aftermath of H-1B rally in DC
aftermath of H-1B rally in DC
Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:53 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1760 -- 9/19/2007 >>>>>
Immigration Voice (IV) staged their rally for green cards in Washington DC on
September 18th. It was somewhat of a bust as the huge crowds they had
predicted didn't materialize. Even partnering with some Chinese activists and
a scattering of other foreign radicals didn't bolster their numbers enough to
get above the usual noise level in DC.
To view the websites of the two organizations that were most involved click
these:
Indians: http://immigrationvoice.org
Chinese: http://www.legalimmigrant.org/
Last week Himanshu Bhardwaj, vice-president of IV, said that 5,000 to 10,000
people are expected to attend the rally. They didn't get nearly as many
participants as they had hoped for. The New York Times reported that 1,000
people attended but my guess is that the number is probably closer to 100. Use
these links to look at pictures of the event and judge for yourself how many
were there.
http://dcrally.blogspot.com/
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/digest/2007,0919.shtm
http://immigrationvoice.org/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=19&Itemid=27
There are plenty of short video clips of the rally on youtube and google.
The most significant one I have watched so far is this one because it has some
of McDermott's pandering.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7603743798557731555
A speaker from the UK has a very annoying sense of humor. I didn't hear too
much laughter in the background. Harumph!
Immigration Voice got a cool reception in DC as evidenced by the fact that the
only Congressman they managed to snare to address them was Rep. Jim McDermott
(D-WA). It's worth noting that even though Barack Obama says he supports
unlimited green cards and H-1B visas he avoided IV like the plague. Obama had
a big rally in DC the same day so he could have easily dropped by if he cared
to emancipate our modern day slaves.
For sure the best picture of the rally is this one of McDermott picking his
nose:
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2007,0919-rally1.jpg
About the only other speakers that IV managed to get to address their rally
were the immigration attorneys Sheela Murthy and Greg Siskind. No surprise
that they showed up because every time Congress hands out more Green Cards
it's money in the bank for immigration lawyers.
IV had a "lobby day" on September 17th. They recruited three congressmen to
attend: Allen Boyd (D-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC), and Keith Ellison (D-MN).
Wilson and Ellison are both members of the India Caucus but they are not high
profile players on the H-1B issue. It appears that IV's lobby efforts fizzled.
Somehow the New York Times dug up Paul Donnelly out of the grave for
commentary on the rally, although it doesn't sound like he actually attended
it. Donnelly, if you recall, is one of the original architects of H-1B -- he
worked as a spin doctor for Rep. Bruce Morrison. Donnelly was also responsible
for turning the engineers at IEEE into a bunch of zombies that want unlimited
numbers of instant green cards. Donnelly made a statement about IV that is
quite erroneous:
Paul Donnelly, a consultant to American Families United, a legal
immigrant advocacy group, who said he had been working on
immigration policy in Washington for more than 25 years, called
the rally "a genuinely new phenomenon." "It is a significant
thing to have foreign-born people, who are notoriously hard to
organize, organizing themselves," Mr. Donnelly said.
There have been several groups that have tried to get green cards for
immigrants and Donnelly has probably worked with or supported most of them.
Donnelly is after all a well-heeled lobbyist that has worked the halls of
Congress for over 25 years. These are two examples proving that Donnelly
hoodwinked the NYT:
1) In 2000 the Immigrant Support Network (ISN) was involved in politics in
much they same way as Immigration Voice. They eventually bit the dust when
their leaders got Green Cards and then decided to let the other members of the
organization fend for themselves.
2) Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS) engaged in
active lobbying as early as 1988 and is still around to this day. They lost
most of their vigor for the same reason the ISN did -- once their leaders got
their green cards they walked away from the organization and disappeared from
sight.
***** CONCLUSION *****
In conclusion the rally was probably a success in terms of publicity.
Considering the low turnout they got more news coverage than they deserved.
The articles I included below are about all that has been published following
the protest -- a rather dismal showing to say the least. Much larger protests,
(why are they called rallies now?) are routinely ignored by the media so IV
has every reason to be happy about the amount of media coverage they got
considering the small size of their rally. It's worth noting that at the time
of this writing the rally hasn't received any TV coverage that I'm aware of.
On a slightly humorous note -- there were drive-by hecklers that mistook the
participants for illegal aliens. That definitely hampered the protestors from
getting their message out. Perhaps even more frustrating to the small
assemblage was the speech by McDermott because he reportedly confused legal
and illegal immigration. American tech workers were nowhere to be found but
that's more pathetic than funny.
So the bottom line: will IV achieve their goal of getting more green cards and
H-1B visas? Judging by the lack of politicians who sucked up to them in the
rally and lobby campaigns my guess is that they will be no more successful
than we have been in abolishing H-1B or limiting green cards. Of course they
can't vote so their outlook is even more hopeless than ours -- although in the
end we may all end up living in the same global shanty towns!
Give IV and their Chinese buddies time and their organizations will probably
implode just like the ISN and the IFCSS did. Hopefully they will crash and
burn before they are able to bribe our Congress into doing their bidding.
Aritcles Included
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/us/19immigration.html?ref=us
Legal Immigrants Rally at Capitol to Protest Backlog
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7002296.stm
Skilled immigrants suffer US limbo
http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6935022?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1
Chung: Piecemeal immigration reform a start
http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070919/NEWS01/709190383/1001
Highly skilled immigrant professionals rally in D.C.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/us/19immigration.html?ref=us
September 19, 2007
Legal Immigrants Rally at Capitol to Protest Backlog
By JULIA PRESTON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 -- About 1,000 highly skilled legal immigrants,
carrying placards and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with American flags, rallied
Tuesday at the Capitol to protest long delays and vast bureaucratic backlogs
in the immigration system.
The immigrants, including doctors, medical technicians and computer engineers
from India and China, came from as far as California and Washington State to
call on Congress to provide more permanent visas for highly educated
immigrants and more resources for the overburdened immigration system. They
said the plight of foreigners living in this country legally had been unfairly
eclipsed by the polarized debate over illegal immigration that led to the
defeat of an immigration overhaul in June.
While the rally s numbers were not large, immigration policy advocates said it
was very unusual for legal immigrants, traditionally cautious since their visa
applications and their futures are in the hands of the federal government, to
stage public protests. The immigrants, who are living in the United States on
temporary student or high-skilled employment visas, said they were nearing
despair with waits lasting as long as a decade to obtain visas giving them
permanent residence, which are known as a green cards.
"When I heard about this rally I immediately made the decision to come,"
said Paul Wang, 37, a computer scientist from China who lives and works in
Virginia. "I like the freedom and the safety in this country. I want to send a
request signal to Congress to bring more efficiency to the process for us to
get a green card."
Paul Donnelly, a consultant to American Families United, a legal immigrant
advocacy group, who said he had been working on immigration policy in
Washington for more than 25 years, called the rally "a genuinely new
phenomenon." "It is a significant thing to have foreign-born people, who are
notoriously hard to organize, organizing themselves," Mr. Donnelly said.
Since Congress reconvened this month, more and more calls have come for
lawmakers to revisit the immigration issue by first fixing the foundering
system for legal immigration. On Sept. 11 a bipartisan group of 13 governors,
including those from the states with the largest immigrant populations, sent a
letter to the leaders of Congress asking for increases in the number of
temporary visas and green cards for highly educated immigrants.
Saying there was a "critical shortage" of professionals in math and the
sciences, the governors wrote, "We must recognize that foreign talent has a
role to play in our ability to keep companies located in our state and
country." The governors included Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Rick
Perry of Texas, both Republicans; and Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Eliot
Spitzer of New York, who are Democrats.
Despite soaring demand from immigrants and high-tech businesses, an annual
limit of 140,000 on employment-based green cards has not been altered since
1990. A study published in August by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City,
Mo., found that 1.1 million highly skilled immigrants and their family members
were languishing in backlogs in 2006, waiting for green cards. Temporary visas
for immigrants with special skills, known as H1B visas, are limited to 65,000
a year, plus 20,000 visas for immigrants who earn advanced academic degrees in
the United States.
The Kauffman study reported that some immigrant professionals were becoming
discouraged by the prospect of bureaucratic delays. One in three new, skilled
immigrants working here said they were uncertain whether they would remain,
according to the study, conducted by researchers from Harvard, Duke and New
York University. This raised the possibility of reverse brain drain, as
immigrants who came to the United States for advanced studies might decide to
return to their home countries.
The immigrants at the rally were clearly committed to staying in the United
States, pausing from their speeches to listen to one of their leaders sing
"The Star-Spangled Banner."
Dr. Sridhar Narra, 34, a physician born in India, said his effort to gain a
green card had lasted almost eight years, including a two-year forced
separation from his wife, also from India. After coming to the United States
in 1999, Dr. Narra has practiced medicine under a special visa for doctors who
serve in areas where medical personnel are scarce. He has worked with low-
income and uninsured patients at a clinic in Benton Harbor, Mich., fulfilling
a five-year requirement, and applied for his green card two years ago.
"I ve been waiting, law abiding, tax paying," Dr. Narra said. "How long is
long enough?"
Temporary immigrants who want green cards must obtain a Labor Department
certification that no American workers are available for their jobs. It can
take more than a year to get that certification. And in a June report, the
ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles
green card applications, found that more than 100,000 F.B.I. background checks
of immigrants, also part of the application, had been in process for more than
a year.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7002296.stm
Skilled immigrants suffer US limbo
By Brajesh Upadhyay
BBC News, Washington
When Pankaj Kakkar sang the American national anthem on the Capitol Hill
lawns, Congressman Jim McDermott commented: "Son, you sing it better than me."
Unfortunately, this compliment does not take Mr Kakkar, a computer
professional working for Google, any closer to the Green Card dream he has
been chasing for the past 11 years.
Almost a million skilled immigrants like him from India, China, Pakistan and
other countries are stuck in the backlog for employment-based permanent
residency, more commonly known as the Green Card.
The current system takes anywhere between six to 12 years to grant one.
Several skilled immigrant groups have been trying hard to draw the attention
of US lawmakers to their plight and on Tuesday hundreds of such professionals
from all over the country staged a rally in the nation's capital waving
American flags and carrying placards.
They have been more innovative before, for instance, when they deluged US
citizenship and immigration services director Emilio Gonzalez with white
flowers - a Gandhian form of protest popularised in a Bollywood blockbuster.
But so far, things haven't changed.
'Endless delay'
Meenal Sinha is an IT professional who has been living in the US for the past
nine years.
My parents don't get a visa to visit me because I am their only child and
officials say they may not return to China Phong Tang
She says not having a Green Card means you have to stick with the same company
that got you a work visa - and that means fewer promotions and salary rises.
"We have given the most productive years of our careers to this country. We
have always played by rules, yet this endless delay," she says.
For Phong Tang, a programme analyst from China, this long wait also means that
he has not been able to see his parents in nine years.
"They don't get a visa to visit me because I am their only child and officials
say they may not return to China once they are here. I can't go because I
can't get a similar-paying job there," he says.
So, he still waits for that elusive Green Card which is no longer green.
It's literally been changed to off-white.
But what hasn't changed is its hallowed status. In fact, in the class-
conscious close-knit Indian community it even has a snob value.
Manoj Karan and his wife, Niti Karan, have lived in the US since 1999, and
have managed to clear just the first of the several stages it takes to get a
Green Card.
"It's so embarrassing when our peers ask, 'You don't have a Green Card yet?',"
says Niti, a qualified computer professional who can't work because she
doesn't have a work visa.
A Green Card would have solved that problem.
Supporting voices
Green Cards also make life easier for entrepreneurs and consultants, who have
returned to India, as they can travel in and out of the US without visa
hassles.
Immigration Voice, a lobby group of highly-skilled legal immigrants, says the
US grants a million Green Cards each year - of which only 140,000 are for
skilled professionals.
"Of these 140,000 a large number goes to dependents, leaving a very small
number for professionals," says co-ordinator Jai Pradhan.
There are a few Congressmen like Jim McDermott who have supported their cause.
"We are sustaining this economy by sweeping the brains from all over the
world. If we stop that we will go down abruptly," says Mr McDermott, who
represents Washington State's 7th district and is also the chairperson of the
India Caucus in the House of Representatives.
But there are not many lawmakers who are as vocal and the debate in the
country is focused on illegal immigrants coming primarily from Latin American
countries.
Reverse brain drain
Most of the professional migrants in the US are from India and China - the two
booming economies. Do these professionals think of going back?
"In eight or nine years you start growing roots, you have a house, a
lifestyle. My kids were born here and they are American citizens. It's not an
easy decision," says Meenal Sinha.
The decision may be difficult but a trend has already begun - the description
for it is "reverse brain drain".
A study by Harvard University warns of "increasing frustration among skilled
immigrants who have to wait for years for a permanent residency".
Vivek Wadhwa, the study's lead author, says about 30% of these immigrants are
Indians.
"As India's economy rises many are increasingly open to returning to their
home country, creating the potential for a sizeable reverse brain-drain from
the US," he says in the study.
It is an issue US policymakers will soon have to think about.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6935022?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1
Chung: Piecemeal immigration reform a start
By L.A. Chung
Mercury News Columnist
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:09/19/2007 01:37:37 AM PDT
Maybe it was just another demonstration in our nation's capital Tuesday.
High-skilled workers from around the country, including San Jose, met at the
Washington Monument for the time-honored American ritual of marching to the
front of the Capitol to press their cause. In this case: reforming employment-
based immigration laws.
Let's hope it's the beginning of something more: progress in one little corner
of our screwed-up immigration system. After the debacle of the big immigration
reform bill this summer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein had suggested that the only way
to fix any of it was to start piecemeal. Indeed, several independent measures
are afoot, aimed at relieving specific areas, from high-skilled workers to
guest workers to students. There's no talk of addressing the status of
undocumented immigrants, the thing that killed the big bill in June.
So if there are places we can start solving problems before Congress freezes
up in presidential election politics, why not?
"We are hoping for a clear action, rather than being left hanging in this
state," said Rahul Deshpande, a 31-year-old software engineer who came here on
an H-1B visa eight years ago.
Right now, people like Deshpande aren't looking for comprehensive reform.
They're just hoping for a more predictable timeline for people already well
into the application process but stuck in the long, uncertain state of waiting
for green cards that are available but expire because of backlogs in the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. With so much uncertainty, he has
explored opportunities in Australia.
Seeing a clear way?
True, in Silicon Valley, and throughout the tech industry, we have ambivalence
toward employment-based visas. High-tech employers in particular say there is
a shortage and they cannot do without them.
American software engineers, some of whom have had to train foreign
replacement programmers, contend the system has been abused, lowering wages
and importing some workers who are less uniquely skilled than advertised.
I sat in the hillside living room of an American software engineer who has
seen the ups and downs of the industry over the course of two decades. He
didn't want to be identified because he wants to continue to be employed and
fears speaking candidly, lest employers take umbrage.
Programmers' wages, which had been stagnant, rose inordinately high with the
run-up to preparing computers for the Y2K change. With the advent of
aggressive overseas hiring, wages "corrected," he acknowledged. And now
they've gone down.
Investing in 'us'
He doesn't fault the overseas workers in this era of globalization. Yet, he
has discouraged his very bright nephew from going into computer science
because of his own bleak outlook for earning potential in the field.
I doubt we want that, either.
Groups like Immigration Voice, which began almost two years ago, and Legal
Immigrant Association, which sprang up in recent months, have taken pains to
emphasize their members' legal status and to appeal to Americans' sense of
fairness.
Fix the abuses, and fix the backlogs that make a mockery of the current laws,
they say.
Deshpande's 6-month-old daughter is the reason he hopes for a long-term future
in the United States. He likes the broader sense of community expressed, for
example, by things we take for granted, such as a beach cleanup or a
neighborhood watch. "Everyone feels responsible here," he said. "Ultimately,
we take responsibility for our own environment here."
A shared sense of community: That's the way we'd all like to live.
Contact L.A. Chung at lchung@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5280.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070919/NEWS01/709190383/1001
Highly skilled immigrant professionals rally in D.C.
Home News Tribune Online 09/19/07
Post a comment. View latest comments.
By RITU JHA
STAFF WRITER
rjha@thnt.com
More than 2,000 immigrants, who are highly skilled professionals, marched from
the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, to
address issues related to "green card" processing.
The rally was called by the South Brunswick-based Immigration Voice, a
nonprofit organization working to alleviate the problems faced by legal highly
skilled foreign workers in the United States.
Participants in the rally at the U.S. Capitol were demanding the fast
processing of "green cards," which the immigrants say now takes six to 12
years.
The immigrants met with several congressmen and lawmakers and gave them a
memorandum created by Immigration Voice members.
"It was successful," said Jay Pradhan, spokesman for Immigration Voice.
Marchers walked for an hour from the Washington Monument to reach the Capitol
building where they were addressed by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington.
Pradhan said McDermott welcomed rally participants and said the immigration
system should be reformed.
"He was supportive," Pradhan said.
Attendance at the rally was smaller than hoped for because many could not
attend the Tuesday work day event.
Last week the organization formed several groups consisting of four to five
people to visit members of congress and press their case.
Pradhan said a number of congressmen who group members met with Tuesday agreed
with the solution that Immigration Voice is proposing.
Though no new legislation has been written to resolve the problem, Pradhan
said, the group is making headway by educating lawmakers.
"It's in the first step and it is going well," he said.
Mukund Munisamy of Piscataway, who traveled to Washington with his wife,
Selvapriya, said via phone from the nation's capital that people from
California, Florida and Nevada attended the rally.
He called the effort successful.
The group Munisamy was part of visited with Gabriel Trevino, a legislative
assistant to New Jersey Rep. Albio Sires, D-13th.
"We handed him the memorandum with the issues and solutions," Munisamy said.
Munisamy said Trevino met with the group for 10 minutes and said he was
familiar with the issues and will take the message to Sires.
"It was a peaceful rally and it was successful," said Nataraj Subramanian of
Woodbridge, who was in Washington, D.C., Tuesday. He said his group met with
Sires and N.J. Rep. Steven R. Rothman, D-9th., and both men were responsive.
He said he is happy with the day's events and hopes the congressmen will pay
attention to the problem.
Ritu Jha:
(732) 565-7277;
rjah@thnt.com
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