Shout Out Loud Or It Will Get Much WORSE

[Al422 221]

Amen on that! Every time I went to Russia, and I was there four times, I never needed more than 5 days to get a 30 day visa. And if I went to the Russian Consulate personally, I could have gotten it in 2 days, but I did not bother because I just did not need it that quickily. One form, their $200.00 fee, and done.

The one time Elena came here, though, it took 60 days to get a visitor's visa to come here. To do that, she had to show:

1. A letter from her employer and pay stubs to prove a steady job.

2. The deed to her apartment to show property ownership.

AND she had to appear at the U.S. Consulate for a personal interview

All this, despite a long history, all shown in her passport, of international travel, never overstaying one visa by even 1 day.

But of course there are other options: Talk to the 30 million illegal aliens here, who just walked across the border and who now hold jobs, have drivers' licenses, and have bank accounts. No paperwork, no fee, no waiting. Presto: Walk across the border, and in 1 day., WELCOME TO AMERICA!!!!

[Al422 221]

No those are NOT refugee petitions. Not at all. Those TPS applicants are Haitians illegally living in the USA. They are NOT refugees. They suffered nothing from the Haitian Earthquake. They already live in the USA, illegally BTW, there is no need to hurry their cases. But USCIS is processing the rush of TPS applications generally within one or two months, and leave K-1 petitioners wait for 5+ months. That is just not right. They have resource to approve a quarter million TPS cases a month, but they can not complete more than one thousand K-1 cases in the same month?

I am all for expedited applications of true humanitarian refugees. That would be folks currently in Haiti, and their cases will be processed in the US consulate inHaiti, not in USCIS, therefore such refugee applications would not have take resources away from normal K-1 processing whatsoever.

The Haitian illegals should not be allowed to file anything whatsoever. They made a conscious decision to operate outside of the law, and they therefore should not be allowed to claim protection under the very law they shunned.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

The majority of the people in the US think that being married to a US citizen gives one an automatic right to come to the US without any further paperwork. If they want the rules to be more strict than that, it is not surprising. When an average US citizen learns what is actually involved in immigration, they are usually outraged.

(Of course may be they are just being polite)

I've never seen any polls specifically on the subject of what people think about the family based immigration process, so I don't know if that's what the majority think. I believe you're probably right that many, if not most, believe it's a lot easier than it actually is. I know that I certainly did before I began seriously researching it more than two years ago.

The polls I've seen recently indicate that most Americans think the current laws aren't strict enough, and that they're not being enforced. They also think that too many people are coming into the US, both legally and illegally. They may not understand how the legal immigration process currently works, but if any legislation were introduced that made legal immigration easier they would be opposed to it. It's a myopic view, to be sure, but until people feel the US government is adequately managing illegal immigration they're not going to be in favor of any measures to simplify legal immigration.

[SuperDuper! 230]

+1

Let's stand up and SHOUT IT OUT LOUD, or the system won't change. Good Luck to all waiting for visas in 2011!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZUGydmfro

[rika60607 215]

People will retain this myopic view unless someone will shout out and talk about the process and why it needs to be changed.

In my experience, nobody minded family based immigration, it was understood. Some were against illegal immigration, some did not care about illegals. But, they knew the difference. It is just that they assumed that since illegal immigration was so easy (is that true, I am not sure), then family based immigration should be a breeze (like showing your marriage certificate at the border).

It's a myopic view, to be sure, but until people feel the US government is adequately managing illegal immigration they're not going to be in favor of any measures to simplify legal immigration.

[Robby999 1,024]

The Haitian illegals should not be allowed to file anything whatsoever. They made a conscious decision to operate outside of the law, and they therefore should not be allowed to claim protection under the very law they shunned.

I totally agree with you! The Haitians are not claiming this protection, instead it is being handed to them on a silver platter and guess who is paying for it. They are allowed to receive means tested benefits which pretty much guarantees them a fee waiver for every form and cost required for the normal process! If you read the fee waiver guidelines and the I-912 , it explains how the fee waivers are paid for!( increased fees for everybody else) All they have to do is send a I-912 or a written statement requesting a fee waiver, send your petition in without a check and see how what happens. I find it really interesting that the first thing that almost certainly grants a fee waiver is receiving means-tested benefits! I had to prove to that I made 125% of the federal poverty levels or find a co-sponsor! I wonder if I could use that 150% clause for the fee waiver myself when my wife has to remove conditions?

[Palladin 18]

Every "right" recognized under US law has a basis in the Constitution. If you want to claim that you have a right to have your wife or fiancee immigrate to the United States then you're going to need to find a Constitutional basis for it. You won't be the first one to have tried it, and nobody has yet succeeded to have any court in the US confirm that immigration is a right for anyone. In fact, the courts have repeatedly determined that immigration is a privilege granted at the discretion of the US government. This viewpoint is reinforced in the immigration law and the policies for DHS and Department of State. If you manage to prove this is truly a right then there will be sweeping changes in those laws and policies.

Immigration, or other permissions to enter the United States, is never a right to an alien person. It is a priviledge. Because a foreign citizen is not a citizen of the USA and is not a subject of the US constitution.

However, a US citizen has a RIGHT to bring a loved one, a spouse or a fiancee, into this country to live together. It is a RIGHT, not a priviledge. The US governmetn has a right that the citizen must ensure such an alien person does not become a public burden or otherwise harm the interest of others.That is the governmet's right to request so. But beyond that, the citizen has the right to bring his family member in.

Let me give you an analogy. A dog or a cat does not have a right to enter the USA, it does not have a right of a US citizen, it does not have any right at all endowed upon a person. A dog would not be allowed to sneak through our boarder, it would be hushed back.

However, a US citizen can bring a pet dog back into the USA. There will be no immigration check for the dog. They will just let it in. There is no ground to send a dog back, the US citizen can bring the dog in with the airflight as he/she pleases. BUT the government does have the right to demand that the dog has certificates of proper immunization and all that, and that it is healthy and does not threat the safety of the public.

Let me give you one another analogy. I am not arguing about slave system, but just use slave for an analogy. A slave is a human being with no right entitled to a free human being whatsoever. If a slave comes to the boarder of the USA he/she would not be let in, because he/she doesn't have any right. However a US slave master would be able to bring the slave in. They don't even require immigration paper of the slave. At least that was the case back in the old days when slavery was rampant. They shipped in whole lot of slaves from the other continent without any immigration paper at all. That happened in the past.

Sorry if my analogy offended any one. I am just trying to make a point that just because an alien person himself/herself does not have a right of his/her own, does not mean he/she can not be allowed to enter on the basis of the right of some one else. That some one else is a US citizen and has such right to bring a person in, without that person having his/her own right.

When the US government blocks an alien person from entering the USA, the government has NOT violated the right of that alien person, but it may pretty well has violated the constitution right of the associated US citizen to pursue his/her happiness. That is what I believe. For the government to justify such a visa denial, it had better prove that the US citizen has not been hurtor violated by the government decision.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Palladin

[Palladin 18]

Again, the government doesn't tell you that you can't marry the person you love. They have no stance on that.

Not precisely true. A US citizen has the constitutional right to pursue happiness, on just one limit that your pursuit of happiness does not harm other people, or the public's pursuit of happiness.

Therefore in certain cases the government CAN tell you not to marry another person if it deems you are not just pursuing your own happiness, but you are also pursuing your happiness at the price of other people's happiness.

For example, you can not be allowed to marry an under-age girl. You might be pursuing your personal pleasure but you are destroying the happiness of that girl and her family. Therefore the government can stop that.

Of course you can not be allowed to marry a known terrorist. The government can tell you not to lay in bed with a terrorist, because if you do you are hurting the public's or other people's pursuit of happiness. My happiness includes visiting a shopping mall without worrying about my safety. If you bring in a terrorist and live in my neighborhood then I can ask the government to tell you back off. Of course if you decide to move to a different neighborhood and deos not harm my safety, then by all means you can mind your own business and marry that terrorist else where.

For most of people here. We are truely pursuing our happiness and we do make sure such pursuit of our own happiness does not bother or harm any one else. So in our cases we have our constititional rights to bring our loved ones in.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Palladin

[Al422 221]

Constitutional rights are not black and white, either absolute or non-existent. To cite an often quoted example, you can't shout FIRE in a crowded theater and then claim freedom of speech.

The right to marry is pretty strong, almost up there with free speech. That right is found in the 5th Amendment right of privacy and in the 1st Amendment freedom of association. But while it is pretty strong, it is not absolute, just like free speech is not absolute. You can;t marry a minor, you can't marry someone who is already married, and (in most states) you can't marry someone of your own gender.

Although you are perfectly free to marry a non-married foreigner who is not a minor and not of your own gender, that does not mean he/she gets an automatic right to immigrate here. I don't think anybody here would be too happy if an American woman were to marry Osama bin Laden and live with him across the street from you. That is why the government needs to control immigration.

But control is one thing, and a hideous mess is another, and right now we have the latter of the two. And there is a Constitutional right against this hideous mess. It is called due process, and it is found in the 5th Amendment. If government wants to check out your foreign bride before it lets her in, due process says that the government's system must be a reasonable one. It must have reasonable standards to decide who to let in and not let in, and it must get the procedure done in a reasonable amount of time with reasonable access to that procedure by the petitioner. This is where the problem is. On these three rights, USCIS is batting 0 for 3.

Reasonable standards means that the government may take reasonable steps to not let people in who would be a burden to the state. Osama is out, as he well should be. Someone who would make a beeline to the public welfare rolls is out too. But what if your fiance had a conviction, let's say 10 years ago, for drug dealing or prostitution, and then cleaned his/her act up and led a perfect life? That person would not be a burden to the state, yet current immigration law says that person is out.

The more troubling part is a reasonable process. We have courts, where people go to resolve disputes, where people accused of crimes get prosecuted, and where people apply for things from their government like land use variances. These proceedings are all open, both sides appear before a judge in person, and you present your case in person and get a decision in a reasonable amount of time. More pressing cases, such as a criminal case where the defendant cannot afford bail and stays locked up despite not having been convicted of a crime, get priority. If you have a question, you go to the court's website and get a concise answer, or you call the clerk, who looks it up for you and tells you what it is. This is reasonable. This is due process.

USCIS., on the other hand, is nothing more than a modern day Star Chamber, the accursed forum from medieval England where a panel of judges met in secrecy and decided what to do with the defendant. You were not there when your fate was decided, you never knew the names of who was deciding your fate, and you did not even know where there was. Sound familiar? Kind of like the Disservice Centers? This is not reasonable, and it is not due process.

Courts have limits on how long they can take to decide your case. Prosecutors have limits on how long they can take to prosecute you. If they blow those limits, the case is dismissed, and you are free. Why? Due process, that's why. You have a right to have your case decided in a reasonable amount of time.

But the USCIS is exempt from this rule. They can take as long as they darn well please, at least so they say. The Constitution says otherwise.

[faust-yusov 103]

Some suggestions, corrections, and contributions you may want to take or leave. I've emboldened all changes.

Overall:

- Articulate the issue in the opening paragraph.

- Structure the argument almost mathematically.

- Provide evidence for all stated statistics in appendices.

- Avoid waffle or excessive rhetoric. "I feel", "I think", "I believe" are good.

I am a petitioner in a proceeding pending before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to bring my fiancee, **********, here to the United States for marriage. Towards that end, I have filed an I129f petition, seeking approval for a K-1 fiancée visa. Presently, there no problems with my own petition, at least not yet, but I have numerous concerns with the entire K-1/K-3 system that is causing hardship and delay for petitioners and their beneficiaries.

I would first like to draw your attention to a delay in petition processing that appears entirely unjustified, and secondly, to the inadequacy of communication and information provided when a petitioner contacts the service with a legitimate inquiry about his/her case.

I realize that the USCIS is an administrative agency, under the jurisdiction of the President of The United States, but As it is the Congress that funds the operation, I believe that the Congress has a right, as well as a responsibility to ensure that public monies appropriated to USCIS are competently and wisely used.

I personally feel that this is not the case. Almost a year ago, the Director of USCIS appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee seeking his appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year, promising to deliver excellent service and excellent public communication with those monies. Instead, USCIS has delivered poor service, poor public communication, and an endless plethora of excuses as to why it can’t do what the Director promised the Committee it would do.

Up until recently, the system worked well in that a petitioner could expect a decision on his/her petition in a reasonable amount of time, typically 30 to 60 days. But lately, that time frame has deteriorated to the point that the typical wait is now between 6-8 months.

Furthermore, when a petitioner inquires about the status of a case, even after what USCIS deems “normal processing time” (5 months), he/she encounters a brick wall of bureaucratic insolence and often downright hostility. We are given an 800 number to call, with operators possessing who have no idea what they are talking about and no better information than that which a member of the public could retrieve from the USCIS web site. Online service is similarly opaque, merely telling you that your case is “being processed”, without any hint as to how close USCIS is to a decision. The only thing the operator offers is a “service request”, which, when issued, gives no information but merely instructs you to call back in 30 days.

Lately, delays in I129f petition processing have gotten totally out of control, and USCIS communication with the public has, as well. Petitions sit and sit, particularly at the Vermont Service Center, none of them get processed, and backlogs just grow and grow, with no end in sight. Nobody at either Service Center is willing to tell the public what is going on, almost as if they are doing something wrong and have something to hide. I hear more and more stories about rude and obnoxious service personnel who are mean and nasty to the very petitioners who are the source of these people’s jobs, even hanging up on them. Almost all of this has already been said. Maybe you can work in a specific reference to the VSC elsewhere.

There is no excuse for USCIS to be secretive. As a governmental agency whose function it is to serve the public, its operation should be as anything less than transparent as glass in operation, and certainly no excuse whatsoever for any USCIS personnel to ever be rude and hostility from a public service.

This is no way to run a governmental agency. The United States of America deserves much better.

Edited January 22, 2011 by faust-yusov

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Immigration, or other permissions to enter the United States, is never a right to an alien person. It is a priviledge. Because a foreign citizen is not a citizen of the USA and is not a subject of the US constitution.

However, a US citizen has a RIGHT to bring a loved one, a spouse or a fiancee, into this country to live together. It is a RIGHT, not a priviledge. The US governmetn has a right that the citizen must ensure such an alien person does not become a public burden or otherwise harm the interest of others.That is the governmet's right to request so. But beyond that, the citizen has the right to bring his family member in.

Let me give you an analogy. A dog or a cat does not have a right to enter the USA, it does not have a right of a US citizen, it does not have any right at all endowed upon a person. A dog would not be allowed to sneak through our boarder, it would be hushed back.

However, a US citizen can bring a pet dog back into the USA. There will be no immigration check for the dog. They will just let it in. There is no ground to send a dog back, the US citizen can bring the dog in with the airflight as he/she pleases. BUT the government does have the right to demand that the dog has certificates of proper immunization and all that, and that it is healthy and does not threat the safety of the public.

Let me give you one another analogy. I am not arguing about slave system, but just use slave for an analogy. A slave is a human being with no right entitled to a free human being whatsoever. If a slave comes to the boarder of the USA he/she would not be let in, because he/she doesn't have any right. However a US slave master would be able to bring the slave in. They don't even require immigration paper of the slave. At least that was the case back in the old days when slavery was rampant. They shipped in whole lot of slaves from the other continent without any immigration paper at all. That happened in the past.

Sorry if my analogy offended any one. I am just trying to make a point that just because an alien person himself/herself does not have a right of his/her own, does not mean he/she can not be allowed to enter on the basis of the right of some one else. That some one else is a US citizen and has such right to bring a person in, without that person having his/her own right.

When the US government blocks an alien person from entering the USA, the government has NOT violated the right of that alien person, but it may pretty well has violated the constitution right of the associated US citizen to pursue his/her happiness. That is what I believe. For the government to justify such a visa denial, it had better prove that the US citizen has not been hurtor violated by the government decision.

You don't have a constitutional right to immigrate your foreign born spouse to the US. Period. End of story.

Your foreign born spouse has preference over other immigrants by virtue of that marriage. They don't have to wait years for an immigrant visa number. That is their fast track and it is the only they are getting.

And your analogy about slavery is not only offensive, it is incorrect. Slavery has been abolished in the US. Back in the day you are referring to, if you were white you could just enter the US. If you were black you could not. I find your commentary extremely ignorant.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Not precisely true. A US citizen has the constitutional right to pursue happiness, on just one limit that your pursuit of happiness does not harm other people, or the public's pursuit of happiness.

Therefore in certain cases the government CAN tell you not to marry another person if it deems you are not just pursuing your own happiness, but you are also pursuing your happiness at the price of other people's happiness.

For example, you can not be allowed to marry an under-age girl. You might be pursuing your personal pleasure but you are destroying the happiness of that girl and her family. Therefore the government can stop that.

Of course you can not be allowed to marry a known terrorist. The government can tell you not to lay in bed with a terrorist, because if you do you are hurting the public's or other people's pursuit of happiness. My happiness includes visiting a shopping mall without worrying about my safety. If you bring in a terrorist and live in my neighborhood then I can ask the government to tell you back off. Of course if you decide to move to a different neighborhood and deos not harm my safety, then by all means you can mind your own business and marry that terrorist else where.

For most of people here. We are truely pursuing our happiness and we do make sure such pursuit of our own happiness does not bother or harm any one else. So in our cases we have our constititional rights to bring our loved ones in.

No. You. Do. Not.

[Al422 221]

Some suggestions, corrections, and contributions you may want to take or leave. I've emboldened all changes.

Overall:

- Articulate the issue in the opening paragraph.

- Structure the argument almost mathematically.

- Provide evidence for all stated statistics in appendices.

- Avoid waffle or excessive rhetoric. "I feel", "I think", "I believe" are good.

Thank you. This is all very helpful. I like the way you made things more concise than I originally had them.

I will post my next draft on Sunday night right after the Jets game (Hey, I am a New Yorker, so Go Jets!)

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Immigration, or other permissions to enter the United States, is never a right to an alien person. It is a priviledge. Because a foreign citizen is not a citizen of the USA and is not a subject of the US constitution.

However, a US citizen has a RIGHT to bring a loved one, a spouse or a fiancee, into this country to live together. It is a RIGHT, not a priviledge. The US governmetn has a right that the citizen must ensure such an alien person does not become a public burden or otherwise harm the interest of others.That is the governmet's right to request so. But beyond that, the citizen has the right to bring his family member in.

Let me give you an analogy. A dog or a cat does not have a right to enter the USA, it does not have a right of a US citizen, it does not have any right at all endowed upon a person. A dog would not be allowed to sneak through our boarder, it would be hushed back.

However, a US citizen can bring a pet dog back into the USA. There will be no immigration check for the dog. They will just let it in. There is no ground to send a dog back, the US citizen can bring the dog in with the airflight as he/she pleases. BUT the government does have the right to demand that the dog has certificates of proper immunization and all that, and that it is healthy and does not threat the safety of the public.

Let me give you one another analogy. I am not arguing about slave system, but just use slave for an analogy. A slave is a human being with no right entitled to a free human being whatsoever. If a slave comes to the boarder of the USA he/she would not be let in, because he/she doesn't have any right. However a US slave master would be able to bring the slave in. They don't even require immigration paper of the slave. At least that was the case back in the old days when slavery was rampant. They shipped in whole lot of slaves from the other continent without any immigration paper at all. That happened in the past.

Sorry if my analogy offended any one. I am just trying to make a point that just because an alien person himself/herself does not have a right of his/her own, does not mean he/she can not be allowed to enter on the basis of the right of some one else. That some one else is a US citizen and has such right to bring a person in, without that person having his/her own right.

When the US government blocks an alien person from entering the USA, the government has NOT violated the right of that alien person, but it may pretty well has violated the constitution right of the associated US citizen to pursue his/her happiness. That is what I believe. For the government to justify such a visa denial, it had better prove that the US citizen has not been hurtor violated by the government decision.

You apparently don't understand the US Constitution.

"Pursuit of happiness" is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Not even once. That phrase came from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Jefferson, in agreement with Franklin, derived this terminology from the original Virginia Declaration of Rights. They left out the Virginia declaration's inclusion of the right to acquire and possess property. Jefferson believed that the "Creator" never guaranteed a right to property, and Franklin believed that property should be taxed for the public good.

The authors of original Bill of Rights believed that it was beyond the ability of the government to guarantee rights that, in Jefferson's words, were bestowed upon us by the "Creator" (Jefferson was a Deist, and didn't believe in the traditional concept of God). They did, however, believe that government could guarantee that it would not deny those rights without good cause, and that a process would be established for the government to prove that good cause exists. The fifth amendment contains the "due process" clause, that guarantees the government will not DEPRIVE you of life, liberty, or property without "due process". They left out "pursuit of happiness" because it would be virtually impossible to guarantee that any action of the government would not make you unhappy. If that guarantee were provided then it would be a sound basis to challenge virtually any election simply because you weren't happy with the result. The "due process" guarantee for property came directly from the original Virginia declaration.

Challenges were later filed in federal courts because states were passing laws that were in apparent violation of the fifth amendment, with the states claiming that the fifth amendment applied only to the federal government. Congress subsequently passed the fourteenth amendment which, among other things, extended the due process guarantees to the states. This was the only way to force the states to recognize the right to due process because the Constitution says that any power not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitution is reserved for the states.

So, no - the US government does not guarantee your right to be happy or to even pursue happiness, nor do they guarantee that any government action or law will infringe upon your pursuit of happiness. They don't even guarantee that you won't be denied life, liberty, or property. What they DO guarantee is that you won't be denied any of these things without due process, which means they won't kill you, imprison you, or seize your property without giving you a day in court.

When a petition or visa is denied, the government has not taken your life, liberty, or property, so you aren't even guaranteed due process.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Thanks Jim, for being able to parse that out.

And for some reason, I can't get the image out of my head of a rumpled Will Smith dragging around his salesman's bag.