If you were wondering why the Tripple G rated (Guns, God and Gays) Southern States, still under the shadows of the Jim Crow laws have not passed on their hatred for immigrants in a restrictive bill like Arizona, wonder no further. The Texas GOP convention this past week end in Dallas adopted an anti immigration stance that would bar illegal immigrants from “intentionally or knowingly” residing in Texas. Of course the GOP did not clarify if this knowledge applies to residing in Texas or being not legal. But then, we need to one up Arizona. So the GOP advocated for an “open carry” law which would allow residents of carrying fire arms in the open, without a concealed weapons permit. Of course that would in Texas terms mean shoot on sight, especially at brown people.

Take into account that we recently changed our history textbooks to reflect the right wing ideology and we are the perfect breeding ground for future KKK party members. And how many years ago was it that Texas actually belonged to Mexico? Maybe we should, as Governor Rick Perry had once suggested, secede, form our own ultra right wing country and gradually fade into oblivion.

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

The I-140 Educational and Work Experience equivalency is a good way to have your experience count, and maybe transcend to the lottery-picked visa system.

Lottery-picked employment-based visas go like hotcakes and professional people with aspirations about coming to America can easily be left out.

Ever heard of the I-140 Educational and Work experience equivalency? While immigration is the only niche within the legal arena where quotas are still allowed, it’s common knowledge that employment-based visas, such as the coveted H-1B, aren’t easily obtained by professionals wishing to immigrate to the United States from India and China. These populous nations teeming with qualified professional people get their national quotas filled quickly, resulting in queues to try one’s patience, especially for third preference visas. Second Preference is another option, albeit with caveats.

For instance, your experience must be post-degree and involve a pre-petitioning company. If you have experience in the same job at the petitioning company, this is insufficient because if the employer is able to train the beneficiary, he’d prefer training an American – not you.

If you possess a master’s degree but it’s not from the U.S., the problem of congruence can arise – as your master’s isn’t likely to match your bachelor’s as a credential.

Since evaluations are for advisory purposes only, the USCIS does not have to follow them. In the same vein, work experience can’t be substituted for years in a degree program – as the H-1B allows.
Recommendations by the Nebraska Service Center for Degree equivalency could also be pertinent.
If you do possess a U.S. master’s degree – and if it’s in the field required, no additional documents would be required.

Your 4 year bachelor’s degree + 2 year master’s degree obtained in India will need to be “subbed” by degrees in the same or related fields to equal a U.S. master’s degree.

If you possess a 3 year bachelor’s degree + 1 year postgraduate diploma + 2 year master’s degree obtained in India, to become acceptable for educational preference you’ll require degrees in the same or similar field or a bachelor’s degree + one additional year of education, to measure up. If you have 5 years of progressive experience, this combination could be acceptable as a master’s degree equivalency.

A. Banerjee is a Houston immigration lawyer in Texas. Before selecting an immigration lawyer in Houston Texas, contact the Law Offices of Annie Banerjee by visiting their information filled web site at http://www.visatous.com.

The Administrative Appeals Unit (AAO) recently held that if a case does not establish the factual basis of a prima facia case, then it will be denied without a request for additional information.

The case involved an Outstanding Researcher.(OR) The AAO, quoting a Ninth Circuit case, Kazarian v. USCIS 2010 WL 725317, said that there are two prongs to establish whether the case satisfies regulatory requirements.

The first is whether the case has the requisite evidence. In an OR case, the petitioner must have the two out of six criteria set forth in the regulation.

The second is whether the evidence meets final merit. This is where the case gets interesting. Granted initially it was a poorly prepared case. But the AAO suggested a number of things, with no precedence, that seemed absurd. Here is a short list:

1. The beneficiary was on Peer review Committee of journals. The AAO suggested that most scientists do this. My understanding is that only senior scientists are given this privilege.

2. The AAO suggested that most researchers gets grants. No, labs and senior scientists gets grants, junior members don’t. As a matter of fact, not so long ago there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about how it was the junior or novice scientists that came up with novel ideas that changed the world. Einstein, Newton etc were in their prime when they discovered their seminal research. Yet junior scientists are NOT given grants.

3. The AAO states that the petition requires an offer letter from the sponsor. In an OR case, the sponsor is the hiring institution. They have to sign the I-140 and the petitioning document. Why would they do that, if they did not intend to offer the beneficiary the job?

4. The Petitioner must provide documentary evidence of the employer’s ability to pay. If the petitioner states (under oath) in the I-140 their gross and net; I think they meet their prima facia obligation. If Texas Service Center (TSC)(where the case got denied) does not think this is enough to establish the fact, then an RFE would be appropriate.

I know there is a huge backlash against any type of employment based immigration, and I know there is a high unemployment rate. But to stay competitive, we MUST do research. And most researchers in this country come from foreign lands. If we dont keep abreast of science and technology, most high tech jobs will be outsourced. India will do the research, have the patents. And we will only pay second fiddle.

And if the TSC adjudicators do not believe me, they need to get into their cars, drive less than 3 miles down Stemmons Freeway to Harry Hines Blvd. There is UTSW, one of the premier medical school and research institution in the US. They have three Nobel laureates and countless foreign researchers. And think, if we dont change our policy, all the Nobel prizes will go to other countries.

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

Why do Governments have a wonderful capacity of taking something completely good and turning it into a nightmare? Does the very definition of democracy mean “you cannot get anything done quickly when dealing with the Government?”

The DOL launched its new Prevailing Wage System on January 01, 2010. Previous to that the State Workforce Agencies (SWA) determined the Prevailing Wage for their state. A Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) is required to determine what the wage rate should be for a job. Previously the SWAs were widely different and caused a lot of problems. So DOL wanted to centralize the process. Commendable indeed, but they introduced this whole thing with no alpha or beta testing whatsoever.

The DOL created a form, which has to be filled in by hand or typing and then snail mailed to the DOL. DOL then types it into their system. A form that we could submit electronically would have been so much easier and traceable, (like PERM), but DOL wont have that. We send ours by certified mail, and then we don’t hear from one or two of them at all. They get lost in the mail. We have certified receipts to prove they reached DOL’s doors, but no way to follow up.

The officers who determines the are untrained. They sometimes ask stupid questions. Some get returned if we use the major as “general” even if this is for a third preference skilled worker job. The officers do NOT have basic training. I can understand some confusion initially, but we have crossed the six month mark. And the determinations vary so widely from one adjudicator to the other, that they outdo the variance between the different SWAs. So much for a centralized system.

The PWD takes forever to get done and come back, and then it is sometimes valid for barely two months. After that the employer has to advertise for the job, wait a month and then file. And the Prevailing Wage has to be valid at the time of filing. Since advertisements are valid for 6 months only, and there is no knowing when we will get the prevailing wage from DOL, it is not advisable for employers to start advertising without the prevailing wage determination.

There are only so many combination that the PWD form can have. The simple solution would be to mechanize the whole system and have a computer determine the prevailing wage. It would make far less mistakes than humans and would be a lot cheaper. But then, that is not how the system works.

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