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Why should others suffer because of consulting firms?
You get a job at company A you work for them. When you move to company B that company does your H1B.. if required again. Why should company A do your H1B than the individual work for somebody else as "consultant". This has been going on for too long affecting everybody especially scientists and doctors and academic community. These consultants are delaying GC for us. The bill takes care of that problem and I think its fair.

Also if the new bill requires repeating labor certification every time we move so be it. You are "best and brightest" correct.. prove it!
Don't want to sound selfish, but I agree 100% on this. Where I am employed as a scientist, the employer took great pains to show that I have not displaced any American worker. In fact they have a whole file with documents that support this fact. If I move, my new employer will do the same. I am not scared of this provision in the H1B bill. If you are really the best, only then you deserve to get the job, and then you have no reason to fear this bill.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Immigration.htm


Barack Obama on Immigration
Democratic nomine for President; Junior Senator (IL)

America has nothing to fear from today's immigrants
For all the noise and anger that too often surrounds the immigration debate, America has nothing to fear from today's immigrants. They have come here for the same reason that families have always come here--for the hope that in America, they could build a better life for themselves and their families. Like the waves of immigrants that came before them and the Hispanic Americans whose families have been here for generations, the recent arrival of Latino immigrants will only enrich our country.
Source: Obama & McCain back-to-back speeches at NALEO Jun 28, 2008

We need comprehensive reform, like McCain used to support
Senator McCain used to offer change on immigration. He was a champion of comprehensive reform, and I admired him for it. But when he was running for his party's nomination, he walked away from that commitment and he's said he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote.
If we are going to solve the challenges we face, you need a President who will pursue genuine solutions day in and day out. And that is my commitment to you.

We need immigration reform that will secure our borders, and punish employers who exploit immigrant labor; reform that finally brings the 12 million people who are here illegally out of the shadows by requiring them to take steps to become legal citizens We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That is a priority I will pursue from my very first day.

Source: Obama & McCain back-to-back speeches at NALEO Jun 28, 2008

Recognize the humanity of immigrants: Todos somos Americanos
Ultimately, the danger to the American way of life is not that we will be overrun by those who do not look like us or do not yet speak our language. The danger will come if we fail to recognize the humanity of [immigrants]--if we withhold from them the opportunities we take for granted, and create a servant class in our midst.
More broadly, the danger will come if we continue to stand idly by as the gap between Wall Street and Main Street grows, as Washington grows more out of touch, and as America grows more unequal. Because America can only prosper when all Americans prosper--brown, black, white, Asian, and Native American. That's the idea that lies at the heart of my campaign, and that's the idea that will lie at the heart of my presidency. Because we are all Americans. Todos somos Americanos. And in this country, we rise and fall together.

Source: Obama & McCain back-to-back speeches at NALEO Jun 28, 2008

GovWatch: Anti-immigrants fuel xenophobia, but 45% increase
Barack Obama said at a Palm Beach fundraiser on May 22, "A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There's a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it's not surprising that would happen."
Obama needs to be more careful in his use of statistics. If he is going to blame Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh for "ginning up" hate crimes against Hispanics, he needs solid data to back up his allegation. The hate crimes statistics are wildly inaccurate--and a subsequent modified claim provided by his campaign was also off the mark.

Lou Dobbs of CNN has repeatedly made use of flawed statistics, but there is no excuse for resorting to equally flawed data to attack Dobbs and his ilk. Hate crime offenses against Latinos rose from 529 in 2003 to 770 in 2006, a total increase over three years of about 45% [not even closed to double].

Source: GovWatch on 2008: Washington Post analysis Jun 4, 2008

Encourage every student to learn a second language
Q: Is there any down side to the US becoming a bilingual nation?
A: It is important that everyone learns English and that we have that process of binding ourselves together as a country. Every student should be learning a second language, because when you start getting into a debate about bilingual education, for example, now, I want to make sure that children who are coming out of Spanish-speaking households had the opportunity to learn and are not falling behind. If bilingual education helps them do that, I want to give them the opportunity. But I also want to make sure that English-speaking children are getting foreign languages because this world is becoming more interdependent and part of the process of America's continued leadership in the world is going to be our capacity to communicate across boundaries, across borders, and that's something frankly where we've fallen behind. Foreign languages is one of those areas that I think has been neglected. I want to put more resources into it.

Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008

Need to look at different aspects of immigration reform
We need stronger border security. We are cracking down on employers that are taking advantage of undocumented workers because they can't complain if they're not paid a minimum wage and not getting overtime. Worker safety laws are not being observed. We have to make sure that doesn't lead to people with Spanish surnames being discriminated against. We have to require that undocumented workers go to the back of the line, so that they are not getting citizenship before those who have applied legally.
Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008

Have border patrolled, surveillance, and deploy technology
Q: Do you think your vote on the border fence or the implementation of it was wrong?
A: The key is to consult with local communities, whether it's on the commercial interests or the environmental stakes of creating any kind of barrier. The Bush administration is not real good at listening. I will reverse that policy. There may be areas where it makes sense to have some fencing. Having border patrolled, surveillance, deploying effective technology, that's going to be the better approach.

Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008

Increasing the legal fees on immigrants is not helping
It is important that we fix the legal immigration system, because right now we've got a backlog that means years for people to apply legally. What's worse is, we keep on increasing the fees, so that if you've got a hard working immigrant family, they've got to hire a lawyer; they've got to pay thousands of dollars in fees. They just can't afford it. It's discriminatory against people who have good character, but don't have the money. We've got to fix that. We have to improve our relationship with Mexico and work with the Mexican government so that their economy is producing jobs on that side of the border. The problem is that we have had an administration that came in promising all sorts of leadership on creating a US-Mexican relationship. Bush dropped the ball. He has been so obsessed with Iraq that we have not seen the kinds of outreach and cooperative work that would ensure that the Mexican economy is working not just for the very wealthy in Mexico, but for all people.
Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008

Deporting 12 million people is ridiculous and impractical
The American people want fairness, want justice. They recognize that the idea that you're going to deport 12 million people is ridiculous, that we're not going to be devoting all our law enforcement resources to sending people back. But what they do also want is some order to the process. We're not going to be able to do these things in isolation. We're not going to be able to deal with the 12 million people who are living in the shadows and give them a way of getting out of the shadows if we don't also deal with the problem of this constant influx of undocumented workers. That's why comprehensive reform is so important. Something that we can do immediately that is very important is to pass the Dream Act, which allows children who through no fault of their own are here but have essentially grown up as Americans, allow them the opportunity for higher education. I do not want two classes of citizens in this country. I want everybody to prosper. That's going to be a top priority.
Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008
and so on .....

Buying a house at or around the same rent and availing the 8K credit doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. GC or no..most have EAD (at least Jul 07 filers)..so if we lose our job we would be in a similar situation as a GC holder..having a form of work permit so employer doesnt have to sponsor us.

Uncle Sam is never going to give u 8K in the next 10 years that we will be waiting for getting our GC. So buy now before the rates get back to 7-8%.

UN - I don't think people who indulge in fraud or use wrong route, go to Senators or Congressmen - rather they want to stay unnoticed. Most people who lobby - lobby for a better system.

No one is taking on or poking at USCIS.

On another note - what is permanent job? There is absolutely no such thing called future job - ie job that will come into place after 5 or 10 years. A permanent job is a job which is permanent at the time of employment.

When we talk about good faith employment - it is the relationship that exists during the terms of employment.

While your analysis makes sense - we really never know what is happening behind the scenes.

I had little knowledge of immigration and of the type of people on h-1b and the type of companies who sponsor greencards when I first started perusing immigration boards. I thought many people were like me.

Back in 2002 and 2003 when USCIS hardly approved any EB greencards; people were pretty emotional on immigration.com.

Rajiv Khanna did a class action lawsuit against USCIS to start approving cases. He wanted some plaintiffs. Now; people on immigration.com were so emotional about their approvals and cursing USCIS all over the place. Of the thousands of people who would post; there was only something like 13 people who actually signed up to be plaintiffs. I volunteered myself to be a plaintiff but my case had only been pending for about six months at that time so I didn't think I would be a good candidate. However; only 13 people signed up compared to the thousands who were bellyaching about it. I didn't understand at that time why there was so little people who were willing to step u.

In 2007 AILF specifically wanted people to join the lawsuit but were very clear that they wanted "clean" cases. I thought it odd that they had to specifically mention this.

Murthy didn't want to file lawsuit because they thought it would have negative repurcussions against their existing clients in future cases.

USCIS is pretty much the toughest agency to deal with and people who deal with them regularly know this. Time is on their side. They can deny cases and it takes years to get through the system and people have to have a legal way to stay in the country while this goes on. Because of this hardly anybody challenges them.

I concluded that not many people have clean cases. Many people faked things on their f-1 applications; had bench time; worked in different locations then where h-1b was approved for, etc., etc.

If you look at the different positions people take on these immigration boards; it is usually based on their own situation or people they know of and that leads them to post in a certain way.

eb3 versus eb2
permanent jobs versus consulting
country quota, etc.

The lawyers are the ones who see thousands of cases and what USCIS does and generally do not want to challenge them because it will spell bigger problems.


btw; I am still a little suspicious of the OP. Local offices mainly do family base cases and not employment base cases. Their requests for information are pretty standard and follow the lines of family base information. They do not regularly do employment base interviews. If what the OP is saying is true then this would be a directive coming from headquarters. If that is the case then asking for "contracts" is going to be very problematic as they are going after the temporary versus permanent job.

Texas service center has been known to call candidates/companies but it is usually for very simple information (ie., company tax return, asking verbally whether person is still in same job or verifying current address). They don't call and ask verbally for complex information like OP has stated.

In fact just about every local USCIS office makes you sign a statement that you are not being represented by a lawyer and they "swear" you in that you are going to tell the truth under penalty of perjury.

If you go to anti-H1-b sites, They are displaying things like, Advertisements listing H1-b available for a number of US cities. These are ads taken from body shops. The anti-h1-b sites use this as a propaganda. I think it hurts all of us. :D

Exactly.Anti-H1B sites are only looking for propaganda material. You think they will start loving us if all body-shops are eliminated ? People like Norm matloff and programmers guild oppose all H1-B period.Whether it is from well known MNCs or your so-called "body shops". These are usually the same folks whining against outsourcing, free trade, the fact that everyone else is catching up .. about the world in general. Stop wasting time convincing these loosers.They are neither representative of the american public at large nor are the body shops representative of our community. If you think body shoppers are the only folks who hire H1-Bs, read about all the press articles in the "IV in the news" section and please let me know how many body-shop employees were mentioned there. We KNOW we make a contribution to this country; industry knows it too. We dont need to apologise to people like PG,lou dobbs and co for supposedly "eating their lunch".

As for pushing for H1-B reform, there is absolutely no gaurantee there will be any accompaying GC reform. Remember AC21 ? it tripled the number of H1-Bs with no increase in GCs ... the result is the current mess. Why did it happen ? because there was no one pushing for GC reform.

So, if ISI is behind Bombay, I struggle to understand what it would gain from provoking India.

The 'machinery''s motives I can understand. They are being pursued by Pakistan army and NATO forces, and by provoking India and starting a conflict on the eastern border, they would divert Pakistan army and get some relief. Plus, the more chaos in Pakistan, the better it is for them.

Look at this way...

Obama is planning to increase troops in Afghanistan. US is now doing cross-border attacks in pakistan. When he increases the troop level, it would only increase further hitting the core soverignity of pakistan.

The supercop is completely preoccupied in transition with the messiah of hope taking oath on jan 20th. It would need few weeks for him to settle down.

Pakistan is fractured with ISI's own trained militants causing havoc in Balochistan and NWFP. They are militants from Punjab and POK who are helping the tribes and Taliban. Taliban is hiding for the past 7 years and only the last two year have seen such a tremendous increase in attacks.
Without Punjab militant's expertise (with kashmir on-the-job training) , it is impossible for Taliban to regroup in a way they have re-grouped.

As a result, Military is forced to act on Tribes/taliban/punjab militants to support the war on terror and to satisfy USA.

The Key questions are
a> Who asked Punjab militants to go and create havoc in NWFP/Balochistan/Afghan border? Is it Military or ISI or lying low for a while when taking peace with India ( but using their expertise somewhere else)

It attracted US's attention and just forces Pak Military to do more and more..

With this Mumbai attack, what the ISI supported militants expected is a war between India and Pakistan. Military sees an escape route too.

When a war breaks out,

Tension on the Western border comes down to a nought. Taliban, Tribes, Punjab Militants, ISI and the military are ALL on the same side and India is the enemy. US would be a spectator. It unites the nation of Pakistan like nothing else.
It reduces the pressure on the military. Military can wash from its hands the responsbility of being the ally in 'war on terror'

A weak central govt in India with a totally angry Indian population wanting 'something' need to be done to stop this.
A fuse that can easily go off...A baloon that can easily burst..My point is India can be very easily provoked at this stage.

US took revenge in Afghanistan for 09/11. It initiated a war of choice in Iraq. It allowed Israel to pummel Lebanon while preaching 'war on terror'. US can not prevent India from doing a war if needed.

Dude, we have seen Mumbai, we have seen parliament attack, we have seen Ashkardam all in broad day light in addition
to many hit and run operations. How many more the world want us to tolerate? Buddha and Gandhi may have born in india but does the world expect us to tolerate attacks after attacks after attacks?

I generally dont try to be emotional. But I saw this live on TV while I was waiting in the airport to board my flight
from India to US and it impacted me profoundly. Man, "Enough is enough"...

Peace,
G

UN,

Glad to see you back in the forums!

Do you have any idea why attorneys strongly discourage their clients to travel after filing 485 but before receiving the receipt notices?

If you have a H/L visa it may not problem to re-enter US with your visa, but will it affect the 485 filing if you did not have the receipt notice when you traveled outside?

Once 485 is filed you can leave and re-enter the country if you have H or L visa.

You don't need to wait for the actual receipt.

Problem occurs if you leave before august 17th; thinking that lawyer has sent the case when he really hasn't and you were out when ucis receives the package. Eventually; uscis would figure it out and could deny the case becuase of this.

Also, not wise to leave before august 17th; because if the package gets returned for whatever reason then you need to be here to send it in again and you would have to update with new passport pages with stamps and i-94 card and date of last entry, etc.

I understand that people have to go out on business but they are unnecessary complications that people are doing.

What Channel?

If you look at the details I posted, only $1050 goes to interest, insurance, and taxes. $400 goes to the principal. So, compared that to my $1200 rental, it is still wise choice. Isn't it?

As per Zillow estimate, the value of the house I bought already appreciated by $10k above the purchase price.

For the sake of discussion that it did not appreciate in the next 10 years (which I doubt because there's no other way to go but up) but the value stayed at purchase price, as per my amortization schedule, my loan would be at 75% of the purchase value. It means therefore that I already have a 25% equity of the house, which is $60k.

If I saved the $250 per month at zero interest, I would have $30k. I don't know where you can find 5% interest p.a. investment today but for the sake of argument that I found one, I think I can't get the $60k at the end of 10th yr.

Off topic - but I hope you have done a proper inspection with an independent inspection agency.

99% of all Houses built after 2000 (i.e. during the boom time) are notorious for bad build quality. Chinese Drywall (http://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+drywall) anyone?

I know many people think about it but they don't have the kahunas to actually execute it. I am not aware of anyone who has tried it and was open about it with uscis.

In my case when my 485 was pending I went self employment route. I had to give updated g-325a to show employmnet history and I put it right there for officer to see at local office interview. He actually made an astonishing face and I told him that it was allowed and 485 was pending and I can do what I wish during this time. I also told him that I was not my ac21 employer I was just doing this while 485 was pending and I was porting to another job after my 485 was approved. I gave him offer letter and company tax returns from the ac21 employer that I hadn't joined yet.

Thank you, that is helpful information, although I was talking about a situation where you are self-employed while in AOS, and intend to stay self employed even after your 485 is approved. Self employment being your 'AC21 employer' essentially.

Any cases you might have come across?

Some CNN folks move to Fox but I doubt whether Lou stands a chance.


Dobb's was once CNN's executive VP, he quit CNN and returned later....

Dobbs left CNN in 2000, reportedly due to heated clashes with its president, Rick Kaplan, one of which actually occurred on-air when Kaplan suggested to cut from Moneyline to a live address by Bill Clinton at Columbine, which Dobbs believed was a staged event and not newsworthy. [2] Dobbs returned the following year at the behest of his friend and CNN founder Ted Turner, becoming host and managing editor of the new and initially more general news program Lou Dobbs Moneyline which later became Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a regular columnist in Money magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and the New York Daily News. [more] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Dobbs)

My Dear Friend:

Why do you want to defend crooks? Instead of ackowledging the fact that desi consulting companies are exploiting loopholes, you rather want to know why other companies are not feeling the heat. This is typical of us desis. There is absolutely no introspection.

For once, accept that we are at fault.

Its like this - You are in school and your teacher catches you copying off the next person. Now instead of correcting yourself, if you complain to the teacher that another classmate was also copying so you should not be penalized, will your treacher let you go?

I am sorry, I am not a very knowledgeable person in immigration matters like many of you, but when it comes to finger pointing, we have to show all consulting companies and why only DESI companies are getting into this discussion. I know friends who worked for IBM & KPMG on H1b travels to all states for short term contracts. What about those biggies? They are also desi firms?

How did you come to US in the first place? if not thru a consulting company ( I know F1 is another option) either thru big companies like TCS, Wipro or Infy or through desi consulting firms. Pls do not forget the fact that USCIS changed their stand now and saying that it is not legal to work else where other than employer location. If they implement that rule from start then this mess wouldn't happen.

Now, we are in trouble and so stop finger pointing and give any good advise if you can.

FYI..I am an FTE and I came to us thru a multinational firm and never worked for a desi consulting cmpny.

Employment Authorization (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=1847c9ee2f82b010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCR D&vgnextchannel=1847c9ee2f82b010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1 RCRD)
Passing On H-1b Costs to the Employee? Smart Business Practice or DOL Violation? (http://www.hammondlawfirm.com/FeesArticle07.18.2006.pdf) by Michael F. Hammond and
Damaris Del Valle
H-1B visa -- From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa)
Questions & Answers from CIS Ombudsman's Teleconference (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1175876976479.shtm)
I-485 Standard Operating Procedure (http://www.ilw.com/seminars/august2002_citation2b.pdf)

When it comes to house or condo or town house, it is always location location and location. If you think buying a house or condo just to put on rent is foolishness and not calculated risk, I cannot argue with you to fill up pages on forum and again I don't want to give you a lesson there. Like other things in life, you have discover your own way to make money may be in renting or may be owning a store or just doing your job.


Any way, coming back to first time home buyers, it is once in lifetime opportunity to get houses in high demand areas, and if people have good solid job (or multiple income sources with working spouse) and credit, with plans to live there for atleast 3-5 years, I don't think there should be any reason not to buy it.

There has always been more land and if there wasn't more land in US, it may start occupying ocean to build houses. So I don't think there was ever in history a question whether people would occupy every inch of land. But still there was a boom and people were buying 4-5 houses when they can only afford one. Everybody knows what happened after that. But yes in Good location, there is always shortage and there is shortage right now too. Now good location is a subjectable term. You can go 40 miles off any major city and live in woods and consider it as a good location. So we have to be careful there. But yes prices are low compared to boom time and interest rates have been historically low. If the above two are not good point to take risk, then you are not in right business of taking risk.

Hey nobody can predict tomorrow. You can get hit by a bus and then who cares about money and house :).

Life life king size :) may be after 10 years your GC is denied, but then for 10 years you lived in half million dollar house and enjoyed every second of it, rather than living in one bedroom apt.

Chill out and have a good night

Well - your approach smells of speculation, which is pretty dangerous!!

I take the following approach

Left Side: Add my rent

Right Side: Add all my expenses (mortgage + maintenance + tax)

As soon as Left > right - it is a time to buy.

If you get to the nitti-gritties - it can get very complicated. e.g. you usually put 20% down. Plus the principal payment is technically not "expenditure" - it is "investment in your home equity". Owning means you lose flexibility. It is impossible to put numbers against all these.

However, my personal "estimate"/"Tipping point" (taking into account the loss of flexibility etc) is when I have positive cash flow from owning (i.e. rent > mortgage + tax + maintenance). Some very successful RE investors I know take the same approach and are very successful.

No. Speculators generally drive up the prices. What I am doing is not speculation. It is being cautious and rational(with the data I have). The one who drove up the housing price are the ones who were speculating that it will go up in price forever and created this huge bubble. You got the meaning of speculation wrong.
Speculation is "engagement in business transactions involving considerable risk but offering the chance of large gains, esp. trading in commodities, stocks, etc., in the hope of profit from changes in the market price."
There are people who are waiting for the house prices to come to back to sane levels. And there are people who cannot get loan even if they wish to buy. They are not speculators.

All these proposals came into this picture under a republican president and a republican majority congress. How is McCain going to change anything? In fact, he was a strong propenent and sponsor of CIR measures.


For the past 8 years it has been status qou for us, do you really want this stalemate to continue?



He had proposed a very harsh H1b revamp and a total revamp of the L1 visa system.
for example companies hiring H1 would have had to certify and attest that multiple american candidates were interviewed for the poisition. The prevailing wage had to be the highest of three measures (i forget which 3). Transfers were limited or restricted. On the other hand the Dream act simply gave citizenship to any illegal attending high school. The Senator talks about humane immigration and i agree to a certain extent but it should be humane for legals too.

You should compare only the interest part of your mortgage payment when comparing with rent.

Not exactly. Whatever one saves by renting can be invested somewhere else. So the apples to apples comparison would be the return homeowner gets on the amount of his monthly mortgage payment that goes towards the principle (home equity) to the return the renter gets on the difference he invested. Return on home equity is currently negative all over US (houses declining in price) where as you still can get some positive returns on 100% safe investment like CDs or US treasury bills.

In any case majority of your payment for the first five year goes towards paying interest. So unless you expect hosue prices to rise in next 3-4 years - a remote possibility, the best we can hope for is they stabilize - there is no monitory benefit to be gained by buying now against renting for some more time and saving more money for your future down payment.

1. When you filed I-485, you should file under 245(K) immediately - I believe someone already mentioned that below. For derivative applications, the derivative applicant may be "out of status" for any length without any issues for AOS approval.

2. For the 6 mos period he was without pay check, does he have any proof of employment and correspondingly any letter showing that he was on vacation/leave of absense. I had a 15 day period between 2 jobs where I took time off but had no vacation, hence leave without pay but I have leave letter from my manager in letter-head (I know a lot of people do that as taking vacation between jobs gives them a fresh start).

3. Did the period length where he did not have a pay check exceed 180 days at a stretch?

Bottomline, it seems an overzealous USCIS officer is trying to find ways to deny your application - you should involve a good lawyer and get immediate rebuttal for Notice of Denial.

1. 245(k) is applicable automatically for all eb I-485. There is no penalty fee for 245(k).

2. Each I-485 application is independent for out of status issues. Does not matter Primary or Dependent.

3. Needs more information. A person can be out of status even with pay-checks. Example: H-1B LCA location is different from actual job location, putting him/her out of status.

_____________________
Not a legal advice.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Lobbying_vrd.htm) establishes criteria for determining when an organization or firm should register their employees as lobbyists. Lobbyists register with the Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR (http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/one_item_and_teasers/opr.htm)). SOPR receives, processes, and maintains for public inspection records filed with the Secretary of the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/reference/office/secretary_of_senate.htm) involving the Lobbying Disclosure Act, the Federal Election Campaign Act (http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.shtml), the Ethics in Government Act, the Mutual Security Act, and the Senate Code of Official Conduct. The office has many other responsibilities in addition to their lobbyist registration duties.

Resources

Lobby Filing Disclosure Program (http://sopr.senate.gov/)
HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM (http://sopr.senate.gov/help.htm)
Example: Find amount paid by IV

Go to Senate Office of Public Records (http://sopr.senate.gov)
Click on Access the US Lobby Report Images for All Years (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0)
Highlight Client Name and then click on button Go
Type Immigration Voice in client name field and then click on button Go
Click on Immigration Voice Corporation (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=3&CLI=IMMIGRATION%20VOICE%20CORPORATION&CLIQUAL==)
The 3 links are

QGA registered IV as client (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/2006/E/000/078/000078315|2)
Mid-Year Report (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/2006/EH/000/141/000141275|3) (Jan 1- Jun 30)
Year-End Report (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/2007/E/000/034/000034084|2) (July 1 - Dec 31)


Follow above steps for anti-immigration organizations (FAIR (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=3&CLI=FEDERATION%20FOR%20AMERICAN%20IMMIGRATION%20RE FORM&CLIQUAL==), NumbersUSA (http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=3), ...) House (http://lobbyingdisclosure.house.gov/index.html)
Lobbying Spending Database (http://www.crp.org/lobbyists/index.asp)

But you see, what YOU think RollingFlood wants cannot be achieved through a lawsuit. From what I and pretty much most of us understand from the letter of the law is that it allows for earliest priority date. A lawsuit cannot change the law. Also remember that GCs in the employment based category are given based on SPONSORSHIP by an employer. So an EB3 got an earlier priority date based on a labor petition that existed at some earlier period in time when RollingFlood, I, and plenty of others decided we wanted to get a PhD instead. That was OUR choice.

Also, this is a free country. People who are really committed to get an advanced degree, can enroll in graduate school part time, which is what many people I know did. They hopped onto the GC line as EB3 and went to grad school part time. Some now have graduate degrees from places like Stanford.

Also note that the law accounts for really smart people to be unfettered by allowing for things such as EB2 National Interest Waiver and EB1 exceptional ability.

To say that just because someone was doing a PhD and therefore needs to get an earlier priority date that accounts for their graduate program is, to say the least, weird. It is mixing up the employment based system with a merit based system. In fact, one could argue a merit based system should not have any notion of priority dates whatsoever!

Also, just like you, I have no personal gain from this, one way or the other :-)

I don't think Rolling flood is debating the eligibility of 5 years experience post Bachelors for EB2. The point here is about porting which enables one to retain the priority date from the EB3 application which maybe required Bachelors + 0 years. To balance things out why not give a person who acquires a Masters or PhD a few years in terms of priority date.

Note that I have no personal gain from any of the above happening. :)

There is some excellent information on this thread. Pls add it on http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php?title=Buying_a_house_in_USA&action=edit

as well
http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Immigration_to_US
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