Highly Skilled Legal Immigrants Rally September 18, 2007

Immigration Voice (http://www.immigrationvoice.org) is a non profit grassroots advocacy group working to alleviate the issues of Highly Skilled Foreign Workers who are stuck in the Employment Based Green Card Process stuck in Bureaucratic Logjams.

Immigration Voice is conducting a peaceful rally in Washington DC on September 18th, 2007 (Tuesday).

You can/must participate in the rally if
(1) You are in various stages of the Green Card Process
(2) Belong to a retrogressed group
(3) Highly Skilled worker (Physicans, Engineers on h1b visa, J1 Waiver, L1 etc..) and planning to apply/already applied for a Green Card
(4) If your families are divided by baclogs and retrogression. Thousands of families are being potentially torn apart due to their kids aging out. These children are victims of something they have no control over and they are constantly forgotten.
(5) Current students studying in various universities (from other countries) but will be applying for Green Card soon or later
(6) If you already have a Green Card or a Citizen, you can provide support and encouragement

Please make it a point to attend the rally. Please invite your friends, relatives, co workers, colleagues etc….to the Rally. Please spread this message through mailing lists, media contacts, Orkut and other social networking media. If you are students, please send this email to various student organizations. If you work for companies, please send this message to managers, co workers, employers etc…

If you are not already a member at Immigration Voice. Please become a member today. It is easy and free.

Please follow this link for more details on the Rally http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11428

A lot of people may be wondering why should we even bother about this.

Some FAQs

(1) What’s all this? Immigration Voice, rally etc… Why should I care a damn?
a. There is a political angle to issues that we are all facing. The system was designed long time back and has not been flexible and with the actual demand more than the capacity it is in a messed up state. No one has made attempts to fix the mess and vote bank politics are creating further mess.

(2) Why no one talks about these things?
a. The nature of this issue is very complex. Unless one falls into this pit, the nature of this issue cannot be understood
b. A lot of people do not want to handle the truth and reality
c. Perception – without looking at the real picture, lot of people assume things are fine

(3) Why should I take these issues seriously, my lawyer will take care of these?
a. Immigration lawyers assist and handle the paperwork, this mess is beyond their control or scope or even the scope of USCIS and related government agencies
b. Immigration lawyers are your service providers and you are their client, they will talk only business to you, there is no need for them to explain to you the mess you are in

(4) After the July visa bulletin fiasco, I did submit my 485 petition, and I will get an EAD/AP so why must I bother?
a. EAD/AP were designed to be interim benefits (only for few months until someone can get a Green Card), their usage has limitations and will lead to further issues
b. Severe retrogression will hit in coming fiscal years. India, China, Mexico, Phillipines, Eb3, and eb2, and ROW eb3 will all be affected, pleasse refer to the following link
http://www.bibdaily.com/pdfs/Jan%20Pederson%208-2-07.pdf

c. Anti immigration lobby is targeting H1b tech workers, at the same time a lot of lobbying organizations are working hard to make the system unworkable for eg.. Durbin Grassley amendments may appear anytime
d. Until you get a Green Card in Hand, EAD is not the best viable alternative for work and AP is definitely not the best travel document.

(5) Why Immigration Voice? What is the agenda?
a. Immigration Voice is the only grass root organization working hard on these issues
b. Immigration Voice’s earlier campaigns were a huge success and did send signals to government agencies and law makers

So why not start working on helping yourself and helping your fellow immigrants?

Please spread the message, and take active interest in the event.

Official Website: http://www.immigrationvoice.org