 Some Facts for legal Immigrants
For those of you who are still undecided about coming to the DC rally, please read below:-
Employment Based (EB) Green Card (GC) Laws
The yearly GC quota is 140K. This includes GC for spouse and children. On an average, GCs are given to ~60K families.
Each country is allotted 7% (of 140K) GCs (equally distributed among EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3) plus any unused visa from other countries. For India, average numbers of EB GCs issued in last seven years were 32K (~12K families).
As per USCIS Ombudsman report
o Between 2001-07, USCIS was not able process all applications and hence ~155K GCs went waste as unused GCs in a year can not be reused in following years. This was most likely due to resource constraints.
o The report estimates the submission of 500K-750K (yes 500K+) AOS applications between June 1 and August 17 2007.
o FBI security checks may be the single biggest obstacle to the timely and efficient delivery of immigration benefits.
There were ~200K pending EB Adjustment of Status (AOS) or I-1485 applications as of June 1st.
So far EAD renewal has been taking around 3 months. Due to the volume of applications, EAD renewal may take 3-9 months. Thus, you may have to apply for renewal more frequently.
FBI security check backlog is likely to get worse, because the August USCIS fee increase has prompted a 50 percent rise in new naturalization applications so far this year.
EB Immigration reform does not have enough support in Congress (failure of SKILL, STEM ..). As a matter of fact, it does not even get enough support to make it debatable, let alone final voting.
The laws need to be changed and the process improved to fix the situation.
What does it mean?
There will be around 1Million AOS/I-485) applications by Aug 17 which will take 1M/140K = 7+ years to clear the backlog. Thus, late priority dates will remain retrogressed for several years.
Some, who could not file AOS by 08/17, may have to wait for several years (5+ years).
Longer EAD/AP renewals cycle and 1 year validity may have the following affects.
o You will have to stop working, if your EAD is not renewed in time.
o Several employers (and rightly so) may view EAD as a temporary permit and may be reluctant to hire you.
You have to be in the same position with same job responsibilities for an indefinite time period, otherwise your GC application will be rejected.
If you were unmarried at the time of filing and planning to bring spouse to the USA upon marriage, you will need to continue on current status (e.g. H-1B) or wait till your PD become current.
Immigration Voice (IV) Executive and Legislative Efforts
Lobbying is an efficient tool to influence law and rule making.
IV was very active in lobbying for CIR 2006, which was passed in senate.
IV grass-root effort (flower campaign + San Jose Rally) was an important reason for retraction of July Visa Bulletin.
Due to upcoming presidential elections, next congress session in October07 may be our only window of opportunity for several years to influence the lawmakers.
Your options: a) Struggle for several years b) Leave USA c) Help yourself by joining IV and coming for the DC rally.  | 
Linear Mode
