims without any credibility in economics.

I am on H1, and I am not training to be doing any work overseas. My hard work over that last few years have made this company grow more than 100%. And thank the press for publishing any story they can get on this topic without doing a background check on the person. I know three companies including mine who are trying to hire Americans for a senior developer position and can't get any good candidates. Two out of the five candidates we got for interviews were Asian Americans. This trend seems to be growing as we see the economy posting record growth.

NEWS FLASH FOR ALL H1B HATERS: We're out of the 2002 recession, so all H1 haters, wake up and go get a real job. There are so many out there. You may be my next colleague.

Immigrants behind 25 percent of startups - BusinessWeek

2007-01-17T16:09:00.000-05:00

Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups over the past decade, according to this study by Duke University and UC Berkeley. BusinessWeek further reports from the study that immigrant entrepreneurs' companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in sales in 2005, according to the survey. Their contributions to corporate coffers, employment and U.S. competitiveness in the global technology sector offer a counterpoint to the recent political debate over immigration and the economy, which largely centers on unskilled, illegal workers in low-wage jobs.

One of the study's biggest surprises was the extent to which Indians led the entrepreneurial pack. Of an estimated 7,300 U.S. tech startups founded by immigrants, 26 percent have Indian founders, CEOs, presidents or head researchers, the study found. Indian immigrants founded more tech startups from 1995 to 2005 than people from the four next biggest sources -- United Kingdom, China, Taiwan and Japan -- combined.

Without permanent citizenship, inventors are more likely to take valuable intellectual property elsewhere -- and U.S. companies would have to compete with them, Wadhwa said. "The bottom line is: Why aren't these people citizens?" Wadhwa said. "We're giving away the keys to the kingdom. This is a big, big deal once you figure out what this means for U.S. competitiveness."

Agriculture workers get preference over high skilled workers

2007-01-15T15:40:00.000-05:00

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has been relentlessly pushing the AgJobs bill since the CIR days, has introduced her puppy in the 110th Congress by itself. The bill plans to provide the previous illegals the Blue Card status for two periods of three years each. The Senate passed CIR bill of 2006 had these provisions in them and now they can't even wait for the bill to be re-introduced this year. Sounds a little surprising right? Well then here is the alarming part. Quietly worded in painstaking detail in the bill are provisions for their spouses to work too. This is an outright slap in the face of H-1B workers. Their spouses cannot work even if they have a Master's degree. Yet, spouses of former illegal aliens can now work legally? I'm not against their spouses working but does it sound fair on the thousands of spouses here legally on H4 visas?

The lack of legal work privileges for spouses of the skilled workers is why you see a majority of unmarried younger individuals on H-1B visas. Younger workers generally have lesser experience. Lesser experience means lesser starting salaries. This would then appear as if foreign workers are working for lesser pay than Americans. The anti-H1 groups then use this statistic to point out why they should restrict or stop the H1 visa program. This then causes the law makers to be extremely careful when enacting legislation, to not give too much away to the H1 workers. Not enabling spouses to work is one such restriction to prevent too many American jobs going to foreigners. Doesn't seem fair right? But that's how it is!

February 2007 Visa Bulletin

2007-01-12T17:09:00.000-05:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the February 2007 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	08 Jan 2003	No change
EB3	08 May 2001	No change

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	22 Apr 2005	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Philippines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	15 May 2001	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

Since the past eight months, EB3 India has not advanced beyond May 2001. This is the first visa bulletin in a while where there has been no change in any of the above visa categories. Must have been due to the December vacation month.

Cisco's Grand India Ambitions

2007-01-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

Here's the big story of the day and further proof that globalization is forcing companies to change they way they do business.

The networking-equipment maker is shifting 20% of top brass to India, in a bid to set up a global, developing-technology hub on the subcontinent. After 11 years of low-key presence Cisco is now investing $1.1 billion in India in a variety of initiatives. "This is the largest commitment outside of Silicon Valley, as India is important to our global strategy," said John Chambers, Cisco's chairman and chief executive officer.

So what is the reason for this sudden transformation? It appears that they have learnt a lesson or two from their experiences in China.

In China, homegrown rivals like Huawei and Harbour Networks have been grabbing share from Cisco. The other issue is cost. Huawei can compete against Cisco on price because of its cheap talent pool. Facing those pressures, Cisco will find it hard to maintain its high margins unless it develops its own vast force of low-cost engineering talent.

This is an excellent example of how globalization works. While it opens up vast new markets, it also makes the business extremely competetive. There is no way Cisco can compete unless it employs a model similar to its competitors. Closed-door restrictionists will only see one side of this story - Cisco is moving top jobs to India..waah waah, mommy help me!

... Cisco now wants to make India its global hub for developing technologies in routing, software, and network management. It is investing in a manufacturing facility in Chennai in south India, and has roped in global manufacturing partner Foxconn of Taiwan to help out. While Cisco will make specific voice-technology products initially for the Indian market, it will eventually use the facility as a global sourcing base to export high-tech products. To make all of this happen, Cisco is tripling its headcount in India to 6,000 in the next couple of years. The move comes at a time when India is facing a severe dearth of engineers and every big and small information-technology company is on a hiring spree.

All those who made New Year resolutions to changes jobs and move to U.S., think twice, as we will see more top companies shifting top jobs from the U.S. to compete globally.

Disadvantages of not having a green card

2007-01-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

A green card(permanent resident card) is not just another DHS document. It has a lot of importance when you travel internationally, open bank accounts, apply for driver's license. A post on ImmigrationVoice summarizes the hassles caused to persons without the green card owing to indifferent government rules.

Transit visa required at many international airports such as London, Paris, Germany. None required if you hold a recent valid U.S. permanent resident card.

Hassles and extra paperwork to open bank accounts, applying for student loans, home mortgages. Many application forms specifically allow U.S. citizens or green card holders only.

Problems with job changes. This is the single biggest disadvantage to not having a green card. One post summarizes this well.

"The biggest disadvantage for us is in our jobs - so many jobs are advertised with a clear mention that they don't support visa. This is not restricted to some mom and pop tech shops even some bigger companies do that. Also in big companies where H1B's are welcomed (like Cisco, Microsoft etc); they dont take you if you have less remaning time on your H1B. I knew a case where a friend of mine was interviewed and offered a very good position in one such reputed companies. The interview/background check process took two/three months at the end of it they realized that the personal have only 1year 4months left on his H1B visa. So they told him they wont take him; reason given is company policy that they need atleast 2 years on your H1B so that they have enough time to sponsor greencard etc. There are so many such instances where we are losing big time on our careers in the peak of our lifes." - nk2006

Driver's license issues. Here it all depends on your luck as one post summarizes it all:

"I have been in different states and this drivers licence rule differ substantially. California / florida strictly goes with your H1b validity date. For H4, it is much more difficult and my wife did not get it in CA but somehow managed ot get it in FL. When I moved to wisconsin, they gave me 3+years over my H1b validity date and also for my wife. The entire DMV process took us 5 mins whereas in FL, we stood in line from morining 3 am till evening 5pm and eventually got appointment for next day. When I asked about this in WI DMV, they said Wisconsin does not follow this and they are not aware of this." - GCBy3000

Missing out on thousands of dollars in savings on federal programs for students.

"My son who is in high school goes for a federal funded summer program every year. he is cursing me now as he cannot claim the $1000 stipend since he doesn't have an SSN(green card)." - GCAmigo

These are the real life hardships that legal residents face when there is no judgment on their application for permanent residency even after years of filing their papers. Many people think that the green card is just a document granting them permanent resident status but the examples above summarize the many real life scenarios where that single card is the difference between a simple and smooth transaction or a stressed out experience involving a lot of time and money.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T11:46:00.000-05:00

Wishing all of my readers a very happy new year 2007. If you like me are stuck in the legal permanent resident application black hole, I hope this is the year where we see some light.

USCIS Memo on H and L Timing & H1B/H-4 Decoupling

2006-12-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

From MurtyDotCom:

The USCIS has just released a memo dated December 5, 2006, that makes significant positive changes to the counting of time for H1Bs, H-4s, L-1s, and L-2s. This Memo addresses three separate issues. It decouples time spent in H-4 or L-2 status from the time limits spent in H1B or L-1 status, respectively. It permits extensions beyond the six-year H1B limit even when an individual has not been maintaining H1B status. Finally, it permits a person who departs the U.S. for more than a year prior to completion of the six years in H1B status to return for the time remaining of that six-year H1B period without again being subject to the H1B cap.

Ours To Lose

2006-12-28T10:21:00.001-05:00

It is a fallacy to believe that in the incoming 110th Congress, there will be many newly-elected moderates/conservatives in the Democratic caucus. Writing in Roll Call on November 16, 2006, noted political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said "... I met dozens of Democrats running in 2006 - no, not everyone, but most of them - and I can’t find much more than a couple who merit the label "conservative." That’s not meant to be either criticism or praise. It’s merely a statement of fact ... Virtually all of the Democrats I interviewed were pro-choice, favored rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts and sounded traditional Democratic themes on education, the environment and foreign policy ... Now let me be very clear about my point. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad that most of these Democrats are likely to be pretty typical members of their party. I’m only saying that’s where they fit. A bunch of conservative Democrats didn’t win election last week."

The idea that immigration reform prospects early in 2007 must be limited because the Democratic caucus may have too many moderate/conservative Democrats who will resist liberal immigration laws is hogwash. However, there have been numerous press reports since the election which paint a grim picture for rapid progress on significant immigration benefits legislation in the early weeks and months of 2007. Here's why we have had this mis-information campaign.

Immigration lobbyists closely allied with liberal Democrats realize full well that they are now, for the first time since 9/11, on the offense, not defense. They realize full well that they are now on the cusp of enactment of major immigration benefits bills. However, with this new perspective has come hubris. Many of them now think that S. 2611 (the amended McCain-Kennedy bill) which would have granted legalization to 5 million, established significant quota relief for both employment and family immigration, established a modest guest worker program, etc does not go far enough, and is too punitive in its other provisions. In order to increase the reach of legalization, reduce punitive provisions, etc, they are pursuing what is essentially an all-or-nothing strategy. The immigration lobbyists' attitude appears to be that unless they get the original un-amended McCain-Kennedy or better, they would rather have no relief at all for the next several years.

We believe that the window of opportunity on immigration benefits is much smaller than most people think. We need not just a bill, but a conference report, in weeks, not months. Perhaps the memories of divided government have faded inside the Beltway. The last time we had a different party in charge at either end of Pennsylvania Ave (in the Clinton years), we had an ugly political climate, and legislative grid lock. There is every reason to believe that the same might happen again in a few months. Once the new Democratic staff are hired, and once the subpoenas from the new Democratic Chairs start to flow, Washington DC will be all-ugliness all-the-time. Furthermore, when last in the opposition pre-1994, the Republicans proved that they were masters of obstruction (does any immigration lobbyist relish the idea of crossing swords with the master-parliamentarian Mr. Lamar Smith, who will do everything in his power to destroy immigration benefit hopes from his new perch as ranking member of the House Judiciary committee?).The window of opportunity is only a few months (not the many months till the start of the 2008 Presidential season).

We believe it would be more prudent to pursue a limited strategy in early 2007 of obtaining a "down-payment" on comprehensive immigration reform. Perhaps we could just get DREAM, or just move the registry date from 1971 to IRCA's date, or perhaps, Congress could return to the business left unfinished on the morning of 9/11/01, when the House was to have voted on a Senate-passed extension of 245(i). We do not believe that the prospects of comprehensive immigration reform would be in any way damaged by getting a down-payment in hand first (a bird in hand is worth two in the bush). If later, we can get more reform, the immigration champions on the Hill will be heroes. If not, immigration champions will then be able to hold their head up high and say that at least they got something concrete in hand from this historic opportunity now before us.

We welcome readers to share their opinion and ideas with us by writing to editor@ilw.com.

Here We Go Again, Another Cycle of CIR Circus Soon?!

2006-12-27T16:30:00.000-05:00

From Immigration Law:
A news report indicates that the Congress may introduce another form of Comprehensive Immigration Reform bills soon after the new Congress (110th) opens next year. The Congress keeps coming back to the immigration bills early each year without fruits at the end of the year. People are more or less exhausted of the circus. Let's see what kind of drama will unfold next couple of months.

January 2007 Visa Bulletin

2006-12-27T15:53:00.000-05:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the January 2007 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	08 Jan 2003	No change
EB3	08 May 2001	Moved ahead by 16 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	22 Apr 2005	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Philippines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	15 May 2001	Moved ahead by 7 days

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

Schedule A visa numbers which are used by Nurses and Physical Therapists are now retrogressed to 15-Jun-2004 for all countries. They have been current since Jan 2005 when the current retrogression started.

Last minute effort fails once again

2006-12-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

Sen. Cornyn attempted to push passage of the SKILL bill in the Senate during the Lame Duck Session in the earlier half of December. However, within the Republican court of the Senate, there are some Republican Senators that oppose this bill. Besides, considering the fact that the Lame Duck Congress went out of session at the end of the week, unless a miracle happened, passage of this bill both in the House and the Senate would not have materialized.

Retrogression Math for Dummies - EB3 India Edition

2006-12-01T09:38:00.000-05:00

For the seventh month in a row, the Employment based third preference category (EB3) visa cut-off date for persons born in India remains in April 2001. During the same period, EB3 worldwide has advanced by 13 months to August, 2002. Before reaching the April 2001 brick wall the cut-off date had moved steadily by 3 months during the previous 3 months.

So what could be possible reasons for this stalling? Some think that since Schedule A numbers are now used up, they're allocating EB3 numbers to the them and since a majority of the Schedule A numbers went to nurses and the likes from India, EB3 India is now at a stand still.

Others think its because of the amnesty given to illegal immigrants under section 245(i) which had a cut-off date of April 2001 and many illegal Indian immigrants may have taken advantage of this provision. This still wouldn't explain why countries like Mexico with traditionally higher number of illegal immigrants have better cut-off dates than India.

Finally that's when you switch on your calculator and start working with the numbers. There are 140,000 visa numbers available under all the employment based categories, with 7% per country limit and 28.6% allocated for EB3 and dependents counted into the numbers, there are only about 115 EB3 primary applicants allowed from India per month. Throw in a few thousand illegals into the mix and now you have the royal screw-up as is happening now. The law allows visa numbers from unused countries to be transferred to the oversubscribed countries but with nearly every category retrogressed this law won't apply for a while.

So there you have it, unless there is a change in law to at least temporarily accommodate the thousands of applicants whose lives are in limbo there is no chance that we'll see the numbers move anytime soon.

Here's a solution that would appeal to all those of you who say "well, if you don't like it then you can leave!". To them I would say, since a majority of the EB3 applicants were once on H1-B visas, why don't we put a 7% per country limit on the on H1-B visa numbers. That way only an equal number of people from India or China would come in as would from Kazakhstan and you wouldn't have this problem. You know that's never gonna happen. Why? Because the U.S. needs the Indian and Chinese skilled professionals in thousands to keep themselves globally competitive. The visas expire but there's always a new pool of foreign workers eager to come in (with the hope of green cards) every year. When its time to give them back something in return, they whimper. Grow some hair!

Excellent Q&A on backlogs, green card categories

2006-10-26T12:21:00.000-04:00

Maryland Immigration Law blog has an excellent question and answers section on all the questions that you can ask regarding employment based permanent resident categories, backlogs and questions people have when they're stuck in backlogs.

Visa Retrogression Questions & Answers

Indian Community Burgeoning in America

2006-10-24T13:50:00.000-04:00

Roughly every third person who lives Edison, a New York suburb, is of Asian Indian ancestry. Many are new immigrants who have come to work as physicians, engineers and high-tech experts and are drawn to "Little India" by convenience it's near the commuter train and familiarity.

Roughly 2.3 million people of Indian ancestry, including immigrants and the American-born, now call the U.S. home, according to 2005 Census data. That's up from 1.7 million in 2000.

They have big communities in New Jersey, New York, California and Texas, and their average yearly household income is more than $60,000 35 percent higher than the nation overall. Indian Americans, along with Indian expatriates worldwide, sent about $23 billion back to India in 2005, World Bank data show.

News story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2596841

Non-US citizens rights to challenge detention taken away

2006-10-18T18:35:00.000-04:00

U.S. President George Bush today signed a bill allowing tough CIA interrogation and military trials of terrorism suspects. The expected purpose of this "torture" bill is to legally allow intelligence professionals to use techniques like sleep deprivation and induced hypothermia while questioning "terror" suspects without facing legal court challenges from the suspects.

"This bill provides legal protections that ensure our military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists, simply for doing their jobs," Bush said, lauding the CIA interrogation program as a "vital tool" that has thwarted numerous attacks. At the signing ceremony, Mr Bush could not resist a swipe at Democrats, an indirect shot far short of campaign stump speeches in which he charges they are soft on terrorism.

TimesOnline reports the other side of the bill from a legal angle. The bill strips away the right to challenge detention without charge from all non-US citizens not just those detained outside the U.S but including those within the U.S. This means the CIA can pick anyone up without charges for questioning using torture techniques and not allow him or her to legally challenge the detention in courts. This applies to the 12 million permanent residents who are not citizens. This should be a serious consideration for anyone trying to legally immigrate to the U.S. You just lost another right universally accepted in western society.

Legal challenges saying that it is unconstitutional to remove the right of habeas corpus from anyone are already in train. But the potential application to 12 million people within the US will add political heat that was absent when it covered only 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

November 2006 Visa Bulletin

2006-10-11T14:44:00.000-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the November 2006 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Jan 2003	Moved ahead by 6 months
EB3	22 Apr 2001	No change

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	15 Apr 2005	Moved ahead by 14 days
EB3	01 Jul 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Jul 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	08 May 2001	Moved ahead by 7 days

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Jul 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

Schedule A visa numbers which are used by Nurses and Physical Therapists are now retrogressed to 01-Oct-2005 for all countries. They have been current since Jan 2005 when the current retrogression started.

Pre-PERM rush involved some fraud

2006-10-10T17:22:00.000-04:00

The Portland Press Herald recently did a series on immigration to investigate fraud in the H-1B program in Maine. The investigation was triggered when a number of applications for the H-1B and permanent residency programs began to come through the local Labor Department for labor certifications. The investigations discovered a few companies using addresses in Maine to circumvent the prewailing wage criteria for jobs that actually existed in places like New Jersey. Maine is a rural state with very limited high-tech industry with lower wages and such high number of applications was suspect.

As the boxes of paperwork piled up in Maine and other rural states, foreign labor experts came to understand what they were seeing: Small companies moving ahead of federal immigration system changes scheduled for March 28, 2005 (PERM), were flocking to rural states, hoping that their applications for foreign labor would be processed quickly and efficiently.

While both opponents and supporters of the H-1B visa program cannot agree more that abuses should be prevented and punished, the differentiation occurs in how the abuses are presented to the regular folks. The fraud factor is really low here, about 1 percent or so. There's more fraud in Medicare, so should we stop Medicare too? Genuine users of Medicare deserve better if the abuses are detected and stopped. Same is the case with the H-1B. Stop the abuses not the program. Add to this the fact that some politicians use this for fear mongering so prevelant these days.

"I think what your series teaches us is that it isn't enough just to tighten security at our borders, that as long as legitimate visa programs like the H1B program can be so easily manipulated or subjected to outright fraud, that border security - while important - is an incomplete answer," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

"Is it possible to game the system? I guess it is," said Theodore Ruthizer, past president and general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School. "My sense is the allegations of fraud and abuse are way overstated and they're not a serious problem."

Diversity (Lottery) Visa Changes

2006-10-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

Here's some news and analysis from a fellow poster at ImmigrationVoice.Org

The entry for the DV 2008 (aka Visa Lottery) commenced yesterday and would run until noon of Dec. 3. While some countries like India and China are not eligible to participate, it is important to point out some changes that might be indicative of what would happen per current immigration legislations.

In the entry form, questions about educational qualifications and country of present residence have been included. These questions have never been asked in the 13 years the visa lottery has been running. I suspect this is anticipatory of the CIR (or some variations or portions of the CIR) being passed before the results of the lottery start to trickle out in April next year. If you all would recall, the dead CIR bill passed by the senate in May had provisions that the Visa Lottery should be modified to reserve 75% of the 55K visas to applicants with advanced degrees and it would be strategic to capture this data in advance in anticipation of legislative changes.

Now, while this is not good news in it self, it could however be that the Dept. of State knows or anticipates that the piece of legislation in question and indeed more immigration legislations would be passed after the November elections and more than likely, before April. I think this is a good pointer for us and we can't but wait to see how things unfold.

In the interim, you can visit http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ to fill out an application if you are from an eligible country.

Tancredo addresses a hate group

2006-10-05T17:34:00.000-04:00

This news is a month old but still important. Tom Tancredo, the number one anti-immigration Congressman (Republican from Colorado) and head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus made an appearance at a gathering organized by a neo-Confederate hate group called League of the South (LOS). SPLC reports on the proceedings:

While Tancredo's hard-line "deport 'em all" stance on immigration has made him a favorite politician of white supremacists, this marked the first time the congressman has appeared at a hate group event.

Tancredo's appearance was part of a five-day sweep through conservative South Carolina, which hosts an early GOP primary and has seen the Southeast's largest percentage gain in foreign-born residents since the 2000 Census. Rising to his friendly audience, Tancredo blasted South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham for being too soft on immigration and basked in the long applause that followed his harangues against illegal immigrants and "the cult of multiculturalism" that glorifies disunity and refuses to acknowledge the "Christian principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution." (Tancredo did not appear to grasp the irony of addressing the "lack of unity" in America in front of a group dedicated to Southern secession.)

Tancredo has expressed his intention to run for the GOP Presedential primary in 2008, I don't think bonding with hate groups is going to be the recipe for success though! Incidents like these will harm his credibility if he's serious about his political future. Last month we witnessed a racial slur from Senator George Allen which maligned his image.

At the close of Tancredo's speech, several men in confederate-themed clothing stood up and bellowed the first notes of "Dixie," the Confederate anthem. They were soon joined by voices from throughout the large hall, which was now entirely on its feet. Tancredo, a second-generation Italian-American from Denver, appeared confused by the sudden burst of strange song. He quickly worked his way toward the exit with his staff.

The truth hurts. Retrogression!

2006-10-05T10:21:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I repost my very first posts just to remind everyone why I started this blog. Please read on...

During the 1990s and through the dot-com boom upto the recession of 2002, a large number of engineers/scientists came to the USA from all over the world. The most popular ways of coming were to come as a skilled-worker(H visa), foreign employee(L visa) or international student(F visa). After coming here, many believed that this was a land of opportunity and wanted to pursue a career and a life here and applied for permanent residency (green card) through one of the employment based(EB) categories. However, the USA only allows a fixed number of employment based immigrants per year. This number is fixed at 140,000 per year since 1990. This number also includes the dependents(spouse and children) of an EB applicant and in addition there is a per-country limit set at 7% of the total. While, most people applied for permanent residency and continued on with their daily lives, they were unaware of a major bottleneck being created in the system which came to light in January 2005. Retrogression!

First there was denial, then there was anger, then frustration. While many went on to hope and prayers, some decided to take matters into their own hands. These are the people of the likes at ImmigrationVoice.Org, who decided to do something to reverse the steady decline of the American dream for the highly educated, skilled individuals or as I like to call them, "the cream of society". These are the people who generate wealth in a economy. They use their brain power to come up with products and innovations that drive companies to profits, driving up the economy and ultimately resulting in employment creation for all. It would seem suicidal for any country to create an atmosphere which discourages these people from migrating to their country. There is already a steady outflux of these PhD holders, Masters' degree holders and others with extensive industry experience from this country out to either competing economies or albeit third world, but fast growing home economies.

So, before you decide to make plans to come here, understand that there is no red carpet welcome here even if you topped your university back home. You will have to work hard for your future and there will be no guarantees of any sorts. I've learnt my lessons the hard way, hope you don't have to do the same. Happy enlightenment!

US tumbles in ranking of world's economies

2006-09-28T12:35:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted this on how the U.S. is falling back in attracting and retaining foreign talent. The World Economic Forum has now come up with a report on global competitiveness of the worlds greatest economies. The U.S. which used to be number one for a long time? is now toppled to sixth place. Switzerland is at the top most spot. Boston Globe reports some of the reasons for the U.S. performance:

The high budget and trade deficits, disappointing response to Hurricane Katrina, government corruption, and a decreasing talent pool for employment due to immigration restrictions were factors cited by the forum, which moved the United States to sixth in its global competitiveness index from the top spot a year ago.

Interesting to see how the biggest emerging economies fared in this list:

Emerging economies such as China's and India's fared modestly. India came in at 43d, carried by its innovation and the sophistication of operations. China dropped six places from last year, to 54th

Competitiveness Can't Compete With Politics

2006-09-26T14:38:00.000-04:00

President Bush unveiled the so-called American Competitiveness Initiative during his State of the Union address in January. Since then, though, the ambitious plan with bipartisan support has been stalled by election-year politics.

After pressing since 2004 for legislation to help the United States maintain its technological dominance, the tech industry thought everything was aligned for action this year. Tech executives thought the whole package would be wrapped up in months, not years, and warned that the United States risked falling behind in the global economy unless Congress acted quickly.

"These CEOs aren't Washington guys, and in their minds, when everybody agrees that something's necessary … they just can't see why action is so difficult," said Bruce Mehlman, executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a public policy association of nine top high-tech chief executives.

"We're sorry that some of the important provisions got tied up in much more controversial issues," said White House science advisor John H. Marburger III. "We can't just give up after a year. The stakes are sufficiently high to view this as a multiyear campaign."

The experience has provided another lesson in Silicon Valley's political education: how the crosscurrents of a high-stakes election can derail even broadly popular legislation.

News story: Competitiveness Can't Compete With Politics

October 2006 Visa Bulletin

2006-09-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also seperates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the October 2006 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	15 Jun 2002	Was previously unavailable
EB3	22 Apr 2001	Moved ahead by 7 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Apr 2005	Moved ahead by 1 month
EB3	01 May 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 May 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 May 2001	Moved ahead by 9 days

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 May 2002	Moved ahead by 2 months

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's backlogged by 5 years now for applicants born in India.

Congress ends session without fixing immigration

2006-09-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

With the Congress session now drawing to a close and the mid-term elections in November, its really hard now for any bills favoring legal immigration to pass this year. As a last minute PR effort, some House republicans brought a new bill to build a 700 mile fence along the U.S. Mexico border. These provisions already existed in the CIR bill but House republicans didn't want to tackle the immigration implications of building a fence and stalled the bill from passing for the last 2 months.

ImmigrationVoice has started a new fund-raiser campaign to prepare for the next session and has a target of $60,000 within the next three months. I only hope that this time they choose a bill which has chances of passing both houses without much controversy to get their legal immigration provisions through. Some good candidates include the SKIL bill which is mostly ready to be introduced in Congress but the sponsors are looking for an opportune moment. Unfortunatley for the thousands of legal immigrants stuck in the quagmire called retrogression; waiting for another year because of pure political reasons is something that they didn't expect from a country that likes to call itself the greatest nation on the planet.

Global talent: U.S. falls back as other countries take lead

2006-09-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

Many industrialized countries have in the past 5 years introduced laws that attract highly skilled foreigners to immigrate to their countries while the U.S. is still squeaking by with decades old laws with quotas that were set in an economy that was very different from what we have today. Among the countries that have much favorable immigration policies for the highly skilled over the U.S. are Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, New Zealand.

Many of these countries didn't have any immigration policies for the high skilled until recently and have woken up to the global high skill shortage. They have worked with their educational institutions, industries and come up with immigration policies that will give them the technical leadership that all nations strive to achieve. Many with much lower population than the U.S. have no numerical limits on immigration and attract the high skilled with incentives such as the ability for spouses to take up employment.

Even countries that traditionally were emigrant countries have started policies to stop the bleeding of talent. China offers incentives for its nationals settled abroad to return back. India's economic boom of the last few years has brought many of its nationals working abroad back. Historically, Ireland has been a country of emigration. However, during its economic boom of the mid-1990’s, known as the “Celtic Tiger,” Ireland began to experience a shortage of skilled workers that was felt by many other industrialized countries. From 1999 to 2003, the number of work visas issued rose from 6,250 to 47,000.

While many of these countries traditionally looked up to the U.S. to emulate its immigration policies, they have now learnt enough and have taken the lead with much better policies to attract the global talent while the U.S. is taking a reactionary approach for short term goals and clubbing high skilled immigration in the same bill that deals with illegal immigration. Talk about being clueless!

Senator racially insults Indian

2006-08-16T21:34:00.000-04:00

One day we have an Indian among the most powerful positions in America and the next day we have an insensitive and misinformed racial slur against an Indian. Senator George Allen (Republican from Virginia) repeatedly used the term 'macaca' - a racial slur used by White supremacists against people of color - on an Indian American student filming him on his election campaign.

One thing that is very clear in this remark is that the majority of Americans have no clue where India is and consider everyone between Europe and China as the same. 'Macaca' is a racial slur used by French Whites against North Africans who immigrate in large numbers to France. By using that term to refer to an Indian, the Senator representing the best of Americans displayed how much knowledge of the world he has.

Among one of the Senator's defense points is that he didn't know what the term meant. It doesn't matter! He meant to use a racial slur, it doesn't matter if he got the wrong one. That only shows he is stupid and not a closet racist.

So, my non-White friends, welcome to America, you will be racially profiled and treated differently in many places, be it police intolerance or general public ignorance. This is particularly important in the wake of 9/11, the London bombings and the recent foiled plot in England. You will always feel different no matter how long you stay here. While they will go to great lengths to show that they do not discriminate against race, you will definitely find out soon enough that some do!

September 2006 Visa Bulletin

2006-08-15T16:02:00.000-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also seperates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the August 2006 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	Everyone can apply!
EB2	Unavailable	No one can file under this category
EB3	15 Apr 2001	Moved ahead by 14 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Mar 2005	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2002	Moved ahead by 5 months

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2002	Moved ahead by 5 months

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	22 Apr 2001	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Mar 2002	Moved ahead by 5 months

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's backlogged by 5 years now for applicants born in India.

Immigrant Success Story

2006-08-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

The anti-immigrants have to hate this immigrant success story. IIM, Calcutta and Yale University alumni Indra Nooyi is the first Indian-born CEO of PepsiCo. She is also only the 11th woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Congratulations to her! This has to be a wonderful Independence Day gift to her family and friends.

After spending her first 23 years in India and attaining an MBA from IIM Calcutta, she came to the U.S. on student visa to study at Yale University. She studied hard and worked nights to make ends meet. Twenty seven years later she is the CEO of PepsiCo, not only one of the biggest Fortune 500 company but also an icon of the Great American Dream. While at PepsiCo, Nooyi has played a vital role in starting Tricon . She also took the lead in the acquisition of Tropicana in 1998.

Where are the anti-immigrants now? If they had their way this woman would never have been in the U.S. in the first place.

Is opposition to H-1B racially biased?

2006-08-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

With an overwhelming majority of H-1B visa holders coming from India, China or other Asian countries, may be there is a racial element to the opposition. Would there have been so much opposition and misinformation had it been that such large number of H-1B visa holders were Caucasian? Won't they have increased the visa numbers if they could not get in?

There is indeed such a visa in existance exclusively for Australians (where 92% of the population is Caucasian) called the E-3 visa which allows the same kind of people who are eligible for an H-1B visa to come in and work in the U.S. Moreover unlike H-1B visa holders they can stay indefinitely and their spouses can work too. Since the E-3 visa will also essentially have the same effect on American workers as the H-1B visa then why don't we see any opposition to this visa?

Obtaining U.S. permanent residence frustrates foreign professionals

2006-08-03T16:59:00.000-04:00

News article from the Sacramento Bees: Hired hands: Wait for green card tries visa holders

Raghu Ballal, a civil engineer for the Shaw Group, plans to get his MBA in the United Kingdom after being frustrated at the wait for a green card in the U.S. He will apply for fast-track residency through the U.K.'s Highly Skilled Migrant Program.

"If I go to the United Kingdom now, I would be a U.K. citizen even before I became a green card holder in the United States," said Ballal, 30. Ballal's decision to try his luck in Europe is the byproduct of America's overtaxed system for legally admitting foreign workers, which could leave him hanging for five or more years and prevent him from pursuing a promotion while he waits.

Here again we have pricks at the Programmer's Guild talking crap to get attention. Their solution to end the green card wait? Kill the H1-B visa program.

"There wouldn't be so many people waiting for green cards if there weren't so many people on H-1B visas," said Kim Berry, a Sacramento high-tech worker who is president of a group called Programmers Guild, an anti-temporary visa group.

Brainiacs aren't they? No wonder then that they try to attract the unemployed with 1 dollar membership deals!

In the United States, about 140,000 employment-based green cards are available annually for applicants and their families. As of January of 2005, more than half a million applicants were waiting for visas, which are granted after a prolonged, multi-agency review.

In Britain's point-based system for highly skilled visas, Ballal's MBA from Berkeley or UCLA, not just Oxford, would give him a boost. So would his perfect English, education and work experience. Britain's highly skilled program doesn't require that an employer sponsor him for his initial visa. He can petition for himself even without a job offer if he can prove his skills are in demand. If he's accepted, he can change jobs and apply for the equivalent of a green card in two years, likely getting it in weeks. After two years he can apply to become a U.K. citizen, which would take months rather than years.

The truth about "H-1B only" ads

2006-08-02T17:57:00.000-04:00

Many times consulting companies provide IT staff to other companies they call clients. These clients who don't want to deal with hiring their own IT staff outsource it to the consulting companies. The actual jobs exist at the client companies and not the consulting companies. The clients don't want to deal with recruiting, be it American programmers or H1B programmers and they look to the consulting companies for their IT needs. This business practice is called staffing and very common place in the U.S.

The consulting companies come in a variety of sizes from large (Keane, Oxford, IBM, Wipro etc) to small (Hanu Software). Whatever the size their business model is pretty straight forward - bill the client at a certain rate, take their cut for profit and pay the consultant the rest. Obviously as a consultant you wouldn't be happy if you are billed to the client at say $100/hour and what you get paid is $35/hour.

This is where smaller companies like Hanu Software come in. They target those candidates who have been at a client's project for sometime and are confident about them being there for some more time but want a better slice of the pie. So to attract these type of folks they put up ads in Dice or Monster and other community portals like Sulekha. The key here is that companies like Hanu Software don't have a job offer, it's the candidate they're looking for who has the job but wants to switch companies to get better pay. Companies like these are the only bargaining chip that seasoned consultants have to demand better pay since their visa is tied to the consulting company. The guild is actually hurting this unofficial competition and exposing the consultants to abuse by attacking these smaller companies.

Now Programmer's Guild is making a big fuss about these type of ads saying they're discriminating against Americans by only hiring H1B candidates. Are the people at the guild stupid or do they think the people who read their complaints are stupid?! It has to be one or the other. Which American would like to work with a company which takes half their pay when they can directly work for the client without a visa? There is no job! So how can they hire an American or anyone for that matter.

It is because there are not enough quality Americans for the jobs the client companies are outsourcing it to IT staffers in the first place. If there are more Americans readily available for the job, can't they easily undercut the consulting companies rates?

It seems with the IT job market now being very healty the guild is loosing its members and are making all the noise to get more attention and $$ via membership.

The guild's at it again!

2006-07-25T17:20:00.000-04:00

Here's another attempt by the Programmer's Guild (PG) to malign the H1-B program. The U.S Department of Labor publishes certain information about all the H1/L1 visas it issued, like the name of the company, the salary being paid and the duration of work. As per the high standards of processing at the Dept. of Labor (snicker!) they release this once a year at the end of the fiscal year which is every September.

Now PG is demanding that the Dept. of Labor should publish data for fiscal year 2007 immediately?! Are they kidding?!! I think they need to research the processing efficiency at the Dept. of Labor before they dream about things like this. Heck, the Dept. of Labor hasn't even finished entering Labor Certification application data they received in 2000, they were so inefficient that after repeated demands from the applicants they had to create backlog processing centers. Now PG wants faster access to the data for 2007?. Lol!

Without some serious overhaul or investments, they can't achieve this. If they do decide to invest, who is gonna pay for this additional cost? The fees charged for the application which is over $2000 for an H1 visa fund the program and some more, where is the extra money to speed up the process going to come from? The applicants don't need it fast. It's PG who needs it.

The normal H1 processing takes about 2-3 months. Even after processing is complete it takes until the next fiscal year before the applicant can get a visa if the visas are used up. PG wants this time frame for U.S. applicants to apply for those jobs. What they conveniently forget is that U.S. companies don't hire foreigners if they can get a U.S. worker they like. The months long waits plus high costs of application and legal fees is a definite deterrent unless the company feels strongly about a certain foreign applicant. In such cases, I can't see how they will recruit someone with lower skills or brain power.

Most of the people who are still unemployed , displaced or under-employed (I like how they come up with nice words for stupid wannabe programmers) are of lower quality who mostly just swarmed into IT during the boom times of the late 90s and were quickly gone once the market went bust. I've heard about carpenters and construction workers move into IT without even a Bachelor's degree in IT or related fields. These people should never have been in IT in the first place and it was the labor shortage that allowed them to get into IT.

So, other than making up more work for the Dept. of Labor I don't see any benefits from these demands by PG.

August 2006 Visa Bulletin

2006-07-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also seperates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the August 2006 visa bulletin:
For an analysis of the visa bulletin visit Murthy.com

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	01 Jan 2006	No change
EB2	Unavailable	No one can file under this category
EB3	01 Apr 2001	Moved back by 14 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	01 Mar 2005	No change
EB3	01 Oct 2001	No change

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Oct 2001	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	22 Apr 2001	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Oct 2001	No change

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's backlogged by 5 years now for applicants born in India.

US 'could be going bankrupt'

2006-07-17T13:09:00.000-04:00

As most of us immigrate to the U.S. for its superior life style, The Telegraph has a report on how the U.S. might be in for bankruptcy according to research conducted by Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy."

Most of you may know that the U.S. government prints money based on selling U.S. Treasury bonds to foreign investors one of the biggest of which is the Chinese government.

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

What this means is that inflation and a depreciating dollar may burn out all your savings 10 to 20 years from now as you are getting ready to retire. At that point there may not be a lot of difference between what you have and what your friend who is in your home country has in terms of wealth.

CIR bill is dead

2006-07-17T12:46:00.000-04:00

It's not official but as I had feared the comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) bill is dead and buried as the House has not yet come up with the list of members for the conference committee let alone a decision on the bill itself. This is another side of politics where with elections for the House seats in November there is not enough political will power to pass a controversial bill. No politician wants to get caught on the wrong side during election time. So they will let the bill die as the summer session comes to an end and experts believe the bill may come up again late this year or early next year once the elections are through. Meanwhile all the legal immigrants waiting for green cards can enjoy the rest of the summer and continue waiting.

Dubious companies and bench-time

2006-06-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

Seeing the complaints that Programmers Guild filed against certain companies for advertising jobs only to visa holders and the media coverage that it received, I thought about informing the talented folks who may be looking for an opportunity to work in the U.S. about two issues that are important to consider if you are a visa seeker.

Cost
Never pay anyone for sponsoring an H1-B. It is illegal and more importantly the employer itself is probably dubious and doesn't have any work for you. They are making money off your visa sponsorship, if they did have any real work for you, then it should easily cover the cost of visa sponsorship (which is now over $2,000 excluding legal fees - another story). I know the desire that many foreign job seekers have to come to the U.S. to earn a decent living for the betterment of their family and their future, but do not fall into this trap. These type of employers are preying on your desire to immigrate to the U.S. and they may tempt you to pay BIG money in return for visa sponsorship. Did I mention that it is illegal too?

Bench-time
Back in the days I used to hear about bench-time, the period between projects. Many times companies would not pay the consultants when they're out of project. It is common place in the U.S. for companies to do this to permanent residents or U.S. citizens. Its illegal for companies to not pay salary to visa holders during bench-time, it is OK to be unpaid if you are a permanent resident or a U.S. citizen. Infact if a permanent resident or U.S. citizen gets laid off, they can claim unemployment benefits while they look for another job. So its not surprising and also makes economic sense that you don't see them on bench, they're just laid off so that they can get those benefits. Visa holders on the other hand cannot get any unemployment benefits and if they're laid off they have to leave the country. This is one of the many discriminatory rules against job seekers who are on visas. Another reason why the H1 visa should not be tied to any company but to an individual. This will prevent many of the visa abuses that parties like the Programmer's Guild often cite.

The H1 visa program enables talented, amibitious hard-working people from all around the world to pursue the American dream. The U.S. in return gets these highly trained and skilled brains for no cost at all. It is really sad to see some dubious companies preying on the needs of ambitious youngsters who only want to work and earn a living. Its even more sad to see organized groups use the devious schemes as examples to bad mouth the H1 visa program. Do they ever thank the thousands of folks who have contributed immensely to the economy? Considering a 5% unemployment rate, 65,000 is less than 0.45% of the total unemployed. What the U.S. should be worried about is not the few jobs that go to these brilliant foreign talent but the day when these people do not wish to come to the U.S. anymore!

Programmers Guild file H1-B visa complaints

2006-06-28T18:25:00.000-04:00

A major point of argument against foreign workers on H1 visas is that they're not skilled or competent enough but just cheap labor that companies often abuse. Programmer's Guild, another IT workers lobby group has filed various complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice that certain U.S. companies use words like "We require candidates for H1B from India" and "We sponsor GC [green card] and we do prefer H1B holders". They remind us that these are against the U.S. Immigration laws and that these companies should try and hire Americans before they hire a foreigner. They argue that these companies only want to hire foreigners as cheap labor and essentially use these examples to black label the visa program itself.

According to the USCIS definitions, H1-B speciality occupations include such diverse fields as architecture, mathematics, social sciences, accounting, arts, law, education. Candidates should have atleast a bachelor's degree or equivalent. If indeed companies wanted to bring in cheap labor, shouldn't we see more foreign architects, lawyers, accountants, professors, doctors as they should be as easily available in any other country as programmers are? Then why are there mostly only IT workers being brought in on H1-B and significantly lesser numbers in other occupations? Everyone knows how highly paid some of these other occupations are and shouldn't companies just hire them cheaper abroad if that was their only goal?

While I agree that those who abuse the program should be punished, the few abuses itself should be no reason to stop or cut back the program. Let the markets decide what is the required number and let the labor groups and the Government agencies ensure that wage abuses are monitored and prevented. The complaints that the guild filed mention ads on sites like DICE and MONSTER, but they also mention dozens of ads on SULEKHA.com, which is a community web portal for expatriate Indians. Are they suggesting that companies should not advertise vacant job positions to foreign nationals? The guild is just using technical reasons to promote its own agenda. One look at their home page is enough to understand whether they're concerned more about improving the quality of the visa program or whether they are against the visa program itself and are finding reasons to stop it.

The truth is, there is a lack of "QUALITY" people and that's it. IT is only about 1.5% of the total U.S. work force and high-tech jobs are ever increasing. The shortage of "QUALITY" people drives up the wages of the few people who are employed in IT. These people who are then fundamentally opposed to bringing foreign workers will go to great lengths to find flaws in the system. If these so called "abuses" in the H1-B system are fixed, then they will find other ways to oppose it, that's just their job!

Why U.S. Tech Firms Need More, Not Fewer, Indian Workers

2006-06-20T10:08:00.000-04:00

IT is still in its developing stages in many parts of the globe. The demand for skilled tech workers is still going strong. InformationWeek has this story today which explains why U.S. firms need to hire more in India and other developing nations.

"Less than one half of IBM's revenues derive from sales to customers in the United States. Earlier this week, Indian outsourcer TCS bagged two deals worth more than $30 million in Latin America. Here's why these two facts combined show why American tech services firms have no choice but to continue adding staff in India and China while trimming down their more expensive U.S. workforce.

The anti-offshoring lobby tends to forget that American firms--in tech and in most other industries--aren't selling just to U.S. customers. IBM, EDS, HP and others have sizeable sales opportunities in Europe, South America and, most significantly, the Asia Pacific region. But, those same opportunities await foreign IT services vendors--including Atos Origin, Cap Gemini, Wipro, Infosys and the above mentioned TCS.

So imagine if, as some lobbyists and protectionist politicians would have it, strict limits were placed on the ability of U.S. companies to establish offshore operations in places like India and China. Were that to happen, there is no way that these firms could compete internationally with foreign rivals that are either based in, or have sizeable operations in, countries where skilled tech labor is considerably cheaper than in the U.S.

Indian outsourcers exist, and they are radically changing the economics of the IT services market globally. All the wishing, hoping and cussing in the world isn't going to change that. IBM and the other U.S. tech services vendors need to radically adjust their cost basis to reflect that reality or they will be reduced to small, regional niche players. How many layoffs do you think we'd see then?"

Has the U.S. really increased the number of visas?

2006-06-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back I reported that the U.S. Senate passed the CIR bill. Since then I've been approached by a few friends who said that the U.S. has increased the number of visas for the high-skilled. This is another example of painting the rosy picture by the news media. While it is true that these provisions exist in the CIR bill, it is not true that the U.S. has passed these provisions. The CIR bill has only passed the U.S. Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives has to reconcile it with their version which didn't have any immigration benefits, instead they had provisions for fencing the border and deporting illegals. So at the end of the House-Senate conference committee (which has not yet been formed and which some House Republican members are threatening to kill), it may be possible that no pro-legal immigration provisions come out at all. Whatever comes out of the conference committee will be signed into law by President Bush.

Last year there was a Budget Reconciliation Bill, the Senate version (S.1932) of which included increasing visa numbers; but in the House-Senate conference, the House members managed to remove all immigration benefits except allocating 50,000 re-captured visas for nurses . House members are local politicians who don't care much about the U.S. as a whole and Senate members are mostly more educated and are more world-conscious. All bills have to pass both houses before they can be signed into law by the President.

For a quick skinny on the U.S. Congress visit this link at Wikipedia.

Why does this blog sound so gloomy on the U.S. ?

2006-06-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

So a friend of mine asked me why I'm being discontent when "they" have increased the number of visas to 1.5 lacs and when there are lots of jobs available in the U.S. It is for reasons like this that I get motivated writing this blog. As I say right under the banner, my blog will contradict some of the rosy picture painted by the media.

First of all, let me start by saying that the job scenario is almost like the pre dotcom bubble era. It's getting harder to find quality candidates as most of them are comfy with their jobs. Fresh graduates are increasingly finding jobs they like and more people are switching back to IT now that the real-estate frenzy has died down. You can find these aspects in the news media easily and that's why I don't write about them. So, reading my blog will surely seem gloomy as I show only one-side of the coin but then so does the news media - they show the brighter side, I show the darker side.

Non-immigrant spouse worries

2006-06-16T17:33:00.000-04:00

What do you think about your wife working? It's a very personal question and depends on various factors. Does she need to work to help with finances or does she need to work to keep herself busy? It's really upto the husband and wife to decide. Well, now how would you feel if the Government told you that your wife is not allowed to work. Will you feel like some right of yours is being violated? This is exactly what the U.S. does to the spouses of non-immigrant (work and student) visa holders.

U.S. does not allow your wife (or husband) to work if you are on a work or student visa. So she has to sit at home all day even if she has a Masters degree and years of experience that will clearly benefit the U.S., if she were to work. To make matters worse, she is not even allowed to have a social security number which is tied to the credit score that is used by banks and lending institutions in deciding if she is eligible for a loan. She may have trouble getting a driver's license which is the de facto ID for all local purposes. If she enrolls into college for further studies, she has to pay the higher tuition fees that are charged to non-residents even if she has stayed there for many years. She is truly a non-existant entity, a second class resident without some of the most basic rights. In this stage she is vulnerable to depression and domestic abuse. That's equal rights, American style! Now for some eye-openers.

The UK with its much higher population density and cost of living allows the spouse of non-immigrants to take any job he or she pleases to. Go there if you care about your wife.
Everyone knows how the U.S. likes to boast about its values of freedom and liberty, specially to the conservative middle-eastern countries. Well know this then, even the UAE allows the spouse of a non-immigrant to work.

The right to work is a basic human right that the individual should be the one to choose and not the Government. Doesn't it seem like protectionism on the part of U.S to bar spouses from working? Isn't there already a numerical limit on the number of non-immigrants allowed? How does some women working to spend their time hurt the general population? Even if it does hurt some what, does it trump over their basic right to work? Do not allow people to come in if you're that worried. If you let them in, then allow them all rights and treat them as you would treat anyone else.

Cheese in a mouse-trap

2006-06-14T18:19:00.000-04:00

An excellent personal account I found today details the emotional journey of an ambitious young engineer through his 10 year stint in the USA. Reading it has inspired me to write the following:

Early 1990s were the days when the American dream was becoming more of a reality for many brilliant engineers from India. These were the type of guys who could re-invent electricity if needed. A poor nation with scarce natural resources, corrupt bureaucracy, abundant poverty and an embarassing caste-system had finally found a niche - intelligent, educated, english-speaking and motivated youth.

The cheese
America seemed the place where the best of everything was. Indian youth were getting exposed to the world of opportunities outside its poor motherland. Indians are extremely patrioitic, yet these young men and women wanted to embrace a different land. May be they had given up hope on their own country. May be they wanted a short-cut to a more materialistic life. American companies valued their skills and talent and were willing to hire people from countries half way around the globe.

The mouse-trap
Many came to the U.S. on work-permits that would allow them to work in the U.S.A for a few years. Once here, companies would sponsor them for permanent residency ("green" card) which would allow them to stay in the U.S. permanently. While all this sounded good, little did they know that the decades old immigration laws were going to trap them in a state of limbo soon. October 12 2005 was the D-day for most green card applicants when their applications were further delayed back by 5 or more years after having waited 3 years or more. This came as a rude shock for most people who were just going about their lives until then. This had completely destroyed all their future plans. From marriage, to buying a house, to changing jobs.

Freedom
When things go as expected people feel a sense of freedom to plan their lives. When everything you do is constrained by an unknown date of attaining permanent residency, you loose the freedom to plan your life. When the U.S. law makers willingly ignore the pain and agony of living every day waiting for the next visa bulletin, you know you are not wanted here. When America is not the dream you thought it was, it is time to break free.

July 2006 Visa Bulletin

2006-06-14T16:23:00.000-04:00

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also seperates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the July 2006 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	01 Jan 2006	No change
EB2	01 Jan 2003	No change
EB3	15 Apr 2001	Moved ahead by 7 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	Moved ahead by 11 months
EB2	01 Mar 2005	Moved ahead by 8 months
EB3	01 Oct 2001	Moved ahead by 3 months

For persons born in Phillipines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Oct 2001	Moved ahead by 3 months

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	22 Apr 2001	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Oct 2001	Moved ahead by 3 months

Most IT related applicants would fall under EB3. That's backlogged by 5 years now for applicants born in India.

IBM ups investment in India

2006-06-06T10:54:00.000-04:00

Last month I brought up an article that showed how IBM was moving high-end research jobs into India. Well here is a continuation of that story.

IBM to invest $6B in India over next three years, tripling its investment of past three years. It dwarfs the $3.9 billion combined investment announced last year for India by three U.S.-based companies Microsoft, Intel and Cisco Systems. IBM said it planned to expand its services, software, hardware and research businesses in India.

I remember in 2000 when IBM opened a development center in Andheri (a western suburb in Mumbai) where they only hired the most brilliant few that they could find. IBM only had 4,900 employees in India in 2002, now it has 43,000. That's still only 14% of its worldwide number of 300,000. There is more room to grow. And don't just limit this to IBM, the competition is going to imitate the leader, meaning more jobs coming to India and other developing countries.

Now what is the reason to immigrate to a foreign land when all these companies are setting up shop next to your home?

IEEE-USA slams immigration bill

2006-05-30T17:16:00.000-04:00

The Senate passed immigration bill has provisions to increase the H1-B visas to 115,000 per year and exempt certain U.S. Master's degree holders from the cap. What may come as a surprise to most of you is IEEE-USA is strongly opposed to allowing foreign high-tech workers. They say they're concerned about the "alleged" abuse of the H1-B and the L1 visa programs and the system needs to be fixed before it is expanded.

I remember during my college days when applicants to U.S. universities would pay money and take up membership with the IEEE. Little did they know that their own money would go to advocacy against their ability to work in the USA.

While their passion to oppose the H1-B program is understandable, their opposition to legal high-skilled immigration is truly appalling and both a disservice and a misrepresentation to all the aspiring immigrants who were or are members of the organization. Why is a professional enhancement organization getting into politics?

Unemployment rate in IT is at 2% compared to the 5% overall U.S. unemployment rate. That's practically full employment. Sure the economic recession of 2002 drove out a large part of the IT work force into other fields but they're now free to come back to IT. If they can, then why is the unemployment rate so low? What IEEE-USA members are interested in is to raise their wages to higher levels by allowing the work force shortage to continue. That's their goal and they will swoop to any levels to achieve it.

U.S. Senate approves immigration bill

2006-05-27T21:28:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Senate approved the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill that will grant some 10 million illegal immigrants a chance at U.S. citizenship. That's no so good news for legal immigrants who have been waiting patiently for years to get permanent residency. The bill that was heavily debated in the Senate and which senate conservative republicans put every possible effort to kill also includes some last minute pro-legal immigrant provisions. The whole thing was a roller coaster ride with amendments after amendments being introduced that did nothing to benefit legal immigrants. Finally as a fitting climax these provisions were added in the last amendment called the Manager's amendment. The Immigration Voice team and their strategic counselors have managed an almost impossible feat by adding these provisions in the CIR bill.

Some of the highlights of this amendment are:

Hard country limit on visa numbers which was set at 10% per country was replaced by a soft limit wherein if any country does not use its quota those unused visas will go to oversubscribed countries. This is good news for applicants from India and China as these countries which have large population will always be oversubscribed.
Certain US Masters degree holders and other advanced degree holders will be exempt from the visa number limits.
Allows I-485 to be filed as soon as labor certification is approved
EAD and Advance Parole will be issued at 3 year extensions instead of yearly.
Labor backlog elimination.

The next step in this uphill struggle is the House-Senate Conference where the Senate version and the House version will be reconciled. While the entire nation hopes that sanity will prevail, it is entirely possible that since the two version are so vastly different that nothing may come out in the end.

Legal Immigrants: Waiting Forever!

2006-05-24T12:24:00.000-04:00

The National Foundation for American Policy released results of a study titled Legal Immigrants: Waiting Forever! highlighting the serious backlogs in the current immigration system. The study found five year wait times for most employment based immigrants which could only worsen if no legislation is passed soon.

"Unless Congress acts, the day may come when promising international students and outstanding foreign-born scientists and engineers decide America is no longer the land of opportunity for them," said Stuart Anderson, executive director of NFAP on MSNBC.

NFAP has done the hard part, now only if the U.S. law makers listen to them.

U.S. is not heaven!

2006-05-19T11:45:00.001-04:00

For a lot of people outside the U.S. this country is like heaven. They think everyone here is rich. When you land that job offer for $50,000 you don't realize that you may end up saving only $5,000 a year. Here's the typical breakdown for a year considering a family of two:

Gross Pay: $50,000

Taxes: $16,000
Rent: $12,000
Living Expenses: $10,000
Car: $3,500
Health Care: $3,000

Amount left: $5,500

The only way to save more is to cut on living expenses which means living poor. Is that why you come to U.S.? to live poor? I know people who make $70,000 or more and can't manage to save more than $10,000 per year. That's about Rs. 4,50,000. I know many people who save more than that living lavishly in India. Let's look at the rent and health care costs in detail.

Rent:
I think in this respect the U.S. has a weird tax system where it rewards those who have money and punishes those who don't. What am I talking about?

Take the case of house rent. In Mumbai where I worked earlier, a big chunk of my salary came in the form of the House Rent Allowance. This component of salary, which in my case was about 40% of my income, fluctuated yearly based on cost of renting and was also tax-deductible. In the U.S. rent that you pay is not tax deductible from the federal tax. Ouch! To add insult to injury, if someone has enough money, they can buy lots of houses and rent them out. Agreed they will have lots of mortgages to pay, but the mortgage interest on those payments are tax-deductible.

Most of the time the rent is priced by the market in such a way that its the renters who pay for the mortgage of the landlord and the landlord gets tax-deductions from Uncle Sam as a bonus. Infact, there are many publicly traded companies whose only business is to rent out houses (eg: Home Properties). The result is higher rents than what would have been otherwise.

Health Insurance:
Typically for a family of two, you would pay anywhere between $40 and $100 per week. That's upto $5,000 per year and that's only the premium you pay not the other 70% or so that the employer pays to the insurance company. It may be noted here that your premium pre-tax but employers contribution is tax-deductible.

You may say health insurance is optional. Yes it is, but only when you can afford health care without insurance. The system is so deep-rooted that it is extremely expensive to have health care without some sort of health insurance. You may say developing countries are backwards in terms of providing health care for its residents. After getting to know the U.S. health care system, I think its better to have poorer health care than extortive health care.

The main culprit in the system is health insurance. While insurance is good for society in general, as it makes it easier for the sick to get medical services cheaper, there are those who exploit the system. Everyone might have heard about patients suing doctors for negligence. Then there are pharmaceutical companies who mass advertise their latest and most expensive products like it was some soap. Who pays for those ads? You, through your health insurance!

Then, there is the inefficiency in general at hospitals and clinics as the jobs are almost guaranteed for life. Finally there are uncurbed prices for medical supplies that drive the price of all things like medicines, staff salaries to extortive levels.

For example, when you got to an emergency room, they usually give you a blanket and a pillow while you're in the waiting room that are charged at $50! Now, if it was money going from your pocket you would cry out loud but since insurance pays for it, you don't care. And when no one cares, the insurance rates go high along with higher charges for everything else associated. During the years 2001 to 2003 when the economy shed thousands of jobs, insurance rates actually went high by about 60%. Reason? Fewer people contributing into the pool while those who needed or exploited the system stayed put.

U.S. Senate Proceedings Update

2006-05-18T17:44:00.000-04:00

The CIR bill (S. 2611) now has about 105 amendments, most of which are waiting in the queue to be introduced. The main sponsors of the bill Senator Specter and Senator Kennedy will decide when and in what order these amendments will be introduced. Somewhere buried in those amendments are the Brownback amendment (SA 4058) and the Cornyn amendment (SA 4005) both of which contain useful legislation for aspiring legal immigrants.

To give you a picture of the kind of amendments that are being introduced, here are a few that have already been introduced. Once introduced they are voted on, usually by voice vote or a Yea-Nay vote. Needless to say some of these pass and some don't.

1. Kyl Amendment that prohibits Criminals from getting Amnesty was passed 99-0
2. Sessions amendment that asks for building a 370 mile fence between USA and Mexico was passed 83-16
3. Vitter's amendment that would have removed the guest worker program and the legalization of the undocumented workers was defeated 33-16
4. Sen Cornyn introduced an amendment that asks for the Guest Worker program to be Employer Based similar to the H1-B program instead of allowing the immgrant to self petition. This amendments squeaked through narrowly 50-48
5. Sen Kennedy introduced an amendment that changes Cornyn's amendment. This amendment makes a H2-C immigrant to self petition if they have been in the country for 4 years, have a labor certification and their employer is able to attest to a future job. This amendment passed 56-43

(Source: ImmigrationVoice.org)

The list goes on...we can only hope that pro-legal immigrant amendments atleast get a chance to be voted on. Most Senators don't have any opposition to these provisions, just that there isn't enough political pressure or will power to introduce them onto the floor. That's where lobbying comes into play and that's what ImmigrationVoice.org is doing. Remember that this is a volunteer organisation made up of members like me whose cases are pending in the system. Please join the group and donate if you believe in what they're doing.

CIR bill back up for debate

2006-05-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

Once again the U.S. Senate today started deliberations on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill after a rare speech on domestic issues by President Bush on prime time TV last night. The main issue discussed is ofcourse illegal immigration, but there are pro-legal immigration provisions in the bill and Immigration Voice is working hard with law makers to include favorable amendments that will alleviate the labor certification backlog and the green card retrogression that mostly affect Indian and Chinese born professionals working in U.S. If these provisions have to be passed then the whole bill has to pass through the Senate, later to be followed by a compromise session with the House which itself passed a strict enforcement only bill last year which has no pro-legal provisions and makes all illegal immigrants felons instantly.

The legal immigrant community is watching the proceedings mostly on the sidelines and hopes that their less controversial provisions will get passed if the House and Senate can do a compromise bill.

India offers a once in a lifetime opportunity

2006-05-15T17:42:00.000-04:00

Raju Narisetti, Editor of The Wall Street Journal (Europe) as well as a Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal in the United States is quitting his job and moving back to India

The 40-year-old native of Hyderabad, who started his journalism career with Economic Times, where he helped launch its weekend section and later worked at The Times of India in New Delhi, came to the US in 1990 with "$2,300 in traveller's cheques and two suitcases" to do a master's in journalism at the Indiana University in Bloomington. Since then he had never looked back.

"Looking at where India is today and where the business newspaper segment is, it just feels like there is an opportunity to do something new and different, and the idea of doing something in India at this time is tempting," Narisetti told rediff.com in a phone interview from Brussels, the headquarters of WSJ (Europe).

Infy to hire 300 grads from US

2006-05-15T17:39:00.000-04:00

Infosys Technologies on Monday announced its first largescale plan to recruit 300 college graduates from universities in the United States in 2006 and 25 graduates from the United Kingdom in 2007 as part of an ongoing commitment to create a diversified, global workforce. Here's the complete news story.

Infact there are some 100 to 200 Americans working at Infy right now. This guy has a blog where he documents his one year in Bangalore. Its pretty interesting.

Texans heed call: 'Go east' to India

2006-05-15T17:36:00.000-04:00

Interesting news article on Dallas Morning News.

For years, highly skilled graduates of India's universities have taken jobs in Texas, helping fuel the state's high-tech boom. Now, young Texans are discovering India as a land of employment opportunity. Infosys has grown from 500 to 50,000 workers in 12 years. Chief financial officer Mohandas Pai said he sees a trend of young Americans taking jobs in India.

Americans used to say, "Go west, young man," said Mr. Pai. "Now, it's 'Go east.' With the rise of India and China as economic powers, we're seeing life-changing opportunities here."

Do you know what you're getting into?

2006-05-08T15:03:00.000-04:00

Millions of people especially from poor countries wish to immigrate to the U.S. every year. This creates a lot of stress on the U.S. immigration system, the basic framework of which hasn't changed in decades even though global economy has changed enormously.

Immigration is a low priority issue for the U.S. as aspiring immigrants are willing to be patient and accept the process as a way of life while the U.S. gets brilliant folks educated by foreign nations pratically for free. This desire to migrate to U.S. among the really bright persons in foreign countries has only been popular for the last 2 or 3 decades and coincidently(?) that's the time when the U.S. has prospered to become the world's largest economy and the only superpower.

However, lot of the people coming to the U.S. have a wrong impression of the U.S. socioeconomic picture before they come here. They assume that merit stands above everything and they will have a fair opportunity to succeed in their chosen field. Many decide to make life here permanent and decide to embark on the journey called permanent residency and that's when they get humbled and face the reality of their worthlessness to the U.S. economy and the U.S. population in general. They are treated not as humans that add value to the nation but as files and case numbers in an indifferent immigration system.

The U.S. immigration system is like an old computer sitting in the corner. It works fine as long as no one is paying attention to it but the moment it starts getting used, it comes to a grinding halt and everyone wonders what the computer was for anyway.

Let's start at the numbers to see the underlying problem. (Source: ImmigrationVoice)

Demand:
The first step in getting a green card is to get labor clearance. There are approximately 350,000 cases pending labor clearance since 2000. Assuming getting labor clearance, the next step is to file an immigrant petition or form I-140. There are another 271,000 cases pending in this stage since 2002. Total cases requiring visa numbers is over half a million.

Supply:
There are only 140,000 immigrant visas available per year and each country has a 7% cap. That means only 9,800 persons per year from India including spouse and children can get green cards. Due to processing delays and inefficiency not all 140,000 visa numbers may be used up in a year and the left over go unused or wasted.

Problem:
How long will it take to get your green card if you file today? You do the math.

Solution:
Increase the numbers of visas per year temporarily or extend green card benefits to people who are stuck in the process. In fact some measures were introduced in a bill in the U.S. Congress late 2005 to alleviate the problems.

Opposition:
Groups like NumbersUSA and WashTech are against immigration and find a way to relate all problems with public welfare to immigrants. They are very organised and they lobbied hard against the measures introduced in Congress. With the support of anti-immigration Congressmen like Tom Tancredo, they succeeded in removing the measures from the final bill. They even tried to increase the fees instead but that move failed.

Don't live here permanently. Work for a few years and take your money home. The U.S. dollar is loosing value compared to other major currencies and at the same time, home economies are growing at 8% or higher. Think about what you want and decide about your future before its too late.

Pilots moving out of U.S. into emerging economies

2006-05-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

Today's article titled With Jobs Scarce, U.S. Pilots Sign On At Foreign Airlines in the Wall Street Journal is another indicator of the changing face of the global economy. After recent bankruptcy filings, restructurings and huge layoffs many U.S. pilots are increasingly finding lucrative and better job offers outside U.S. in places like China, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Nearly two years ago, at age 51, Brian Murray took early retirement from US Airways. But Capt. Murray's flying career was far from over. Today he lives in Dubai and flies wide-body Airbus A330s for fast-growing Emirates Airlines, winging to exotic destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia.

There are simply not enough pilots being trained in these emerging economies and they need to hire from U.S. where there is a surplus. It's the same economic factors that drived scores of Indian and Chinese professionals to the U.S. in the 90s.

G.R. Gopinath, managing director for Air Deccan, a two-year-old budget airline in India, says he has been recruiting a dozen pilots a month from overseas. "If Indian software engineers can work in the U.S., their pilots can come and work here," he says. "It's reverse body-shopping." Pilot job fairs in the U.S. have begun attracting recruiters for Chinese and Indian startups, according to Kit Darby, president of Air Inc., a placement firm.

In India foreign pilots make upto $15,000 per month. Heck, that's high compared to U.S. standards itself. In India you are not living like a king but a king with that salary!

India counts more. Deregulation has spawned startup airlines, an influx of international flights, and 20% annual passenger growth. India expects to need 2,500 new pilots by 2010. At Jet Airways, the nation's largest private carrier, 111 of its 685 pilots are foreign. Air Deccan has 75 foreigners among its 250 pilots, and is setting up its own flight school in Bangalore.

This all the more reason to stay in India and other emerging economies. The lure to immigrate to U.S. is dwindling and at the same time home economies are growing. Do you want to come to the U.S. and be stuck in the ridiculously insane immigration system or stay back and enjoy life at home?

Various events over the past 2 weeks

2006-05-02T18:19:00.000-04:00

Lots of developments since the last post. The biggest of them all, Aman Kapoor co-founder of ImmigrationVoice.Org was on Fox News Weekend talking about the current problems in the legal immigration system for high-skilled immigrants such as can't change jobs, can't get a raise, spouses can't work and so on. Here are the video links (they're slow to load)

http://www.zippyvideos.com/513335711...30april2006-1/
http://www.zippyvideos.com/800983146...30april2006-2/
http://www.zippyvideos.com/635404091...30april2006-3/

The CIR bill is back into discussion on May 15th and yesterday illegal immigrants and their supporters organized the Great American Boycott. This has prompted a fresh round of attacks from the anti-immigration group headed by Tanrcredo (R-CO) and various conservative talk(scream) shows hosts. The chances of this Bill passing is now almost zero, so the high-skilled community has decided to look beyond for other bills that don't have the controversial illegal immigration proposals. The SKIL/PACE/TALENT bills are in the pipeline in case CIR fails.

Here's another interesting story in BusinessWeek. Saratov State University in Russia won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in San Antonio on Apr. 12. They solved 6 brain-teasing problems in a gruelling 5 hour contest.

Of the U.S. teams, only Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked among the 12 highest finishers. Most top spots were seized by teams from Eastern Europe and Asia. Until the late 1990s, U.S. teams dominated these contests. But the tide has turned. Last year not one was in the top dozen.

In fact the team from Duke University had an Indian girl, Kshipra Bhawalkar. She plans to go back home after her graduation.

"In the past, people from India stayed here after they got their degrees,'' she says. "But now India is at a turning point. It's getting to be a leader.'' The foreign students have a palpable determination to succeed. Bhawalkar's role model is Srinivasa Ramanujan, an early 20th century Indian mathematician who became famous worldwide in spite of an inferior education. This year, as a Duke sophomore, Bhawalkar placed 70th among 2,500 top North American university students in the prestigious Putnam math competition. Her life goal is "to make a mark in some discipline so people will say, 'That's Kshipra. She did this.'''

It's not that foreign students are any smarter, say U.S. university leaders. They just have relentless discipline. The team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which finished first last year and fifth this year, uses past participants to train each successive team. "We pile up experience year after year,'' says coach Yong Yu. The team practices year-round and puts in three hours a day during the months before the contest. U.S. teams typically spend much less time preparing.

The indications are quite clear. Poor immigration system, indifferent politicians and uninformed population. Hind sight is always 20/20. They'll be caught with their pants down. I have some personal friends whom I met this weekend. They're both Ph.D candidates, one in Organic Chemistry and one in Robotic Systems. They're both planning to leave by the end of this year. Whose loss is it?

Oh and by the way, China leap-frogged UK and France last year to become the fourth largest economy in the world. China was in 6th place only as far back as 2000. India is not far behind either and rapidly picking up pace.

Many skilled foreigners leaving U.S.

2006-04-14T15:51:00.000-04:00

The Raleigh N.C. News & Observer reported on the current situation for skilled immigration to the U.S.

When the Senate immigration bill fell apart last week, it did more than stymie efforts to deal with illegal immigration.

It derailed efforts to deal with an equally vexing business concern: a backlog in applications for so-called green cards, the coveted cards that are actually pink or white and that offer proof of lawful permanent residency.

When they club legal skilled immigration reforms with controversial illegal immigration issues, you know it's as good as flipping a coin to see if the measures go through. It only increases the frustration level as you see poeple being polarized to side with the bill and illegal immigration or against it. Everyone agrees legal immigration is required and important but they're not willing to separate it out from the illegal immigration reform and fix it.

Lately, this has prompted an exodus of foreign workers who [are] tired of waiting, to return home or go further afield. With the economies in Asia and elsewhere on the rise, they can easily find work in the native countries or in third nations that are more generous with their visas. Mike Plueddeman said he lost three employees (one a senior programmer with a doctorate) at Durham-based DynPro in the past two years because they [were] tired of waiting for their green cards.

As I said earlier, 30,000 Indian IT pros have returned to the booming Indian economy, most of them left after being tired of the hopeless U.S. immigration system. Add to that the numbers that are leaving to countries like Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Dubai (U.A.E.) and you realize the U.S. is loosing it's appeal among global talent pool.

Sarath Chandrand, 44, a software consultant from India, moved with his wife and two young daughters from Raleigh to Toronto in December because he couldn't live with more uncertainty. Canada won him over because its residency process takes only a year and a half and doesn't require sponsorship from an employer.

New Zealand, with a population of 4 million, has received more than 1,900 applications from skilled migrants and their families in the past two years, said Don Badman, the Los Angeles marketing director for that country's immigration agency. Of those, about 17 percent were non-Americans working in the United States.

Any of you folks out there in India, China, Philipines, Brazil, Ireland, Russia or other emerging economies, please consider these developments before you decide to come to U.S. The global economy is truly taking shape and its in your best interest to not blindly follow the throngs of earlier immigrants who chose U.S.

Skilled Immigration to USA: Hidden Aspects

FBI arrests 2 Clinton men

11 Indians arrested for H1B visa and mail fraud

Follow up comes in TARP

Blame the foreigners

Alberta Welcomes H-1B Visa Holders and Their Families

Temporary skilled worker visa holders: Alberta, Canada welcomes you and your family.

Visa Bulletin - February 2009

New Year 2009

Visa Bulletin - December 2008

Massive Overhaul of Immigration Services Planned

IT Firm Settles With DOL to Pay $1.7 Million Backwage Payment to H-1B Workers

Visa Bulletin - September 2008

FAIR against legal immigration as well!

Anti-immigration groups go green

USCIS Announces 2-Year EAD Issuance Beginning From 06/30/2008

Visa Bulletin - July 2008

NYT - The Great Immigration Panic

Employment based bills not yet considered

Michelle Malkin's Immigration Rants

EU Blue Card Update

Development of Immigration Legislation Proposals on the Senate Side

With H-1B in limbo, Congressional backers push Green Cards

Visa Bulletin - June 2008

Dollar's purchasing power

Bills introduced to replace lottery visas with advanced degree visas

New bills introduced to address employment based immigration issues

Economy, jobs and year 2008

USCIS As a Business Entity in EAD and Advance Parole Policy

'Blue Card' Visa Program

Lou Dobbs and Associates fuming over Immigrants' success

The Gandhi Protests Pay Off

Read the complete article at BusinessWeek

Fate of U.S. Senator Vitter on the Edge for Involvement in the Madam's List

Microsoft moves north

A Gift From Gandhi - Floral protest

Reversal Frustrates Green-Card Applicants

Citigroup to cut 17,000 jobs, but India headcount set to rise

ISB student bags $274,000 job offer

March Visa Bulletin

Update on the Developer position

Labor substitution to be eliminated

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill

Another attack on H1 visas

Immigrants behind 25 percent of startups - BusinessWeek

Agriculture workers get preference over high skilled workers

February 2007 Visa Bulletin

Cisco's Grand India Ambitions

Disadvantages of not having a green card

Happy New Year!

USCIS Memo on H and L Timing & H1B/H-4 Decoupling

Ours To Lose

Here We Go Again, Another Cycle of CIR Circus Soon?!

January 2007 Visa Bulletin

Last minute effort fails once again

Retrogression Math for Dummies - EB3 India Edition

Excellent Q&A on backlogs, green card categories

Top stories from InformationWeek

Indian Community Burgeoning in America

Non-US citizens rights to challenge detention taken away

November 2006 Visa Bulletin

Pre-PERM rush involved some fraud

Diversity (Lottery) Visa Changes

Tancredo addresses a hate group

The truth hurts. Retrogression!

US tumbles in ranking of world's economies

Competitiveness Can't Compete With Politics

October 2006 Visa Bulletin

Congress ends session without fixing immigration

Global talent: U.S. falls back as other countries take lead

Senator racially insults Indian

September 2006 Visa Bulletin

Immigrant Success Story

Is opposition to H-1B racially biased?

Obtaining U.S. permanent residence frustrates foreign professionals

The truth about "H-1B only" ads

The guild's at it again!

August 2006 Visa Bulletin

US 'could be going bankrupt'

CIR bill is dead