"As an immigrant, there’s a little part of you that always says, 'Well, I’m not a hundred percent American.' America is some other little boy or some other place I haven’t been to yet. What was transformative was...realizing that the quest for home and identity had always been part of my work, but that I’d been home all along. I understood that my story, my mother’s story, the story of those hundreds of thousands of people up there, is America. I had the dawning of a new connection with America, a new love affair. Not a blind patriotism, but just an understanding that it is part of who I am."
Springtime Sunset in Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London.
The Affidavit of Support
The affidavit of support is a critical component to family-based and some employment-based applications for permanent residence (i.e., for a Green Card). The law requires that a petitioner submit an affidavit of support along with their petition for permanent residence on behalf of the foreign national to demonstrate to the satisfaction of US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) that the petitioner’s income or assets are sufficiently above the federal poverty level. USCIS requires this affidavit to ensure that the immigrant will not come to the US as a permanent resident only to later become a public charge.
The affidavit of support serves as a contract between the petitioner sponsoring the immigrant and the US government in which the petitioner agrees that a US government entity may, under certain circumstances, recuperate from the petitioner any funds that were used to provide the public benefits provided to the immigrant. The idea behind the affidavit of support is that the petitioner, who must be a US citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) over eighteen and residing in the US, will be financially supporting the immigrant, if necessary. This is shown by submitting recent tax filings as well as a recent job letter that show annual earnings, along with proof of citizenship or LPR status.
Read moreNextgov: "New USCIS Computer Was Supposed to Speed Up Immigration Processing. What Went Wrong?"
The online electronic system that was supposed to transition US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) away from paper-based applications to a sophisticated and secure online system has faced major delays and increasingly high budget costs and isn't expected to be fully operational until 2018 or 2019. This system, called the Electronic Immigration System (or ELIS, to honor our nation's first federal immigration processing center) is an online, account-based system that allows users to "submit and view certain benefit requests, receive electronic notification of decisions, and receive real-time case status updates."
Currently ELIS is only available for paying the immigrant visa fee and for I-539 applications as well as EB-5 Investor Visa applications. (For a short window I-90 applications were accepted). The ELIS system was originally budgeted at $536,000 with a 2013 completion date and now has a price tag of $2.6 billion, which has been financed by USCIS application fees. The system was designed to streamline the immigration application process and make case review and adjudication more effective and efficient for the estimated 18,000 USCIS officers and contractors who process the six million immigration benefits yearly.
Nextgov reports that as USCIS fixes, programs, and further develops ELIS capabilities USCIS field offices continue to use outdated and incompatible systems and that the most troubling aspect is "paper files have proved more efficient than ELIS as it currently operates." Indeed, a 2014 Inspector General report found that it takes twice as long for an officer to close a case with ELIS than with paper documents, citing the 100 to 150 clicks required for moving through the ELIS system. A staffer on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee says: "'Transitioning to an electronic system would improve USCIS’ search capability, help it analyze for patterns, and share information on an interagency basis[.]”
USCIS press secretary Shin Inouye says that going digital "'is a priority for USCIS,'" and that they "'will continue to engage with stakeholders, members of Congress, and interested individuals as we build a system that will transform the way USCIS accesses information and processes cases, while maintaining our commitment to ensuring the integrity of America’s immigration process.'"
In the meantime, FedEx, UPS, and the US Postal Service aren't complaining.
UPDATE (April 2, 2015): USCIS announced earlier this week that Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card, is available in the ELIS system after a short trial period last year. Lawful permanent residents may now use ELIS to apply for a replacement or renewal of their existing permanent resident card (i.e., Green Card). Conditional permanent residents may use ELIS to apply only for a replacement of an existing Green Card; they may not use this form to apply for an extension or renewal of their status.
UPDATE (June 24, 2015): USCIS announced that as of June 15, 2015, they are longer accepting electronically filed Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and Form I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur. In addition, USCIS discontinued the Regional Center Document Library. For those who have a pending or draft case created before June 15, USCIS will continue to adjudicate those cases to completion and allow thirty days for completion and submission of the draft cases. Moreover, those who filed a Form I-539 or Form I-526 electronically before June 15 will still be able to access their account to check case status, change address, and respond to requests for evidence. Those who filed Form I-526 electronically will still be able to review and attest existing deal packages created by the Document Library Manager; however, Document Library Managers will not be able to create new document libraries or deal packages. Time to get out that typewriter again! (Okay, or maybe just fill the forms out on a computer.)
It Is Yours
"She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing it is yours.”
Broken Pencil, or Another Casualty of H-1B Cap Season
Acronym Acrimony
Listening to immigration attorneys speak must sometimes sound like alphabet soup: DOL, PERM, USCIS, DOS, NVC, TSC, NBC, VSC, RFE, INA, EOIR, BIA, EAD, AP, LPR, and so on constantly litter our speech. I sometimes catch myself with a client mid-abbreviation and have to back up to say the complete name of the agency or phrase I’ve just tried to shorten.
The worst of it happens when immigration lawyers are talking to each other in front of non-immigration lawyers: “So, I called the NCSC, and put in a service request for the RFE that TSC issued on that EAD/AP application. While we wait for that adjudication, I guess the client will have to extend their H-1B with VSC.” The thing is, I don’t always notice I’ve done it until I look at the blank stares of friends listening to the conversation but not comprehending anything.
Read moreVox: "Where the world's migrants go, in one map"
"Most Popular Destination for Each Country's Migrants" by DMan9797.
The most popular migrant destinations for each country around the world have been mapped and color coded. Created by Devinn Jani, aka Reddit user DMan9797, the very cool map uses 2013 United Nations data to show country-specific global migration. The map reveals some interesting facts about migration (but note that when looking at the map in addition to color coding, it also labels countries with the most popular country migrant destination of that country—e.g., USA is labeled as Mexico and Argentina is labeled as Spain—and so for those who haven't memorized all the countries a world map may be useful):
- Unsurprisingly, the United States (whose immigrants are colored in red) is the most popular destination for the geographically-close countries of Mexico, Canada, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, among others, but also for such countries as diverse and culturally unique as Japan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Germany, Sweden, and Iran.
- More interesting to us is seeing that the United States is not the most popular migrant destination for many countries that nevertheless have had many migrants come to the US. Not for Russians, whose nationals immigrate to Ukraine; not Colombia, whose nationals immigrate to Venezuela; and not for China, whose citizens immigrate to Hong Kong;
- There are other surprises too. Indians tend to immigrate not to the United States, United Kingdom, or Australia but instead the United Arab Emirates. Mongolians tend to go to South Korea. Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, is not only the top destination for the bordering countries of Poland, Czech Republic, and Austria but also Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and Sardinia.
This map is helpful to correct the assumption that the US is the first and most popular destination for all global migrants. As we've reported before, the US ranks 65th worldwide in terms of the percentage of population that is foreign born—data also based on 2013 UN numbers. But according to a report by the US Census Bureau this could change by 2060 when a projected 18.8 percent of the US population will be foreign-born (currently it's at 14.3 percent but back in 1890 it was 14.8 percent). This is not because of a dramatic increase in immigrants but rather because the US birth rate is projected to decline. The census report also has some good news for those who are a fan of diversity: the fastest growing share of the population in the US will be Americans of two or more races, which "has the potential to totally scramble racial categories as they exist today." For those really into maps (hey, maps are fun) and immigration and who want more, Vox has thirty-five maps that "explain how America is a nation of immigrants."
Quotes In Honor of International Women's Day
"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.'...Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices, always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now, marriage can be a good thing, it can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?"
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
TEDxEuston: We Should All Be Feminists
“[W]e need to reclaim the word 'feminism.' We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist—and only 42% of British women—I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF SURVEY?"
- Caitlin Moran
How to Be a Woman
"And so I hope that my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty."
- Lupita Nyong’o
"Black Women in Hollywood" Acceptance Speech