LADY LIBERTY

The Statue of Liberty which was donated to the US by France, in 1886, still serves as a symbol for immigration in the United States. Some pages of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service web site still contain her picture, as does many immigration related web sites and materials. But the statue is engraved with a poem by Emma Lazarus, which is no longer valid, (I don’t think it ever was valid). Instead of saying:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It should say:

Give us your money and wait forever
Before you can breathe free
Do the wretched jobs that we won’t do
And we will debate about whether to let you in
Whether to let you live our dream

US Visitor's Visa and Ms. Jagger

A New York Appellate Court has ruled that Bianca Jagger (Ex wife of Mick Jagger) cannot have a "primary residence" in the US, and thus she could be evicted from her residence in NYC. Bianca had a visitor's visa. The visitor's visa does not allow a person to maintain a residence in the US, because the visit is purely temporary. This is the main proof that the Consulates look for in granting the visitor's visa. A person can visit, travel (B-2 visa) or work (B-1) temporarily (usually not more than 6 months) in the US on this visa. However except in rare circumstances, a visitor cannot be paid for his services in the US. Unlike Australia, we do not have a visa whereby a person can visit, work and get paid to defray the cost of travel in the US. For more information on the visitor's visa please visit my web site: http://www.visatous.com/

However that does not mean that a person cannot have a house or residence in the US. In fact much of Manhattan real estate is owned by people who do not live there. I think it is inherently unfair that we let visitors buy property and businesses without granting them some type of status to work in the US. We should institute a system like Australia whereby visitors can perform temporary work and get paid here, as long as they return to their home country. Of course they should pay taxes to the US on those earnings. This will be a win win situation.

Internationalism

In 1893, in the world parliament of religion, in Chicago, a young ascetic from India, Swami Vivekananda addressed the conference as "Sisters and Brothers of America" instead of the usual Ladies and Gentlemen. Thus was born a new concept, Internationalism, as opposed to Nationalism. Much later Disney crytllalized it into the song, "its a small world after all." The concept that we live in one world, without borders, is in direct conflict to the likes of Lou Dobbs. Nationalism lead us to two world wars, and is still influencing immigration policies everywhere, from the US to Switzerland. Immigration dominates the policy. Are we going back towards the ultra nationalism of the previous century?
What if we could move away from insularism, and become one world, who would control? Who would you vote for the Head of the WORLD?

New Naturalization Questions

For a complete list of questions and answers, please visit http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/100q.pdf

Here's my take on some of the questions:

Q 10. What is freedom of religion:
A. You can practice any religion or not practice a religion. It fails to mention that we are still ruled by the right wing Christian Group. We do not have freedom to do stem cell research, we do not have gay marriages, under the Robert's Court we may certainly loose our abortion rights.

Q. 46 asks what is the political party of the President now. Q. 47 asks who is the speaker of the house now, without mentioning the political party. No questions ask which party has the majority in the House and Senate now. Hmmmmm, these questions were drafted by the Republican govt, but in future the answers can turn against them.