Greencard for child of a fiancée of a US citizen

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a child of a fiancée of a United States Citizen or K-2 visa holder can adjust his or her status to Greencard holder or Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) even though the child turns twenty-one while the application is pending.

The court’s ruling comes from the matter of Colmenares Carpio v. Holder which concluded that the applicant “must be under twenty-one when he or she seeks to enter the United States, not when his or her subsequent application adjustment of status is finally adjudicated.”

This result contravenes several decisions of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service or USCIS denying applications for adjustment of status based on a K-2 visa because the applicant was twenty-one years of age or older at the time of adjudication of the adjustment of status.

To recap, the K-2 visa holder must be under twenty-one at the time he or she “seeks to enter” the US when applying for adjustment of status.

Read the full story on abs-cbnnews

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• U.S. Immigration Law Presentation (slideshare.net)

Immigration laws quash many dreams

UNDER CURRENT U.S. immigration law, there are three primary ways to gain legal entry into the country other than for a limited stay as a tourist.

• The first is through the annual “green card diversity lottery,” held each year by the Department of Homeland Security, for citizens of countries that have “low rates of immigration” to the United States. Millions of people from specified countries around the world apply to take part in the lottery, but only 50,000 green cards are made available through the process. Each participant in the lottery is issued a number, the government draws about 150,000 numbers, and the people with those numbers then are allowed to apply for one of the 50,000 slots.

• The second way to gain legal entry is to be a spouse, sibling, child or parent of an American citizen or the spouse or minor child of someone who holds a green card and is willing to sponsor your entrance into the United States.

• The third is through an employer, who must complete a lengthy application process that requires proof that the has a unique skill necessary to the business.

THERE ARE other provisions of immigration law that allow people who are seeking asylum to gain legal entry into the country, but being granted asylum is an extraordinarily difficult process.

An additional number of other immigrants are admitted each year under temporary work permits and student visas, however those visas generally do not permit conversion to immigrant status, and they require the holder to leave after a specified length of stay.

And then there is the “S” visa. Essentially a free pass, the visa is awarded only to those who work for law enforcement and must be applied for by law-enforcement officials. The Mayas say immigration officials promised them the “S” visa, but then reneged.

According to immigration officials, only 250 “S” visas are available each year, and fewer than 60 were awarded in 2009.

CONGRESS last year set immigration visa limits at 700,000 for employment and family preferences, excluding refugees and those entering the country on temporary work or student visas.

In 2008, the total number of immigrants admitted to the country (excluding refugees and those on temporary non-tourist visas) tallied just under 750,000.

Source: Daily Free Man

U.S.-Canadian marriage costly for couple

Newlyweds Matt and Heather Lopresto knew that every marriage has its ups and downs; they didn’t know that living together would be so difficult.

Matt, originally from Corning and now living in Rochester, is a U.S. citizen. Heather, who met her husband in 2005 when both were students at the Elim Bible Institute in Lima, is from Hamilton, Ontario, and a Canadian citizen. They thought that once they were married, it would be simple for Heather to get her “green card” and live and work legally here with Matt until they have enough money to finish their degrees and start the family they both want.
For more than a year, they had traveled back and forth to Canada without incident until June 26 (the day before the wedding at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington) when Matt told the Canadian border guards that marriage was the reason for his visit.

“I was turned away at the border,” Matt says. “I had to prove I had a means of departing and that I would return.” He hurried back to Rochester, got a letter from his boss indicating that he has a job, made a copy of his apartment lease, and purchased a return airplane ticket (even though he planned to drive home). He stayed in Canada as a visitor for several weeks before coming home to Rochester, but that’s when the couple realized living together would not be as simple as they hoped.

The U.S. and Canadian governments want to be certain that a marriage between citizens of their countries is legitimate, that the citizen spouse can support the non-citizen, and that the newcomer will not need public assistance, says Rochester lawyer Margaret Catillaz, an expert in immigration law.

Since Heather and Matt were married, both their passports have been flagged and when they visit, they are always detained for questioning. Even though she’s done nothing wrong, Heather said during a recent visit, she always feels as if she’s in trouble.

Matt and Heather just want to be together.

And money is the only thing standing in their way. It costs up to $2,000 to apply for legal resident status and complete the required procedures. And right now, neither Matt and Heather, nor their families, have the money. Heather is unemployed and Matt washes windows and cleans gutters. Rent, car payments, food — that’s all they can afford.

Read the full story on Democrat and Chronicle

Green Card Through Marriage

You do not have to use a lawyer to apply for a green card through marriage. Easygration offers you a better option!

Congratulations on getting married!

As part of this exciting time-of-life, you are probably also looking for an affordable, simple and quick option for filing your green card application.

Did you know that you do not have to use a lawyer to file the application? Many couples choose to complete the application process by themselves and avoid the huge fees that lawyers charge (which range from $1,000 to $5,000).

Easygration offers you an even better option than paying these fees or spending lots of time learning all the legal jargon and studying the different forms. Since we are not lawyers, but experts on green card through marriage, we do not charge hefty legal fees, and since we review every case and only take green card cases that do not require a lawyer, you can feel rest assured that you are in good hands.

We prepare the forms for you and you do the rest:
✓All required forms to successfully apply for a Green Card through marriage.
✓Forms for work authorization, so the alien spouse can work in the USA while waiting for the green card to be processed.
✓Forms for travel authorization (advance parole), so the alien spouse can travel outside the USA while waiting for the green card to be processed.
✓Detailed instructions on how to file the green card application.

Contact Easygration for your green card through marriage application.

Note: Easygration is not a law firm.

For more information:
http://www.easygration.com
Visit our website: Green Card Through Marriage.

Immigrants take vows to stay here

Federal agents used old-fashioned detective work to prove that a professional couple from Ghana was trying to dodge immigration laws when they dissolved their marriage and wed U.S. citizens.

According to court documents, immigration agents placed the couple’s Blacklick house under surveillance, interviewed their next-door neighbors and sorted through trash bags taken from their curbside refuse container.

The agents collected enough evidence to establish that Kwadwo Asante and Lilian Asante were living as husband and wife but had entered sham marriages with others in hopes of gaining permanent residency in the United States.

Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced yesterday to two years on probation. An immigration judge is expected to deport them.

The tactics used by agents in the case aren’t typical, said a Columbus immigration lawyer, but they illustrate the extremes to which officials will go to investigate the validity of marriages between citizen and noncitizens.

“The truth is, if the government suspects that a marriage isn’t bona fide, they’ll investigate mightily,” said Kenneth J. Robinson.

Federal law is clear: Any individual who “knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any immigration law” faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The notion that marriage to a citizen is a simple path to a green card visa granting permanent residency is a common misconception, said Dennis Muchnicki, a Dublin-based immigration lawyer. “People think the process is easy, but it’s no walk in the park,” he said.

The couple must file forms with immigration officials asking the government to formally recognize the relationship and grant the noncitizen permanent residency.

The process can take five to seven months, requires exhaustive documentation and includes an interview with an immigration official who separates the couple and asks personal questions, such as where they put their dirty clothes and which side of the bed each sleeps on.

The filing fees for a green card visa cost $1,365. Couples who hire a lawyer to assist them with the process can expect to pay an additional $1,000 to $2,000, Robinson said.

The process isn’t open to all noncitizens. Those who scramble across the border without passing through inspection checkpoints aren’t eligible to gain residency through marriage.

Those who enter the U.S. through customs with fraudulent documents can seek residency through marriage, but the bureaucratic hurdles are significant.

“The majority of those who gain residency benefits through marriage entered the country lawfully,” Robinson said.

Most often, they came to the United States with temporary work or student visas. That was the path taken by the Asantes. Lilian Asante came to attend law school at Ohio State University. Kwadwo Asante was attending Case Western Reserve University’s MBA program.

“When people come here legally from the proverbial Third World countries with a student visa and realize everything this country has to offer, a lot of them don’t want to go back,” said Daniel A. Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney in Columbus.

And some are willing to pay to find a fraudulent spouse, he said.

In December, 11 central Ohio residents were indicted for their involvement in sham marriages arranged for about $17,000 each. Federal prosecutors determined that none of the couples lived together after they were married.

Brown said sham-marriage prosecutions are rare in central Ohio, but he suspects that many escape the scrutiny of investigators.

When couples approach Robinson about helping them with the green card visa process, he puts them through the same kind of questioning they’ll get from an immigration official.

“For every 10 I take, I probably turn away two,” he said.

But he assumes that most find another lawyer willing to help them. “I don’t envy the government’s job.”

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

China narrows technology gap with US

America remains the world’s science and technology leader by minting a record number of patents and having “prolific inventors” in Silicon Valley and university and company labs, but China is gaining ground, the National Science Board said Friday in its congressionally mandated biennial report on science and engineering.
“The report is not just about where we stand, it’s about where we are headed,” National Science Foundation director Arden Bement said at the White House while rolling out the report.

The 2010 report declared 2007 was the year China caught up to the US in the number of researchers and doctoral degrees it handed out in natural sciences and engineering. The US awarded 22,500 doctorates in natural sciences and engineering in 2007, but more than half of them were awarded to foreign nationals from countries like India, China and Russia.

Past experience suggests that most new Ph.D.s will stay in the US. Despite the long wait to get a Green card visa, sluggish US economy and hype about reverse brain drain, the report shows that 60 per cent of temporary visa holders who earned doctorates in science in engineering in 1997 were still working in the US — and had no intention of leaving.

“While the US is the largest R&D performing nation — representing one-third of total world investment — Asia has narrowed the gap due to the sustained annual increases by China,” said Jose-Marie Griffiths, a member of the National Science Board.

Read the full story on DNA India

Sides forming in next immigration-reform push

he prospect of millions of illegal immigrants earning a path to citizenship is now back on the table in Congress, though the first bill out of the chute has already split some California progressives and has zero support from Republicans.
Bay Area immigrant families and their allies rallied Friday at a San Francisco high school to promote legalization and other measures that would overhaul U.S. immigration policy, which has not substantially changed for more than a decade.
They were united in favor of a humanitarian approach to reforming immigration policy, though disagreed on the finer details of a 650-page reform bill introduced last week by 92 liberal Democratic lawmakers, including four from the Bay Area.
At its crux, the bill introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., would allow people living in the U.S. without legal documents to pay a $500 fee and show they made contributions to the U.S. through work, school, volunteering or military service. After six years on a conditional visa, those who qualify can get a green card visa and eventually obtain citizenship.
The bill is designed in part to put pressure on President Barack Obama, who has pledged to take on immigration reform next year and has advocated an overhaul that would include a path to citizenship. Opponents have characterized the bill as permissive and doomed to fail.

Read the full story on Contra Costa Times

Immigration overhaul would allow legalization of undocumented immigrants

A large group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation Tuesday that would allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the country legally if they pay a fine, learn English and meet other requirements.
Republicans questioned the timing of adding millions of legal workers to the nation’s workforce – especially when there’s record unemployment.

“With over 15 million Americans unemployed and seven million illegals employed, amnesty legislation is an affront to American citizens and legal residents,” said Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea.

The legislation would legalize undocumented immigrants by requiring them to register with the federal government, pay a $500 fine, learn English, pass background checks and meet other requirements. They then are eligible for a six-year visa and then a green card visa.

Source: Whittier Daily News

Let’s Give Visas to Startup Founders

Bring up the topic of economic stimulus and job creation, and you won’t hear much about immigration. If the topic does arise, it’s usually because somebody believes foreigners are taking U.S. jobs.

It’s time to bring the immigration question squarely into the debate over jobs. A change to immigration policy could help create jobs and rev up economic growth. It’s a change that wouldn’t be hard to bring about. I’m talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program.

The program would make it easier for those with great ideas and the desire to start a company to live and work in the U.S. The idea is simple, yet powerful. By letting in company founders, the U.S. would bring in risk-takers who want to create jobs and potentially build the next Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), or Microsoft (MSFT).

At the same time, a founder visa program could stem the tide of talented, tech-savvy foreigners who are leaving the U.S. to seek fortunes in their home countries, primarily China and India. Even foes of flexible immigration policies who rail against both skilled and unskilled immigrants may have a hard time finding fault with granting visas to startup founders.

REQUIRED: EARLY INVESTOR BACKING

This type of program has been championed by a long list of technology notables and entrepreneurship gurus, including venture capitalists Brad Feld, a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital, Paul Graham, a partner at early-stage venture firm Y Combinator, and technology startup experts Eric Ries and Dave McClure. This idea was originally conceived last year by Robert Litan, the Kaufmann Foundation’s vice-president of research.

Here’s how it would work. Suppose a talented engineer who is not a U.S. citizen has a great idea for a new type of search engine and wants to start a company. This entrepreneur wants to start that company in the U.S., where venture capital markets are the most mature, intellectual property laws are strong, and the talent level is high. It turns out that the would-be founder’s search engine idea is actually very good. So a qualified U.S. investor decides to put real money—say, $250,000 to $500,000—into the startup. That investor could nominate the potential founder for a Founders Visa while also making a formal commitment to fund his or her company.

The idea and the founder’s résumé would then need to pass muster with a government or industry-appointed board of venture capitalists, financiers, or technology experts. After passing, the founder would be granted a permanent resident visa.

To open up visa slots, Ries, Feld and others propose altering an existing visa known as the EB-5, now for immigrant investors. Created by the Immigration Act of 1990, the EB-5 lets foreign nationals who invest at least $1 million in the U.S., and thereby create 10 jobs, obtain a green card visa. In areas where unemployment is high, foreign nationals need only invest $500,000 to obtain residency. By adding a Founders Visa provision such as that I have outlined to the EB-5 visa, we could avoid having to create a new class of visas and any political hassles this might entail.

NEWT GINGRICH LIKES THE IDEA

Richard Herman, a Cleveland-based immigration attorney and co-author of the upcoming bookImmigrant, Inc.—Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy (and how they will save the American worker), says that allowing thousands of founders to get special immigration status could spur sufficient economic activity and innovation to realize billions of dollars in real economic gains for this country within a short time span. We’re talking years, not decades.

How palatable would such a program be politically? U.S. Representative Jared Polis (D-Colo.), himself a former entrepreneur, is developing legislation to make it easier for foreign founders of investor-backed startups to secure visas to remain in the U.S. On the other end of the political spectrum, even Newt Gingrich, the Republican former Speaker of the House, has bloggedabout the need to make the country “more accessible to skilled immigrants.” He wrote this after witnessing “the dynamic entrepreneurial and high-tech business culture in Tokyo, Beijing, and Seoul”—countries with which we are competing for top talent. Representatives of both ends of the political spectrum can agree on this issue.

As things stand, we’re losing the battle to retain the immigrants who fueled the recent tech boom. We’re experiencing the first brain drain in American history.Other countries in Europe and South America are realizing the potential of attracting skilled immigrants and are putting together programs to snap them up. The startups needed to boost our economy are being created in Shanghai and Bangalore. That’s great for those countries, but we need job creation in Silicon Valley in California and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. That means warmly welcoming to America as many founders as we can.

Wadhwa is senior research associate at the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He is an entrepreneur who founded two technology companies. His research can be found at www.globalizationresearch.com. Follow him on Twitter“@vwadhwa”.

[Source: Businessweek]

Ban lifted for green card visa applicants with HIV

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer’s passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive.

Because of the disease, Kremer — a native of Germany — has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold.

But that soon may change.

This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green card visas, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

Kremer, 46, a trained physician and HIV researcher who lives in Miami, said she was relieved that her case might be resolved when she returned to court in February. But she said she also felt a sense of responsibility.

“This is not the end of the story,” she said. “What about all the lives that the HIV travel and immigration ban ruined?”

Immigration lawyers in California and around the nation said the ban had caused families to be separated; foreigners to avoid being tested or to go without medication; and highly skilled workers to return to their home countries.

Since the announcement, Los Angeles immigration lawyer J Craig Fong and other lawyers said they had received a flurry of calls and e-mails from HIV-positive foreigners who now had renewed hope. The new rules, including the elimination of HIV testing for green-card visa applicants, take effect Jan. 4.

“To finally be in a position where I can tell people that they can come to the United States to visit their family or that they can get a green card visa and stay here with their partner is just incredible,” said Victoria Neilson, legal director for Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocated for lifting the ban.

But Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the decision to remove HIV as a bar was based on politics, not science. “It was clearly a politically motivated move,” Krikorian said, adding that the decision could have real consequences — more HIV cases and more costs. “It is extra healthcare spending that we wouldn’t have otherwise.”

An analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in the first year, an estimated 4,275 people infected with HIV could come into the U.S. at a cost of about $25,000 each.

The ban on infected foreigners began in 1987, when federal health officials added HIV to the list of communicable diseases that prevented people from entering the country. In 1993, Congress made it law.

“At the time, much less was known about HIV,” Neilson said. “People were really scared that HIV status was a death sentence.”

People could apply for waivers, but for most applicants that required proof that the foreigner had a family member in the U.S. legally. Because same-sex partners don’t qualify as family members under the law, the requirement was difficult for many to meet.

Last year, Congress changed the law, and this month, the CDC removed HIV from the list of diseases restricting foreigners’ entry.

Kremer was infected as a medical student in Germany. In 2001, she received a visa to come to the U.S. on an educational exchange program and later qualified for a visa for highly skilled workers. Her original waiver — granted by a sympathetic consular officer in Berlin — was automatically renewed.

But when Kremer applied last year for a green card visa, she was denied based on her HIV status, and she and her family were placed in removal proceedings. “I was fuming,” she said. “My whole future was built up to stay in the United States.”

Knowing the change in policy was coming, her lawyers pushed to get her case postponed until after the new year. Kremer, whose treatment is paid for by the German government, said she was thankful to have both medical coverage and immigration lawyers.

“I am concerned about other people who have been affected who aren’t fortunate enough to have attorneys who know how to navigate the system and keep people from being deported,” she said.

Another HIV-positive visa holder, who lives in Southern California, has also had access to an immigration lawyer but hasn’t been able to apply for legal residency.

Dave, who did not want his full name or occupation used because his HIV status is unknown to his employer, arrived from Canada a decade ago as a visitor. He soon found a job and was able to get an H1B visa for high-skilled workers. Now, he earns six figures and manages million-dollar projects.

Dave’s employer offered to sponsor him for a green card visa, but Dave couldn’t move forward because he knew how it would end — with a denial. His visa expires next year, and he had started looking for new job opportunities.

“Everything had a finite end to it,” he said. “You were working within certain boundaries. Now those boundaries have been removed.”

[Source: LA Times]