One of the missions of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a Fraud Detection and National Security proponent, is maintaining the integrity of the legal immigration system. They perform a variety of fraud detection methods, such as conducting interviews and investigations of immigrants seeking citizenship. One method of fraud detection tools they now use is searching social networking sites such as Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Classmates.com, and others, to mine for information.

People use these sites to stay connected with friends and families and in some cases to feed their narcissistic tendencies just to see how many “friends” they can add on their list without even knowing them. However, some people think that their identity and information and pictures they share remain within their close network, so they tend to speak honestly and openly, interacting with their friends through instant messages or blogs, posting recent pictures of themselves and others, unknowingly revealing fraudulent-looking activities for FDNS. This gives them evidence of any invalid relationships that were revealed through these social networking sites.

There are international versions of these networking sites that FDNS are also aware of and closely monitors. Inconsistencies are what USCIS look for at the fraud unit. Things that trigger suspicion for fraudulent marriages are large differences in age, language barriers between supposed couples, or different living arrangements.

“USCIS officers use many tactics to try to get information from spouses of suspected fraudulent marriages, such as intimidation tactics, or having those sign statements to withdraw their visa applications,” said Annie Banerjee, a Texas immigration and national lawyer. “So these social networking sites are new territory, and people should seek out immigration lawyers who know immigration law if they are called in for an interview under grounds for suspicion.”

If you are called in for an interview at the fraud unit, there are general questions officers ask to determine and prove whether the marriage is legitimate or not. They range from the details of the development of your relationship, information about you and your spouse, details of your wedding, your relatives and children. If you get an advance notice for an interview, it is advisable that you seek advice from a qualified attorney.

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

The “New Americans” are a rising part of the U.S. population comprising mainly of post-1965 children of immigrants who were raised during the wide-ranging immigration era from Latin America and Asia, but may also include other immigrants who became naturalized citizens, from Palestine, Dominican Republic and India, to name a few.

The New Americans may have been politically overlooked, but they are becoming a more increasing “voting bloc” that can quite possibly turn the tides for the state, federal and local elections and are proving to be a political force to be reckoned with.

Immigrants who have not applied for citizenship are now applying for it in droves; therefore changing certain city and states’ political landscape; something said in light of the current anti-immigrant rhetoric. The New Americans have new immigrant stories that are different experiences from the sometimes romanticized “Ellis Island” immigration era, which are personal associations to the modern immigrant experience, fraught with language barriers, racism, assimilation issues mixed with modern day plight and concerns – their own cultural responses to their structural changes to American life. It is how they cope and deal individually and collectively to life’s trajectories in a new world.

Most New Americans hold their citizenship and legal statuses in high regard and are becoming more vocal and visible in respect to immigration reform, which will more than likely motivate them to cast their vote in the upcoming elections. The New American electorate will be pivotal in battleground states such as Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and California.

For Latino voters, immigration reform ranks as one of the top three issues they are concerned with and should be worrisome to politicians who are anti-immigrant. Therefore, demonizing and discounting an immigrant may in turn affect the immigrant voter, who now account for one in 10 registered voters in the U.S. New American registered voters jumped 101.5 percent between 1996 and 2008.

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 title is a quote from President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night. Yet, my blog is not about the State of US, it is about immigration and India.

A couple of years ago, Tata Consulting Company (TCS) was found to have been violating the L-1 requirements. Since the L-1 had no set amount that beneficiaries were to be paid, TCS brought people over on a blanket L, paid them very cheap wages, and farmed them out to other companies at a cheaper rate than US Companies would. This lead to sweeping reforms of the whole L-1 visa.

Last year, several computer consulting companies, owned by Indian Americans were found to be performing many illegal activities in the H-1B visa categories. This led to the now infamous Jan 08, 2010 memo, where USCIS instituted hightened requirements for consulting companies. It also led to the H-1B site visits.

Last week, Tri Valley University was found to have been giving false student visas to Indian students. There was anything but learning going on at this California institution. There were no education standards whatsoever. In fact I personally would not grant an H-1B visa to a Tri Valley student, if I were a CIS officer. This quota is for “professionals”, and if you cannot get entry into a better school, you are NOT a professional. Yet many of these “students” were former H-1B holders, who, having lost their jobs, enrolled in Tri Valley.

Indians are a minority, and when things like these happen, they get sterotyped (albeit unfairly) as corrupt, false, doing anything and everything to stay in the US. The CIS scrutinizes the petitions of all Indians more carefully than other nationalities. And the majority of hard working, and successful Indian American owned businesses suffer.

Tri Valley is in the heart of Silicon Valley. Google will be hiring 6000 people shortly. Will anyone be Indians on H-1B?

We all suffer when things like this happens. And unless we take responsibility, the acts of few corrupt, (or in the case of Tri Valley students— stupid) individuals, will hamper India’s outsourcing business majorly. The future is ours to win.

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

Amy Chua’s book, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” has created quite a stir in the US. In it Ms Chua, a Yale Law Professor, describes her hard driving parenting style that achieves the perfect child, rather than the feel good ‘Disneyesque” Western Style of parenting which does not push achievement. In the Wall Street Journal article titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, Ms. Chua defines the term ‘Chinese mothers” as—I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise

Thus it is clear that at least in Ms. Chua’s view mostly immigrant mothers qualify as the over driven creators of superb children, the Tiger Moms. Why? Immigrants bring with them the drive and the focus to succeed. They choose to come to the US, (as opposed to just being born here,) fight a lot of discrimination, and make it big. The other choice for them is to go back to the life they are fleeing from. No one hands them food stamps, no one gives them Social Security. No health insurance.They have to fight for everything they get, and in the strictest Darwinian terms, for them it is the survival of the fittest. And fittest they become. And so do their children, first generation Americans raised by immigrant parents. Eventually these children become successful adults, going into ivys, having successful jobs, paying lots of taxes. And what happens to the kids of the anti immigration ralliers? Well, at best they do the blue collar jobs, at worst they become KKK members.

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

It has been a long time coming for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the DREAM Act, to come true.

After its inception way back in 2001, it is expected to be voted on the Senate floor this weekend in the Lame Duck Session. It appeared in its earlier days in many forms and interpretations. Today, there are approximately 65,000 students graduating from high school who are undocumented. Most have been brought to the United States when they were very young and have been accustomed and acculturated since most of them can remember. However, when undocumented youths graduate, they face an uncertain future and the chance of being deported back to a country they hardly know, and some with no relatives to seek out.

Lacking legal status, the children are kept from obtaining the same benefits that U.S.-born children or those who have been naturalized have. The DREAM Act will provide citizenship to undocumented children who have grown up in the United States by giving them a path for citizenship within five years by enabling them to apply for citizenship in a five-year period and then apply for another 5-year conditional nonimmigrant status for a total of 10 years. If all criteria are met within this timeframe, the student can be adjusted to legal permanent resident and can apply for citizenship after three years of legal permanent status. Certain options such as enrolling in a two-year degree program or joining the armed forces can reduce the number of years.

Persons with nonimmigrant status would be able to legally work and drive and also go to school essentially the same way a United States citizen does, except for when it comes to receiving benefits from the new health care reform, such as federal tax credits. To qualify for The DREAM Act, the child would have to come to United States before 15 years of age, be enrolled in a college, or have graduated or received a GED from high school for conditional nonimmigrant status, and also be 30 years old or younger at the time of the bill has been enacted.

There have been many opposing the bill. Some say that the bill will put a burden on our already dismal financial forecast. However, there have been studies that say that The Dream Act may in turn boost the economy by their generated income throughout the course of their working lives.

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.