http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-visas21jul21,1,3932099.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true
This info came from my LA based friend Kamal - who picked me from the airport
when I came from India in 2004 - besides other more important helps.
Umesh
P:
GLOBAL CAPITAL
Foreign workers with skills find open door After waffling, the U.S.
suspends the wait to apply for green cards.
By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
July 21, 2007
The decision by U.S. immigration officials to reverse policy and open
a monthlong filing window for work-based green card applicants drew elation
this week from those aiming to fill vacancies in healthcare, high tech and
other industries facing labor shortages.
"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me," said Gopinath Gopalsamy, a
33-year-old software engineer who came to Los Angeles from India in 2000 with a
temporary work visa.
The ability to file his application for permanent residency, Gopalsamy said,
would mean a bonanza of immediate benefits: His wife, an information technology
specialist, would receive a work permit. The couple could more easily travel
back to India. And Gopalsamy could accept promotions and other job changes not
permitted under his temporary work status without losing his place in line to
apply for a green card.
Gopalsamy is one of tens of thousands of foreign-born professionals whose fates
hung in the balance this month as immigration officials flip-flopped over
whether to open the window for new green card applications.
Microsoft, for instance, said the change affected 4,000 of its foreign-born
employees and their families.
U.S. officials unexpectedly announced last month that there would be no wait to
apply for employment-based permanent visas during July, the first green light
given to all skilled workers in three years.
Earlier this year, skilled and professional workers had faced waits of as long
as six years to file petitions, which must be sponsored by their employers, to
change their status from temporary to permanent residency.
Tens of thousands of software engineers, registered nurses and other workers
rushed to get their applications in at the start of the month. On July 2,
however, officials abruptly revoked their decision and announced that no
applications would be accepted, after all.
The turnabout provoked furious protests. Immigration attorneys threatened
lawsuits. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) initiated an inquiry as chairwoman of
the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee. Microsoft and Oracle,
among other high-tech firms, made their disappointment known to the White House
and policymakers.
Silicon Valley workers staged a rally in San Jose.
Seeking to emulate Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent protest methods, Indian
high-tech workers led a national campaign to flood U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services chief Emilio Gonzalez with hundreds of flower bouquets,
notes of appreciation for his work and urgent requests to reverse the
reversal.
This week, Gonzalez agreed to do just that, announcing that the applications
would be accepted.
"There was intense public reaction," said Bill Wright, spokesman for the
citizenship and immigration agency, in explaining the reason for the reversal.
"We heard that and did listen."
Wright said at least 55,000 applications had been filed this month; the window
will remain open until Aug. 17.
A petition is only the first step in obtaining a green card, which can still
take years, but filing one allows applicants and their families to work, travel
freely and change jobs.
Some critics say the brouhaha highlighted the immigration system's weaknesses
in efficiently processing visa requests.
Among the 1 million green cards issued annually, 140,000 are given to workers
sponsored by employers; the rest go to family members of U.S. citizens and
permanent residents.
But 10,000 of the prized work visas went unused in the last fiscal year and
were tossed out because they weren't issued in time to meet the deadline,
according to immigration experts.
Asked why that happened, Wright replied: "I don't know."
The House immigration subcommittee planned "further oversight" to make sure
that immigration officials follow through on the visas, according to a
subcommittee aide.
Ginny Terzano, Microsoft spokeswoman, said the firm's difficulties in getting
timely work visas for its foreign high-tech talent was one reason it decided to
open a development center this fall in Vancouver, Canada.
Microsoft has 3,000 openings for "core technical positions" and finds it
increasingly difficult to fill them with homegrown Americans because of the
declining interest in math and science, she said.
Aside from high-tech firms, other big winners in the recent decision to accept
green card applications include hospitals and their nursing employees.
Glendale Adventist Medical Center, whose website lists 60 openings for
registered nurses, has already filed four applications for foreign nurses and
"will be filing as many as possible in the allotted time," spokeswoman Alicia
Gonzalez said.
Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration attorney, said his office had filed
more than 100 visa applications this month for high-tech workers and registered
nurses and had been flooded with phone calls this week from more potential
applicants.
One client, Philippine native Maricel Regalado, said the opportunity to file
for permanent residency would finally allow her to get on track as a registered
nurse.
She has finished nursing school and passed her licensing exam and has a job
lined up at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.
But her student visa does not allow her to take a full-time permanent position.
Without a green card, she said, she would probably have had to forgo work and
stay in school instead, pursuing a graduate nursing degree.
Another Filipino nurse said the chance to file for his green card would lift
him out of a life of uncertainty and allow him to shed his undocumented status.
The nurse, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Patrick, also had
a job lined up with a Los Angeles hospital after graduating in nursing from Cal
State Los Angeles.
"I view this as an unexpected blessing," he said. "It's an opportunity for
people like myself to repay society, which has been so good to us, by allowing
us to work here as nurses."
---------------------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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