I would like to see Akhil Amar as the next Supreme Court Justice. And that is not only because he knows more about Constitutional Law than most Supreme Court Justices. But as a group, Asians don’t have much clout in Politics. We have small numbers. Yet, we score the highest SAT scores, we earn the highest average salaries of any other group. Yet we have negligible representation in Government.

Our children get into the best colleges through merit alone, we don’t have affirmative action or legacy. And very often than not, schools discriminate against us. Princeton was sued recently by Asians because they adversely discriminated against Asians. So all other groups can get in with much lower grades than we do. That is why schools have created this “holistic” approach, so that they can tell Asians that education is not enough.

The legal profession takes this discrimination even one step further. Not many Asians are partners of big law firm. So even though Neal Katyal convinced the Bush Supreme Court to rule against Guantanamo, he was just a professor at Georgetown. Mr. Amar is a professor at Yale. But Professorships don’t pay. Neither does in house counsel. So most Asians become doctors.

In the process we are loosing some brilliant minds to Law. We need to uphold the image of Asians as effective lawyers. And after all they have the brains and education to prove it.

For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee

Immigration is the only place in law where quotas are still permissible, and everybody knows that especially for India and China the quotas for employment based visas disappear very quickly. These are huge countries with many professional people and their quotas get used up resulting in lengthy wait times, especially for third preference visas. Therefore everyone wants to get into the Second Preference.

There are some caveats though:

1. The experience has to be AFTER you get the degree and BEFORE you join the Petitioning Company. The experience in the same job at the petitioning company does not work because the rationale is that if the employer can train the beneficiary, they can train an American graduate as well.

2. To get to the second preference with a Master’s Degree, if that degree is not from the US, there is always a problem. If the underlying Bachelors Degree and Master’s Degree does not match, then it is not usually counted as a Bachelors Degree.

3. Evaluations are advisory only, and USCIS does not have to follow them. Similarly, work experience cannot be used to substitute years of Degree as you can in H-1B.

4. H-1B standard is much less stricter in terms of Degree equivalency than I-140.

Below are some recommendation by Nebraska Service Center for Degree equivalency:

1. US master’s degree – as long as it is in the field required no additional documents would be required no additional documents would be required

2. 4 yr bachelor’s degree + 2 yr master’s degree (India) – with degrees in the same or related fields this will generally be considered the equivalent to a U.S. master’s degree with no additional documents required

3. 3 yr bachelor’s degree + 3 yr master’s degree (India) – with degrees in the same or related fields this will generally be equivalent to U.S. master’s degree with no additional documents required

4. 3 yr bachelor’s degree + 1 yr postgraduate diploma + 2 yr master’s degree (India) with degrees in the same or similar field this would generally be considered the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree plus one additional year of education so the beneficiary would also need to have 5 yrs progressive experience. If the postgraduate diploma is determined to be progressive postgraduate education that is a continuation of the 3 yr bachelor’s degree it is possible that this would be considered the equivalent to a Master’s degree and there would be no need to establish 5 yrs progressive experience.

5. 3 yr bachelor’s degree + 2 yr master’s degree (India) – generally this would be the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree + 1 year and would require 5 yrs progressive experience to qualify under the 2nd preference category.

6. 3 yr bachelor’s degree + 2 yr master’s degree (India) + 5 yrs progressive, post master’s degree experience – Generally the educational degrees would be determined to be the equivalent of a US. bachelor’s + 1 year and the beneficiary would meet the statutory requirement

7. 3 yr bachelor’s degree + 2 yr master’s degree + 1 yr postgraduate diploma (India) – generally this would be the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree + 1 year and would require 5 yrs progressive experience to qualify under the 2nd preference category. If the postgraduate education that is a continuation of the 3 yr bachelor’s degree or the 2 yr master’s degree it is possible that this would be considered the equivalent to a US Master’s degree and there would be no need to establish 5 yrs progressive experience.

For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee

In the opinion of Annie Banerjee, a Houston-area immigration lawyer, Senate Bill 1070, a new piece of legislation being proposed by the Arizona legislature, would be more worthy of Nuremburg circa 1934 than Arizona 2010.

Hate speech is one thing, hate legislation quite another. A proposed state senate bill being proposed in Arizona would, if implemented, set a Draconian standard for criminalizing noncitizens and dehumanizing any person who doesn’t look, act, speak, or smell “American,” a term that really can’t be defined except in the minds of the intolerant. If passed into law, Senate Bill 1070 would be yet another law on the books which would justify racial profiling under the guise of “reasonable suspicion.”

“This law being considered by the Arizona legislature is awful,” asserts Annie Banerjee, an immigration lawyer based in the Houston area, “and even its underlying rationale is faulty.”

The law would allow a vagary known as “reasonable suspicion” to become the premise of racial profiling to become an active component in the administration of justice. State officials would be able to determine a person’s immigration status by utilizing hunches harbored behind a veil of bias. “What exactly is reasonable suspicion of alienage,” Banerjee asks, “Is it not being able to speak English? Is it a shade of skin color that’s not white, a religion other than Protestant? Is it facial features that suggest an ethnicity other than Caucasian?”

Banerjee is able to contemplate a crossing guard encountering a child walking to school who doesn’t speak English, say an East Indian child born in Bombay but whose family moved to Mesa, Arizona from Bellevue, Washington, is the officer now obliged to examine the child’s papers or call her parents and ask about immigration status? “It’s bordering on Kafka-esque,” Banerjee argues, “and certainly not what you’d expect in a country with so-called ‘open borders.’ The little girl would probably feel like she was caught in a nightmare version of Alice in Wonderland.”

Banerjee questions if anyone promoting this piece of legislation “has even read the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 31, 2010, decision in Padilla v. Kentucky which states in no uncertain terms that immigration law is so complex that even trained experts have difficulty delineating which offenses lead to deportation. In Arizona I wouldn’t be surprised if jaywalking became a deportation crime if this stupid law is passed. It’s much worse than hate speech – it’s more like hate legislation,” Banerjee concludes.

To learn more, visit http://www.visatous.com.

The USCIS announced today (April 01, 2010) that it has killed the H-1B program. I just saw this on their web site. The press release said that the Service could not control the program, that it went through too many intermediaries and is therefore impermissible. The Spokesperson from the Vermont Service Center, Mr. New Field said that the H-1B petition originated with the employer offering the employee a job. Then the employer had to go through an intermediary, the lawyer, who then goes through the Department of Labor and then through the post office, before submitting the petition to the Vermont Service Center. The Vermont Service Center then has to collect it through the pouring rain. The mail room clerks then collects the fee, and issues the receipts. The officer who ultimately adjudicates the petition cannot control the petition because of all these intermediaries. The USCIS cited Brown Vs Board of Education as precedent in discontinuing the program.

The memo further stated if your new H-1B petition reached their offices today, you need not worry. The CIS will do what they would have done anyways, deny the petition.

For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee

The Supreme Court of the United States today in Padilla V Kentucky, ruled that if an immigrant is wrongly advised by his Criminal Defense Attorney about the Immigration consequences of a crime,is prejudiced and cannot be automatically deported.

Padilla was a Vietnam vet and had been a Permanent Resident for more than 40 years. He was charged with drug distribution charges in Kentucky and his Criminal Defense lawyer told him to plead guilty, and that it would have no immigration consequences. He was wrong and Padilla was sent for deportation.

What is astonishing is that this conservative Supreme Court recognized that deportation laws are extremely harsh now. “While once there was only a narrow class of deportable offenses and judges wielded broad discretionary authority to prevent deportation, immigration reforms have expanded the class of deportable offenses and limited judges’ authority to alleviate deportation’s harsh consequences. Because the drastic measure of deportation or removal is now virtually inevitable for a vast number of noncitizens convicted of crimes, the importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important. Thus, as a matter of federal law, deportation is an integral part of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants who plead guilty to specified crimes.“

Thus Criminal Defense Lawyers have an affirmative duty to learn and advise clients about the immigration consequences of a crime.

For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee