Mojave Cross, Scalia and Religion

Dear Justice Scalia,

How can you say that the Cross is not a religious symbol? Is it really the "most common symbol of the resting place of the dead? "

How many Christian die in ratio of the addition of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and all other religions?

You have not lived your life as a non Christian, especially in the South. When I first came into this country, I came with a commodity lacking in the US, a brain. My children were enrolled in River Oaks Baptist School in Houston, Texas.(ROBS) There, they were probably the best students (they subsequently went on to Yale and Duke while the majority of ROBS students have IQs like Mr. G W Bush), they were severely discriminated against because of their race and religion. They were given bad evaluations, put in lower level classes, and constantly put down.

Once when we were seeing a Japanese dance, my six year old daughter commented that "mom can I paint my face white when I go to school." When I asked why, she replied that , "then kids would play with me, and teachers will love me."

She was told to expand on a bible verse that said that people who believe in images are like dogs. We are Hindus.

When I went to law school at South Texas College of Law quite a few teachers thought that I was not smart because of my skin color or ethnic origin. I graduated third highest from that school. I also studied on a full academic scholarship. Oh yes, grades were blind, profs did not know whose papers they were grading.

When I go to Court, the many judges do the same thing, look at me as if I don't know anything. And yes, in Texas Courts, the Judges have bibles on their desk. Its a chilling reminder to me that me and my faith are outsiders to this country.

We have to decide, whether we will be the open country for all religions, like we were when the pilgrims came, or be pro one religion, like Iran.

Look at the list of Nobel Laureates in Science in 2009. How many of them are American Citizens? All but one. How many of them were born in America? None but one.

Justice Scalia, unless we create a tolerant society, we will loose our standing in the world. Do you really want to go back to the 50s America?



Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

Naturalization Interview In the Houston District Office

In the Houston District Office this is a three step process.

First you will go with an Officer in a little cubicle and be administered the test of English and Social Science. The exam consists of about 10 written questions from the Citizenship and Immigration Service list. After that the Officer will test your English by asking you to read something, or write down a sentence or two. For a copy of the list please go to http://www.visatous.com Go to Links and click on New Naturalization test.

Provided you pass the test, you will then proceed to the next step. This is the actual interview with an Officer. The officer will go over the factual elements of the case. These include whether you had continuous residence, physical presence and whether you have good moral character (ie not convicted of a crime). They might also ask you whether you affirm the Oath Requirements of Section H on Page 9 of the N-400 Form. They are:

Do you support the Constitution and form of government of the United States?
Do you understand the full Oath of Allegiance to the United States?
Are you willing to take the full Oath of Allegiance to the United States?
If the law requires it, are you willing to bear arms on behalf of the United States?
If the law requires it, are you willing to perform noncombatant services in the U.S. Armed Forces?
If the law requires it, are you willing to perform work of national importance under civilian direction?


Provided you pass the Second Step, you proceed to the third step. The Citizenship and Immigration Service will schedule you for the oath ceremony and hand you the necessary papers for the oath ceremony.

After you take the oath, you become an US Citizen.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

TOP TEN TURKEY DECISIONS BY DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Today on Thanksgiving I'd like to make a list of the top ten turkey decisions by the Bush created Department of Homeland Security:

10. The decision to raise CIS filing fees: The extra money just goes to waste, and does not create a dent in the economy. Just gets bad press

9. Making the Naturalization test harder: The Republicans are trying hard to become the Populist party, the party of W and Sarah Palin, a Joe the unlicensed Plumber, non thinking people party. A test which is based on concepts rather than rote memorization will only be passed by people who can think. Would those people really vote in populism?

8. Asking the illegal people to surrender themselves to the authorities and go back. Really? What were they thinking

7.Repealing the decision to make illegal people surrender themselves and go back. Now what do you do with the personnel you hired for the project? Not like anyone can loose a Government job. This is not as easy as a Constitutional amendment

6. Decision to raid the Tyson Chicken factory. Now we cant get good chicken, or butterball turkey. There is no one to skin and feather a turkey

5. The decision to make federal contractors sign on to e verify so that employers have to verify new recruits to see whether they have a legal SS number before they start jobs. In case the DHS have not noticed (since no one is loosing jobs at DHS) there is a recession going on and any restrictions placed on work will only further ail the economy. If there are legal people who can do a job, employers would not hire illegal people

4. The Decision to not have anyone bring in a phone that has a camera in any Citizenship and Immigration Office. I have been practicing for 12 years and have yet to see anyone there of whom I'd like to take the pictures. Its not like anyone wants a calendar of pictures of DHS workers

3. The color coded security alarms. Their main purpose is to alarm the population into voting Republican, and we know it did not work. No one understands which color is the most dangerous. Is it purple, or red or indigo?

2. The decision to not allow people to bring in fluids into airplanes. If I can make a bomb out of a bottle of water, a lip gloss and a toothpaste tube, I should be awarded the noble prize. All it does is put in more money in the hands of the airport vendors

1. The decision to have everyone take out their shoes in security check lines in airports. Not only is it humiliating, but dangerous. People can contract foot fungus, and who knows what else. And have they ever found anything dangerous in any shoe ever? The shoe bomber was just a crazy guy who failed.










Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

Is Work Criminal?

The Bush Government is solidly anti work when it comes to immigration. Yes, I admit that a worker must have the legal right to work. But employers know this too, and they would not take in immigrants if they found immigrants and United States Citizens ready to work. The anti Immigration forces make a huge deal about how immigrants are into crime, violence, etc. Yet Immigration and Custom Enforcement's major focus is work place raids to eradicate illegal workers, not illegal criminals. Unless of course working was criminal!

But the same is true for legal workers who are not from this country. Everyday I hear stories from clients about how long the work permits are taking, and how they simply cannot get the CIS to issue them quickly. These workers are forced to quit and in many cases force to go back to their home country. Many of them are in fields like research or IT where there simply is not enough qualified immigrants to do the job.

Even though the economy is bad, we still need skilled workers. Laid off auto workers in Detroit will not be able to perform bio tech research. And if we continue to have this same policy, US will continue to slip behind.

I know that the economy and not immigration is the major focus of the Obama Government. But America as a nation was built by immigrants and will continue to prosper as long as we get hardworking immigrants in.

Just like a plant that has to work harder to survive in unaccustomed earth, human being flourish better if they have to fight in a foreign land with scant help.


Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

The Brighest and the Best

Anti Immigration groups like the Center for Immigration Studies charge that the foreign workers who come in to the United States are not the Brightest and the Best. Dr. Norman Matloff, a Professor of Computer Science, in UC Davis, recently wrote a paper full of fallacies, whose main theme is that Asian students are inferior than American and Western students in Math and Science.

Lets look at some facts here. The Dept of Labor has mandated that foreign workers have to be paid more than the prevailing wage. The CIS fees for Companies over 25 workers is $2340/- each H-1B employee. Add attorneys fees to that, and the figure can reach almost $5000/- per H-1B individual. Would it make market sense then, for a Company to hire a foreign worker if American workers are available? Surely Mr. Matloff does not think that American businesses, like Cisco, Google and Microsoft, who he quoted in his article are stupid in making business decisions.

What Mr. Matloff has done to prove that Asian students are lower than European students is taken averages from those countries. Yes, Europe will have a higher average any day than China or India. That is because European countries have a homogeneous and small population, with free public education. India and China have over a billion people and of course cannot afford to educate its entire population. The same is true of states in the US. The average PSAT score which is used to compute the average for National Merit Scholarship is much higher in North Dakota than it is in CA, NY or TX. ND has a much smaller and homogeneous population than the larger states. But if you look at the population of students in the ivy leagues from the bigger states, there are more students from these states than there is from North Dakota. So the brightest and the best does not necessarily coincide with the median.

If we are to look at averages, can Mr Matloff explain why Asians have, as a group scored higher in the Math portion of the SATs? Why compared to their population in the general US society, so many Asians get accepted into the ivys? Bear in mind that Asians get neither legacy nor affirmative action in terms of admission to these ivys. My daughter just graduated from Yale University with distinction in Literature, and yes, the top scoring Science and Math student at Yale in 2008 was a student from Vietnamese origin. This is not a statistics, just a fact.

There's got to be a lot of Asian students taking Computer Science at UC Davis. Do they enroll in Mr. Matloff's class. If so, I would dearly love to know how he grades these students. With his prejudicial views, I doubt that he is a fair and impartial grader.

I-140 Portability

You filed your I-485 under the July 2007 Visa Bulletin (VB No. 107). It has been more than 180 days. You cannot stand your employer, and have found a new employer who will continue the process. Can you Port your I-140 under AC21?

Below are some pointers to consider before you switch employers:

1. Is your I-140 approved?

If your I-140 is not approved yet, you need to decide if that case will be approvable. You have to decide if your first employer who sponsored you have the ability to pay, a valid job offer, etc.

If your first I-140 is approved already then porting becomes much easier

2. Is the new job same and similar?

The new ported job has to be same and similar. Both those jobs have to have the same DOT Code (for RIR and traditional cases) or SOC Code (for PERM cases), and the salary range offered in the underlying Labor certification has to be within a similar range. It is much better to have a copy of your original labor certification and the I-140 approval or receipt notice, to determine if the new job is same and similar.

3. What if my first Employer withdraws the I-140?

It is not a problem if your first employer withdraws the I-140 after 180 days of the filing of the I-485.

4. Can you port to a different Geographical location?

Yes, you can take a new job anywhere in the US and port the I-140

5. Should the new employer have the ability to pay?

Although technically the only factor that counts is whether the two employments are same and similar, the question of whether the new employer has the ability to pay can be a factor in adjustment of status

6. What’s the worst case scenario?

If the I-140 Portability is denied for some reason, you can always retain the Priority date of the old labor for the adjustment under 8 C.F.R 204.5(e). But you have to start with a fresh PERM filing. This means if your 6 years of H-1B are over, you might have to go back to your home country until you can get your green card.