In order to step up and stop H1-B visa fraud and misuse, CIO is reporting in this post that USCIS is doing surprise audits.

USCIS will ask Couple of checklist questions about the sponsored H1-B visa employee and the manager (employer) has to answer those USCIS posed questions. All this sudden surprise visits is to avoid current 21% of H1-B visa petitions violating on H1-B program rules.

One good news of the whole article is that like DOL "the USCIS has no statutory or regulatory authority to enter the workplace of H-1B and L-1 visa holders. And investigators do not arrive with search warrants or subpoenas"

Labels: H1-B, Immigration

In May 2009 Visa bulletin the bad news came too early , May 2009 bulletin retrogressed India Employment Third preference to unavailable cut-off date which clearly indicates demand for EB3 numbers - (AOS)adjustment of status cases. May 2009 Bulletin released reflected the big drop not only for India but also to other countries EB3 category as "Unavailable" where as EB2 category for India is at 15FEB04. Remind you that this is just half of the fiscal year for visa numbers and this demand puts water on the hopes of many who are waiting to get US Green Cards.

Why did EB3 become unavailable so early May Bulletin?

This is unexpected and is reported by all immigration lawyers that they have NOT seen such thing happened so early in all of their career.

Shusterman writes :

This is the earliest that the category has become unavailable in my 33 years of practicing immigration law

And it should be noted that USCIS would not stop sending RFEs for all pending i-485 cases even though the EB3 category becomes unavailable. So expect RFEs sent to your employer during these visa numbers "unavailable" times too.

All the best for those who are waiting for dates to become current.

Labels: 2009, GreenCard, H1-B, Immigration, India

After first week of opening visa applications, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) reports that it received only 42,000 H!-B visa applications from foreigners for high skill jobs in US. The total available visas are 65000. Last year the cap of 65K is reached within few days.For year 2008 USCIS received 163,000 H1-B applications.

The fall of economy and no signs of recovery may be the reasons for drop in demand for US work visas. The companies who took government bail out money  is restricted not to hire foreign workers in H1-B visas. This may be one of the causes that is effecting in the reduction of H1-B visa applicants.

But advanced degree quota of 20,000 visas are filled up fast. These work visas are for students who completed MS or other graduate degrees in US.

Source : Economic Times , PTINews

Labels: 2009, GreenCard, H1-B, Immigration, India

US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) was a program implemented in year 2003 that fingerprints and photographs non-immigrants at the US border and that helped immigration officials to remove document fraud done by immigrants.

From 2003 to till date, US-VISIT took the information from non-immigrant visa holders like H1-B, B1, F1 visa types. But from January 18 2009 - DHS (Department Of Homeland Security) is making it mandatory for even permanent residents (or Green Card holders) to be fingerprinted and photographed at the border. Persons paroled into the US meaning I485 applicants like ones holding Advance Paroles have to submit fingerprints. Privacy groups are raising concerns with the whole technology right from its inception in 2003.

Here is DHS News release - Expansion of US-VISIT to other non-US citizens categories-

Additional non‑U.S. citizens required to provide biometrics are:

* Lawful permanent residents of the United States (LPRs);
* Persons entering the United States who seek admission on immigrant visas;
* Persons entering the United States who seek admission as refugees and asylees;
* Canadian citizens who are currently required to obtain a Form I-94, Arrival / Departure Document upon entry or require a waiver of inadmissibility to enter the United States (This excludes most Canadian citizens entering the United States for purposes of shopping, visiting friends and family, vacation or short business trips);
* Persons paroled into the United States; and
* Persons applying for admission under the Guam Visa Waiver Program.

Labels: GreenCard, H1-B, i485, Immigration

Wired did analysis on hot election issues where Barack Obama and John McCain say, and what have they done, about some of hot policies in US 2008 elections.

H1-B visas policy McCain is graded B+ when Obama got a C. The issue is the small number of H1-B quotas (65,000) making it difficult for US companies to hire skilled workers from outside of US.

Here is how two candidates fared on this issue -

McCain - He is in favor to expand the number of H1-B visas and he want to retain the top notch foreign skilled workers graduated in US schools.

Obama - Only a temporary increase and he is critical of highly skilled immigrants taking away American jobs. Only a stopgap measure until the industry requirements are met.

Labels: 2008 Elections, H1-B, Immigration, McCain, Obama

What it takes to become an US immigrant ?

Here are some of the (long waiting) routes :

Family Sponsorship:

Relative is a US citizen
a) Spouse or minor child -- Greencard - 3 to 5 years, Citizenship - 6 to 7 years
b) For all other family sponsorships -- Green card - 7 to 15 years (Married adult children) and 11 to 22 years (Siblings of US citizens), Citizenship -- 12 to 28 years

Relative is a Lawful Permanent Resident:
a) Spouse or minor child -- Green card - 6 years, Citizenship - 11 to 13 years
b) For all other family sponsorships -- Green card (only if they are single) - 9 to 14 years, Citizenship - 14 to 20 years

Skilled Immigrants:

a) Extremely genius or star athletes or investor with $1 million -- Green card - 5 to 6 years, Citizenship - 6 to 7 years
b) Skilled worker with college degree in specialty occupation (Computer engineers or nurses) -- Green card - 6 to 10 years, Citizenship - 11 to 16 years

If you are a computer engineer from India then it may take 11 to sweet 16 years to become a US citizen.

Here is the flowchart explanation from Reason of getting into long line with a fresh face only to get waited in the long lines of years and coming out with grown and aging beards.



Kudos to the Reason and Mike Flynn, Shikha Dalmia & Terry Colon for putting together this wonderful immigration chart that clears up all doubts that any one might have on the US immigrations process with caricatures of a Indian Singh or a Mexican.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Self-deportation program scrapped
• Census: Immigration Boom Slowing Down
• DoJ beats up tech firm for H-1B only job ads

Labels: GreenCard, H1-B, Immigration

Obama has touched on a sensitive and valid unemployment issue. Job losses is blamed on immigrants. Serial stream of bad news from Bears n Stearn's to Fannie Mae n Freddie Mac to Lehman brothers is further deteriorating the US job situation.

In the article "The Bitter Taste of Bigotry", it is rightly said that one man's loss in another's gain.

Thousands of engineers and computer scientists arrive in America yearly to fuel high-tech businesses. Silicon Valley is filled with startups founded by immigrants, like Vinod Khosla’s Sun Microsystems and Sergey Brin’s Google. Astonishingly, Congress has actually reduced the number of special H1-B visas given to foreign workers, which allow American companies to import guest workers with highly specialized knowledge. As a result, many of these workers move to countries with more liberal immigration policies, like Canada and Australia. In these cases, America’s loss is another country’s gain.

Canada immigration is made much simpler that within 1 year with sufficient points based on higher education a Canadian PR (permanent Residency) status can be achieved and after three years the immigrant becomes Canadian citizen. Australia has similar system within two years of PR one can become Aussies citizen.

Compare this to PR (Green Card) in US which is now taking eight painful years compounded with H1-B visas reduction and a lottery system to get H1. Citizenship is another five more years. To become an immigrant a total of thirteen years are required so that would be 1/5th of immigrants life (assuming 65 years of stressful life) spent in this cycle.

To sum up - America’s loss is another country’s gain.

Labels: Australia, Canada, green card, H1-B, Immigration, India

Image via Wikipedia The Indo-US nuclear deal is approved by 45-nation NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group). The Indian congress government led by Manmohan Singh won confidence vote that created political division in recent months in this US-Indo nuclear cooperation agreement though some political parties are still unhappy with the agreement.

Kanchan Gupta writes about H1-B visa holders and their reason for unhappiness with ongoing US-India nuclear deal. Gupta writes the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement will create thousands of Jobs which otherwise would have been opened for H1-B visa holders. Some India's middle class who prospered using these H1-B visa may not like these $$ paying jobs taken away from them.

Here is quote from Kanchan Gupta's Article :

Look at the way it has managed to foist on us a so-called 'civilian nuclear cooperation agreement' that will revive the moribund American nuclear power industry, create thousands of jobs (which will not be open to holders of H1B visa, so there's little reason for our middle-class to cheer the deal), give President George W Bush his only foreign policy 'success', and serve the purpose of forcing India into the non-proliferation regime without conceding its nuclear weapons capability.

Related articles by Zemanta

• US-India nuclear accord approved
• 45-nation group OKs U.S.-India nuke deal

Labels: George W Bush, H1-B, Immigration, India, Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, Manmohan Singh, NSG, Nuclear proliferation, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Nuclear weapon, visas

Image by Getty Images via Daylife As elections approach, Illinois Senator Barack Obama who is US, Democratic presidential nominee in a campaign event in Pennsylvania talked about streamlining specialized skills related jobs and their visas -- H2-B.

H2-B visas are required for highly specialized skills where local US business is not able to recruit the local talent citing "nuclear physicist" example from India.

Obama was unhappy that (H1-B) visas system is misused by the companies by wrongfully hiring software engineers for low wages and effecting the US labor markets and wages.

With US unemployment rate reaching 6.1% , the jobs have become a talking point in US 2008 elections and naturally the focus is shifted of how the jobs should not be wrongfully moved to overseas. The immigration is deciding factor in elections as how well both McCain Republicans and Obama Democrats talk about their immigration policies in coming weeks.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama: McCain focused on biography over economy

Labels: Barack Obama, Barack Obama presidential campaign 2008, H1-B, H2-B, Immigration, Pennsylvania, Politics, Presidential nominee, Society and Culture, United States, US

IRS started sending letters of Economic Stimulus Payment Notice and I received that by mail today. I scanned it and posted it here (see the image at the end of the post) for quick understanding of important points from IRS notice.

H1-B visa holders dependents may have a slight problem as letter indicates that dependents must have a SSN as in many cases dependents of H1-B visa holders are in H4 visa status and possess tax-id instead of SSN. Dependents are spouse and children who are on H4 visa. If you read through last but one paragraph of payment notice letter this clause is added by IRS. Does this mean H4 visa dependents are not eligible for economic stimulus package ? This if true makes these households receive lesser amount of $600 only.

The other important points outlined in this letter are as follows

- File 2007 tax return and that makes it eligible for 130 million households to receive $600 for individuals or $1200 for joint filers

-An additional amount of $300 for each child qualifying for the child tax credit

- For tax payers with adjusted gross income (AGI) of more than $75000 (or more than $150,000 if married filing jointly), the payment will be reduced

- the last one is important for immigrants or H1-B visa holders as the clause says "must have valid social security numbers"

Labels: H1-B, Immigration, refund, taxes

----------------------
Update on March 09'2008 -- you tube video posted
-----------------------
Manjunath Kalmani's tragic accident reminds us how important is health insurance for immigrants. He is an immigrant who came to US on H1-B visa and worked with company weather.com as software developer and got laid off during economic downturn in 2002. Unemployed and uninsured Manjunath injured his spinal cord critically in car accident at Nashville, TN, in April 2002.
His problems complicated with expensive medical costs in US and is finally sent back in air ambulance to India on March 5' 2008. Manjunath's blog address is (http://mkalmani.blogspot.com/) and it was reported in news that he blogged and interacted with computers in vegetative state using sip-n-puff devices.

Here is some information I was able to pull out on sip-n-puff devices for critically injured persons like Manjunath.

Axistive reports on sip-n-puff devices

Accessing the computer other than via a standard keyboard and mouse can present a number of problems. However the IntegraMouse® is a highly attractive solution for a large range of challenges. The IntegraMouse® is especially designed for users who are unable to operate a mouse with their hands.

IntegraMouse® has all the functions of a standard mouse enabling the user to control all functions of the computer by lip movements. The IntegraMouse offers a sensitive sip and puff solution that controls the range of mouse clicks (left click, right click, double click, drag&drop).

This tragedy shows us the importance of health insurance to immigrants in US. Remember without health insurance you can not afford for expensive medical costs in U.S. You should always read full details about the health insurance coverage. Also you need to find out whether you should pay for insurance premium. This contribution totally depends up on the company’s health care benefits policy. Usually you pay 20 or 25 % of the premium every month.

It is better always to have some information handy like what is your co-payment for each visit.Some consulting companies may provide cheap insurance coverage which requires you to pay much higher out of pocket expenses. Make sure you don’t settle down for these kind of health coverage.Also health insurance should cover all your family members and that will require paying the insurance premium to your family members.

Also Health insurance covers maternity if you are married. Equally important is dental and vision insurances. Once laid off remember you can still have insurance using COBRA plan and it is kind of expensive until you find other job. For a immigrant living in US for many years all these seems to be simple tips only if they were correctly insured.

I sincerely hope Manjunath gets good medical attention from Indian authorities. It is glad to see TimesOfIndia picked this news and I hope other news sites/blogs pick up the story to get needed attention to Manjunath.



Sources :

1) Injured but spirit intact he started a blog on himself

2) US_sends_back_paralysed_techie_to_Delhi

Labels: H1-B, Immigration, insurance

CIR - Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill may get introduced quicker than planned.It means a lot to many non-immigrant visa holders (H1-Bs) who can expect the labor prirority dates for India to move forward for all categories (EB3 and EB2) so that all applications waiting to file 480 (Adjustment of status) can file so once visa numebers are available they get their EADs.Lots of technology groups like recently Bill Gates of Microsoft corp. is advocating for this bill.
I'll be blogging regularly and lets track this news and see where we head with this latest set of immigration rumors.

Labels: GreenCard, H1-B, Immigration, VisaNumbers