The one party Health Care bill was signed into law today. Although I applaud Mr. Obama's attempt to work in a bipartisan manner, he should have slowed down the process to concede to the republican demands. He refused to compromise with the republicans, courted the democrats and rammed a bill down the throats of an unwilling population. That is NOT democracy. What will happen to that health care bill is that Republicans will file a court challenge to it. The conservative Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional. In the meantime, in October the make up of the Senate and House will change. And the health care issue will die.
Our Separation of Powers works if the legislative majority and the Executive are not of the same party. With a single party holding swing over the Executive and Legislature the checks and balances are gone.
Yet probably unlike health care, Immigration can be bipartisan. There were at least two bills jointly put forward by a Republican and a Democrat. And former president Bush wanted immigration reform as much as President Obama does. Yet the parameters are different for different parties. The democrats want to legalize the undocumented aliens who are illegally here. They do mainly manual jobs, work hard, and are necessary for the country. However the democrats frown upon the intellectual jobs being done by mostly Indian and Chinese professionals, who are here legally on H-1B visas, giving into protectionist labor organizations.The H-1B visas have been attached ever since Mr. Obama took office. First there were the workplace raids, whose main purpose was to see if businesses were following the letter of the law minutely. Then came the January 08 memo, which virtually ended consulting companies (mainly IT companies) ability to hire foreign nationals on H-1B. These people are legal, have valid visas and work in professional jobs. They too are necessary for the American economy. American colleges do not generate a high volume of Computer Professionals necessary to keep American businesses going. The Republicans support these work visas, the democrats don't.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform has to be COMPREHENSIVE. Just as health care bill did not include provisions to curb tort lawyers, an Immigration bill which only addresses the illegal immigrants supplying manual labor and not the legal immigrants supplying intellectual labor is simply unacceptable.
For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Why we need H-1B workers
The USCIS charges a hefty ACWIA fee for each H-1B petition filed. The fee is either $1500 (for employers having more than 25 employees) or $750 (if the employer has less than 25 employees).
The rationale behind these fees is that the Government will use this money to teach American workers to do the job. But of course this money goes into that deep dark hole called the Government.
But America could easily train its students to perform at a much higher rate by spending NO money.
1. Create an atmosphere where education is held to a higher respect than sports or cheer leading. The only March madness that all other countries worry about are those big fat college acceptance letters showing up on students' mailboxes.
2. Make College acceptances more fair. The "Holistic" approach that Colleges apply to "Judge" students is arbitrary and fraudulent. I am not saying that students should be bookworms or nerds and not do extracurricular. But the main determinant for getting into colleges should be grades and SATs. There is no way to judge if a piano player is better than a violin player, or a person with XYZ community service is better than one with ABC community service. Students routinely build their resumes with fluff to satisfy the colleges, a time better spent in studying and doing something they enjoy to develop themselves, rather than conforming to a set of rules dictated by colleges. In India, Engineering and Medical School acceptances are blind, based on only scores of a very hard standardized exam. It is true that it is much harder to get into IIT than to Harvard. And if these students want to come over to the US because of higher pay, why blame them? The US ultimately profits.
3. Do away with Legacy acceptances. That is nothing short of white, privileged people (like former pres George W Bush) preserving the college acceptances for their worthless kids. Many parents of today's college age kids entered college before there was the SATs. College acceptances in those days was based on color and lineage. These people then want their kids to enter their alma mater. The legacy kids are generally academically inferior and walk around with a sense of entitlement. Yet better students do not get in. In fact Princeton was sued by an Asian male recently for discrimination. Likewise affirmative action should be means dependent rather than color dependent. The economically poor do not get the same opportunity as the richer kids in terms of college preparedness and should be given an advantage to level the plain field.
Of course there is no legal way to make private colleges fair other than to cut out their Governmental research funding and thereby diminishing their US News And World Report rank. If America cannot give the very best education to deserving students and create professional workers, we have to import them from countries like India. And how does India, a poor country produce so many professionals?
For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee
The rationale behind these fees is that the Government will use this money to teach American workers to do the job. But of course this money goes into that deep dark hole called the Government.
But America could easily train its students to perform at a much higher rate by spending NO money.
1. Create an atmosphere where education is held to a higher respect than sports or cheer leading. The only March madness that all other countries worry about are those big fat college acceptance letters showing up on students' mailboxes.
2. Make College acceptances more fair. The "Holistic" approach that Colleges apply to "Judge" students is arbitrary and fraudulent. I am not saying that students should be bookworms or nerds and not do extracurricular. But the main determinant for getting into colleges should be grades and SATs. There is no way to judge if a piano player is better than a violin player, or a person with XYZ community service is better than one with ABC community service. Students routinely build their resumes with fluff to satisfy the colleges, a time better spent in studying and doing something they enjoy to develop themselves, rather than conforming to a set of rules dictated by colleges. In India, Engineering and Medical School acceptances are blind, based on only scores of a very hard standardized exam. It is true that it is much harder to get into IIT than to Harvard. And if these students want to come over to the US because of higher pay, why blame them? The US ultimately profits.
3. Do away with Legacy acceptances. That is nothing short of white, privileged people (like former pres George W Bush) preserving the college acceptances for their worthless kids. Many parents of today's college age kids entered college before there was the SATs. College acceptances in those days was based on color and lineage. These people then want their kids to enter their alma mater. The legacy kids are generally academically inferior and walk around with a sense of entitlement. Yet better students do not get in. In fact Princeton was sued by an Asian male recently for discrimination. Likewise affirmative action should be means dependent rather than color dependent. The economically poor do not get the same opportunity as the richer kids in terms of college preparedness and should be given an advantage to level the plain field.
Of course there is no legal way to make private colleges fair other than to cut out their Governmental research funding and thereby diminishing their US News And World Report rank. If America cannot give the very best education to deserving students and create professional workers, we have to import them from countries like India. And how does India, a poor country produce so many professionals?
For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Time for New H-1B filings
There are 65,000 general plus 20,000 US Master's Degree holder H-1B visa given annually. The Government's fiscal year starts on October, and they begin taking applications 6 months before that. Thus the CIS announced that for the fiscal year 2011, they will begin accepting H-1B applications from April 01, 2010.
In recent years, ie 2007 and 2008, there were more than 100,000 petitions filed on April 01. The CIS held a lottery and only the lucky 65K plus 20K got in. This created a myth amongst employers that they have to file on April 01, or they will not get in. However that is not the case. The CIS will continue to accept applications until the H-1B quota is finished. Last year, in 2009 (for the fiscal year 2010) the quota was finished on December 21, 2009. They started accepting applications on April 01, 2009. That was because the economic downturn and US unemployment reduced the need for hiring new employees, especially H-1B employees who are expensive. The high unemployment rates still continues. In addition the January 08, 2010 memo by CIS effectively killed the IT industry sponsorship, and IT was the biggest user of H-1B visas. Thus, the H-1B quota finishing on April 01 this year is extremely unlikely.
Additionally, the Labor Condition Application, a precondition to filing the H-1B application which used to be instant this time last year, is taking about 2-3 weeks, thanks to an incompetent labor department.
Also the Request for Additional Evidence from the CIS for H-1B has increased exponentially. Thus we are taking our time to gather a ton of documents and present a water tight case to the CIS, instead of rushing to file the H-1B petition on April 01, 2010.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
In recent years, ie 2007 and 2008, there were more than 100,000 petitions filed on April 01. The CIS held a lottery and only the lucky 65K plus 20K got in. This created a myth amongst employers that they have to file on April 01, or they will not get in. However that is not the case. The CIS will continue to accept applications until the H-1B quota is finished. Last year, in 2009 (for the fiscal year 2010) the quota was finished on December 21, 2009. They started accepting applications on April 01, 2009. That was because the economic downturn and US unemployment reduced the need for hiring new employees, especially H-1B employees who are expensive. The high unemployment rates still continues. In addition the January 08, 2010 memo by CIS effectively killed the IT industry sponsorship, and IT was the biggest user of H-1B visas. Thus, the H-1B quota finishing on April 01 this year is extremely unlikely.
Additionally, the Labor Condition Application, a precondition to filing the H-1B application which used to be instant this time last year, is taking about 2-3 weeks, thanks to an incompetent labor department.
Also the Request for Additional Evidence from the CIS for H-1B has increased exponentially. Thus we are taking our time to gather a ton of documents and present a water tight case to the CIS, instead of rushing to file the H-1B petition on April 01, 2010.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Thursday, March 4, 2010
If only our Government had common sense
In the Matter of UMG Logistics today, Balca denied the case because they felt that knowledge of Spanish is not necessary for a truck driver who will deliver goods exclusively to a small community in Mexico. Balca said that the employer merely asserted that Spanish is required without giving evidence for it. Come on Balca and DOl, we all live in the US. We have all visited Mexico. Ok, maybe you have only visited Cancun, but surely you know a Mexican person whose English is not quite great. It does not take a genius to realize that you cannot do business in interior of Mexico without knowing Spanish.
Similarly, I was given a Request for Evidence (RFE) in a National Interest Waiver Case, asking me to prove that breast cancer research is National in scope and not local. We had to actually give National Statistics to prove that breast cancer is National.
But then, we never hired Federal workers for their ability to think and rationalize.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Similarly, I was given a Request for Evidence (RFE) in a National Interest Waiver Case, asking me to prove that breast cancer research is National in scope and not local. We had to actually give National Statistics to prove that breast cancer is National.
But then, we never hired Federal workers for their ability to think and rationalize.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Piece by Piece Legislation
The Republicans seem to think that a piece by piece, instead of a Comprehensive Health Care bill will be better. I think that a piece by piece Immigration Bill, instead of a Comprehensive Immigration bill will also have a higher likelihood of passing. The American people and Congress are afraid of sweeping legislation that will change the face of this nation. Besides, in Immigration Law, just like it is in health care, the issues are completely different for Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans are friendlier towards Employment issues, the Democrats want to legalize the illegal people.
Yet there are certain things that both party agree on, like the Dream Act, legalizing illegal American College grads. To not pass this bill unless you can have a Comprehensive Immigration bill does no good to anyone.
The best chance of a Comprehensive Immigration bill to have passed Congress, was the McCain (R)-Kennedy (late senator Ted Kennedy, D)in the Bush Administration. Even that bill died. If it is impossible to do a complete overhaul, lets attempt it piece by piece.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Yet there are certain things that both party agree on, like the Dream Act, legalizing illegal American College grads. To not pass this bill unless you can have a Comprehensive Immigration bill does no good to anyone.
The best chance of a Comprehensive Immigration bill to have passed Congress, was the McCain (R)-Kennedy (late senator Ted Kennedy, D)in the Bush Administration. Even that bill died. If it is impossible to do a complete overhaul, lets attempt it piece by piece.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Jan 8th H-1B Memo Revisited
After that devastating H-1B Neufield Memo of January 08, 2010, today the USCIS had a stakeholder's meeting for comments on that memo. (For details on this memo, please see my Jan 21 blog). Effectively this memo paralyzed certain types of H-1B cases specially the IT Consulting Services and staffing agencies. The rationale behind the memo is that these parties do not have control over their employees, and thus are not employers in the H-1B context.
The justification cited by the USCIS was that they wanted to maintain consistency of adjudications between the different service centers. After being told though that they have opened a pandora's box and their memo might be interpreted differently. The Service Center said that every denial will receive "supervisory review." Lets hope that CIS "CONTROLS" these supervisors.
Congressman Morrison, who wrote the H-1B legislation specifically stated in the meeting that Congress did not intend to exclude staffing companies (and IT consulting Companies) from H-1B jobs and that this memo is wrong and will have devastating policy consequences.
Others including Crystal Williams of AILA pointed out that since both the Supreme Court cases (Darden-Clakcamas) were not on point, and this memo created new rules for employer-employee relationship that it amounted to impermissible rule making by a Governmental agency. By law, an Agency has to publish a rule and have a notice and comment period, and consider all comments before making a rule. Thus this memo should be withdrawn. Interestingly a caller even said that the Darden-Clakcamas cases refer to the EEOC manual, where the IT staffing Companies are used as examples of valid Employer-Employee relationship. Thus the CIS' citations actually contradict their position. The caller asked whether anyone actulayy read the cases before citing them as authority.
Others made policy statements, like cutting down H-1B jobs will effectively outsource those jobs. Also prohibition of investors will hurt USA in these dire economic times.
Then there were some CIS supporters. There was a PhD from some anti immigration group who said he was a PhD in some type of radio Physics, was out of a job because employers want younger employees. Well, if H-1B was stopped, employers would still hire new grads, only they would be American grads, and those at the bottom of their classes who had no hope of getting another job. Look at the Nobel laureate list for 2010 for USA. All those medals would simply go to other countries.
The CIS did notice that there were numerous blogs criticizing their memo.
The question remains as to what it will take for USCIS to reverse its stance. It took the election of a Republican senator to change the health care debate. The CIS noted that even Capital Hill is commenting about their Jan 08 memo.
This memo according to them took years to make. Even then, the policy making personnel at CIS did not read the entire Supreme Court cases. To undo this memo may take the same time. Maybe their employer, Mr. Obama, should control them tightly against such arbitrary rule making.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
The justification cited by the USCIS was that they wanted to maintain consistency of adjudications between the different service centers. After being told though that they have opened a pandora's box and their memo might be interpreted differently. The Service Center said that every denial will receive "supervisory review." Lets hope that CIS "CONTROLS" these supervisors.
Congressman Morrison, who wrote the H-1B legislation specifically stated in the meeting that Congress did not intend to exclude staffing companies (and IT consulting Companies) from H-1B jobs and that this memo is wrong and will have devastating policy consequences.
Others including Crystal Williams of AILA pointed out that since both the Supreme Court cases (Darden-Clakcamas) were not on point, and this memo created new rules for employer-employee relationship that it amounted to impermissible rule making by a Governmental agency. By law, an Agency has to publish a rule and have a notice and comment period, and consider all comments before making a rule. Thus this memo should be withdrawn. Interestingly a caller even said that the Darden-Clakcamas cases refer to the EEOC manual, where the IT staffing Companies are used as examples of valid Employer-Employee relationship. Thus the CIS' citations actually contradict their position. The caller asked whether anyone actulayy read the cases before citing them as authority.
Others made policy statements, like cutting down H-1B jobs will effectively outsource those jobs. Also prohibition of investors will hurt USA in these dire economic times.
Then there were some CIS supporters. There was a PhD from some anti immigration group who said he was a PhD in some type of radio Physics, was out of a job because employers want younger employees. Well, if H-1B was stopped, employers would still hire new grads, only they would be American grads, and those at the bottom of their classes who had no hope of getting another job. Look at the Nobel laureate list for 2010 for USA. All those medals would simply go to other countries.
The CIS did notice that there were numerous blogs criticizing their memo.
The question remains as to what it will take for USCIS to reverse its stance. It took the election of a Republican senator to change the health care debate. The CIS noted that even Capital Hill is commenting about their Jan 08 memo.
This memo according to them took years to make. Even then, the policy making personnel at CIS did not read the entire Supreme Court cases. To undo this memo may take the same time. Maybe their employer, Mr. Obama, should control them tightly against such arbitrary rule making.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Degree Equivalency for I-140
Everyone knows that the CIS is in a denying mode and will deny every Employment based petition that it possibly can. Add that to the equation that for India and China the Employment based Third Preference petitions for India is currently being processed for people who filed in July of 2001. A lot of client want to get onto the second preference category. But the requirements for EB-2 are very strict. The minimum qualification for an EB-2 job is at least a Master's Degree or a Bachelor's Degree plus 5 years of experience. The Experience has to be obtained after the degree is obtained and before starting the job with the sponsor. (The rationale being that if the sponsor provided the beneficiary with the experience, it can provide an Us Citizen with the same experience opportunity).
However, the CIS is extremely harsh with Indian degrees.
A three year Bachelors Degree from India is not equivalent to a Bachelor's degree here.
A three year Bachelors degree in a general field and a one (or sometimes two year) Masters degree in a particular field from India is not equivalent to a Bachelors degree in the US
A Bachelors degree in some field and a Masters in another specific field is not equivalent to a Masters even if the time frame for both studies is 6 years.
A Four year Bachelor's Degree and 1 year Masters is not equivalent to a Masters
The waters are more muddied by the fact that all these cases are decided on a "case by case basis." There is no consistency between cases even in the same service center.
I realize that there are some institutions in India that are not good, but so are many institutions in the US. India has 1 billion people and the competition to get into Universities is far higher than in the US. Yet, the US looks favorably to a degree from say England, than it does to a degree from India. As they say in India, if you cannot get into IIT, apply to MIT or Harvard.
And for the record, Obama did not get into Columbia as an undergraduate in the freshman year. He transferred from Occidental College. And Bush could not have gotten into any college based on merit. Saint John's School in Houston refused him admission as a kid.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
However, the CIS is extremely harsh with Indian degrees.
A three year Bachelors Degree from India is not equivalent to a Bachelor's degree here.
A three year Bachelors degree in a general field and a one (or sometimes two year) Masters degree in a particular field from India is not equivalent to a Bachelors degree in the US
A Bachelors degree in some field and a Masters in another specific field is not equivalent to a Masters even if the time frame for both studies is 6 years.
A Four year Bachelor's Degree and 1 year Masters is not equivalent to a Masters
The waters are more muddied by the fact that all these cases are decided on a "case by case basis." There is no consistency between cases even in the same service center.
I realize that there are some institutions in India that are not good, but so are many institutions in the US. India has 1 billion people and the competition to get into Universities is far higher than in the US. Yet, the US looks favorably to a degree from say England, than it does to a degree from India. As they say in India, if you cannot get into IIT, apply to MIT or Harvard.
And for the record, Obama did not get into Columbia as an undergraduate in the freshman year. He transferred from Occidental College. And Bush could not have gotten into any college based on merit. Saint John's School in Houston refused him admission as a kid.
Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details
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