At the heart of any Immigration Law in any country is Xenophobia. No matter how you look at it, its one group, who established themselves in a place trying to keep others out. Even if this means handing a carrot to any group, its still based on the idea that a certain group of people have sovereign rights to a certain place. And it is this territorial and supremacist ideas that lead to acts of war and terrorism. Imagine if Al-Qaeda did not care if other people were different from them.

In passing SB 1070, Gov. Jan Brewer and other Fox news types, tried to justify their Xenophobia by saying that since the federal government wont do anything about immigration, their state will take it on. Probably they thought that restricting immigration will mean more jobs for their citizen. Yet, sadly its the Republican’s philosophy (which I think is correct) that the economy should not be manipulated by the Government. Laissez Faire and Capitalism were hardly swear words to Republicans.

Any employer, whether they are individuals wanting their lawns cut, or construction companies, or restaurants, will hire legal immigrants if the legal immigrants do a good job at a right price. But they cant find one. American workers would rather sit on their a** and collect food stamps than work in difficult jobs. And if they do work, they will charge phenomenal amounts. I will not pay more to my grass cutter than to my doctor, simply because grass cutting does not require the same level of knowledge as cutting the heart.

Of course hiding under this SB-1070 is the fact that this will give the likes of Sarah Palin the license to go “hunting” in Arizona.

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

The Nebraska Service Center Liaison Committee assisting AILA has received several reports of denials on I-140 petitions for third preference professionals.

The Nebraska Service Center Liaison Committee has received several reports of denials on I-140 petitions for third preference professionals. These denials resulted when attorneys failed to properly distinguish the required qualifications between professionals and skilled workers on the new Form I-140 which was introduced on January 6, 2010. Prior versions of Form I-140 had only one box to check for bachelor degreed professionals and skilled workers, and did not make a distinction between the two classifications. Similarly, there is no distinction in the availability of visas as both are classified in the employment-based, third preference category. Thus, the differences between the professional with a Bachelor’s degree and a skilled worker were without a distinction prior to the introduction of the new form earlier this year.

This new form requires the petitioner to distinguish between a professional with a Bachelor’s degree and a skilled worker. Professional means a qualified alien who holds at least a United States Baccalaureate degree or a foreign equivalent degree and who is a member of the professions.

The application of this definition by NSC has resulted in the strict review of whether or not a foreign degree is the equivalent of a U.S. Bachelor’s degree and does not recognize experience as a degree’s equivalent. The ETA 9089 may establish alternative requirements that equate a pre-determined level of experience as a substitute for a degree.

This standard is similar to the second preference regulation which also requires a specific degree that is the academic equivalence to meet the requirements of the second preference (EB-2).

A denial on this issue will not preclude the filing of a second I-140 petition using the same approved PERM application but classified as a skilled worker. The cover letter and materials with a second I-140 petition should reference the first petition, include a copy of the denial, and advise NSC that the original PERM Application Form ETA 9089 can be located in the original file. The cover letter should also explain why the second petition has corrected the deficiency upon which the first petition was denied. The expiration of the Certified ETA-9089 should not preclude filing a second petition provided the first petition was filed prior to the 180-day expiration date.

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 Office (AAO) ruled in a recent case that first authorship in articles are not always necessary to establish Extraordinary Ability. The alien had a lot of papers published and “hundreds of citations.” However not all papers were first authorship. The Texas Service Center refused to consider those papers.

The AAO wrote:”As modern scientific research endeavors routinely involve collaborative efforts, we find no statutory, regulatory, precedential, or evidentiary basis to conclude that USCIS should not assign weight to collaborative scientific research such as the petitioner’s. It could be argued that the director was simply seeking stronger evidence of the petitioner’s prominent role in his research studies. However, statements from the petitioner’s first-author collaborators submitted on appeal confirm that he played an integral role in their jointly published research.”

Of course, the alien has to have the three criteria out of ten enumerated in the Statute.

The Texas Service Center is out of touch with reality. They had asked me to PROVE that breast cencer research is “National in Scope” for a National Interest Waiver case.

Mr. Roark, I suggest a field trip for your officers. UT Southwestern Medical School, which has four nobel laureates and does tons of research is just a hop skip and jump away from your Stemmons Freeway location. These Officers should probably go and check out how exactly research is done. Also adjudicating officers dealing with “research” based petition should complete an undergraduate degree with some amount of research in College. And maybe a BSC degree will help adjudicators judging Science based petitions, rather than say a major in dance. Where do these officers go to College anyways?

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

The Obama Government ran on a promise to make Government more transparent, more accountable and promised to restore the Rule of Law so blatantly flouted by the previous administration. Yet,  in most immigration cases, and certainly in the H-1B context, all those principles are simply baseless and unfulfilled campaign promises.

AILA has just filed a lawsuit against USCIS on the issue of transparency. The administration beginning last summer conducted  hundreds of raids on H-1B sponsoring businesses. Yet the rules and guidance of this whole process is guarded in secrecy. Requests by AILA to divulge this review process under the Freedom of Information Act were denied.

These are PROFESSIONAL employees— Computer professionals, Engineers, Doctors, teachers. The Government shows up at their Company door step, demand to see their records, with no notice, and many times with no uniform procedure. The Officers ask to see anything and everything. The businesses are all sizes, but all professional service providers.

In a separate class action lawsuit the USCIS is being challenged on the January 08, 2010 memo,  which “created” additional requirements in respect of direct control of employee by the employer.  This has virtually eliminated the computer consulting business from sponsoring H-1B visa holders. This requirement was no where in the plain language of the H-1B law.  Also the the senator who introduced the H-1B legislation  in the Congress  verified that this was Never Congressional intent.  Moreover an agency cannot rulemake without  publishing a notice and giving the public a chance to comment. No such notice and comment was done for this memo. This clearly violates the Rule of Law that Obama championed. In terms of immigration law the old Government’s policies are not only being followed, but in many instances further deviating from the Rule of Law.

For more information contact http://www.visatous.com“> Houston Immigration Lawyer or http://www.visatous.com“>Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee

The fees for most CIS applications are astronomical. For instance the fee for N-400 to become a US Citizen is $675/- The fee for adjusting status to become a permanent resident is $1010/- Many people simply cannot afford that. However previously there were no forms and no guidelines to filing anything without fees with the CIS. If anyone filed a form and could not afford a fee, they had to write a letter. But the mailroom personnel at CIS either does not read or perhaps cannot read. So the form used to be returned asking us to send the check. You could go back and forth and in the mean time loose time or even status.

Even more egregious were fees paid due to CIS’ mistake. For instance if the CIS in clear cut error denied your case, you had to file a motion to reopen for $585/- We even had a case once where the CIS collected a fee for a I-765 (EAD) filing for $340/- and lost the file. When we traced and send them the check, the reply was that my bank should ask for the money back. My bank, Bank of America, did not know how to. So we simply paid again and refiled.

Now the CIS is proposing a form: I-912 which will establish clear guidelines for fee waivers. Hopefully the form in its approved version will have no fee requirements for CIS’ mistakes along with applications for applicants below the poverty level.

Don’t just start spending the money that you were saving for the CIS fees yet though. Sometimes these forms take years to come to fruition. As for me, I will believe it when I ultimately see it.

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