IV video on Letters to Prez campaign

Immigration Voice Youtube video on writing to President Bush about interim administrative reforms. Visit IV website for more details.

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Employment-based Immigration system is badly broken due to insufficient number of Green Cards (a number set 17 years back!), USCIS inefficiency and anachronistic country quotas. There are currently a million applicants waiting to become Permanent residents. Without fixes, Green Card applicants are subject to a wait of 6 to 12 years. Situation is worser for immigrants from high-demand countries like India and China who have to wait decades for their turn to enjoy the American Dream.

This has lead to plight of intellectual capital from the American economy to emerging economies of India and China through brain drain. It's really apalling that America isn't able to fix the issue legislatively, when it's traditional competitor Europe is providing a red-carpet welcome by issuing 'Blue Cards'.

Immigration Voice (IV) is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fix the broken GC system for employment immigrants.

If American economy is to remain competitive in the next century and retain it's leadership of technology, the time to fix the broken system is - NOW

Letters campaign for Administrative fixes

Immigration Voice has launched a massive letters campaign to fix the broken Employment-based Immigration System through interim administrative fixes.

http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16506


Here's the full text of the letter I wrote to the White House.


The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. President:

I am a legal employment-based immigrant waiting to Adjust Status to Permanent Resident. I write today to urge you to fix America's broken legal employment-based immigration system, through Administrative measures. Currently, more than 500,000 skilled individuals, like me, who contribute to the American economy through hard work in technology, research, medicine and other fields, find themselves trapped in a process that is hopelessly backlogged.

If nothing is done, these immigrants will wait years or even decades in a process never intended to take so long. While comprehensive change will require legislative action, your administration can implement interim administrative remedies to improve America's competitiveness, eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies, and improve the quality of life for legal, highly-skilled immigrants.

These Executive fixes will help in meeting the objectives outlined by your Feb 2006 'Domestic Policy Council' report on 'American Competitiveness Initiative' as stated below :

"The President also recognizes that enabling the world's most talented and hardest-working individuals to put their skills to work for America will increase our entrepreneurship and our international competitiveness, and will net many high-paying jobs for all Americans. The United States benefits from our ability to attract and retain needed immigrant and non-immigrant students and workers, and it is important that America remains competitive in attracting talented foreign nationals."

Besides advancing your stated objectives, these reforms will also free government resources to focus on pressing national security matters. Right now, Department of Homeland Security spends countless hours and a substantial effort in renewing the Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) of hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants annually. Instead, DHS can issue these documents for three years, freeing personnel that could be utilized in serving the Department's core mission - Homeland Security.

The greatest impact of the broken green card process is borne by the legal immigrants and their families. During the wait for Green card, these immigrants remain trapped in a legal maze, unable to change jobs, for instance get promoted – even within the same employer – without re-starting the arduous immigration process all over again. They would then be subject to waits that grow longer and longer, every passing month. A large number of them face problems in getting Drivers Licences, House Mortages, Educational loans due to 1 year validity period of EADs.

We implore you to exercise your Executive authority to implement, administratively, these much-needed reforms.

• Recapture administratively the unused Green Card visas wasted during the last few years to fulfill the congressional mandate of 140,000 green cards per year.
• Revise the administrative definition of "same or similar jobs" ( pertaining to American Competitiveness in 21st Century Law/AC21 law) to allow job flexibility, and promotions while waiting for adjudication of adjustment of status (I-485) petitions.
• Allow filing of Adjustment of Status (Form I-485) when a visa number is not available.
• Implement the existing interim rule to allow issuance of multi-year Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) and Advance Parole.
• Allow visa revalidation in the United States.
• Reinstate premium processing of Immigrant Petitions.

I urge you to implement these administrative remedies without delay.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Respectfully,
xxxxx


Get all your family members to send their own letters. Get your friends, colleagues, relatives and acquaintances involved. Customize/personalize the message to suit your situation and your family members. Don't add or remove the action points (bulleted items). Keeping a unified voice will magnify our voice through resonance. A divided message will fail.

Important : Send a copy to IV too @ the address

Immigration Voice,
P O Box 1372,
Arcadia, CA 91077-1372


Flowers to USCIS, Rally @ Capitol, Letters to the White House.

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