DLG at the Brooklyn Half Marathon

Brooklyn Half finish line!

While most people were sleeping in or taking it easy last Saturday morning, over 27,000 ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon, including our very own Liz, Alexis, and Daniele. Liz, with her husband Mark, was looking very strong and powerful throughout the race. Alexis was super excited about the cool medals. And Daniele used the race for some serious meditation time. Congratulations, you deserve all the champagne!

The Guardian: “Silicon Valley's reluctant housewives: immigration law bars women from work”

For many people landing a job at a tech company in Silicon Valley is a dream come true. Years of hard work, talent, and education have finally paid off and led to coveted positions at prestigious companies (with sweet perks). But not everyone making the move to the US benefits. The Guardian takes a look at H-4 spouses–that is, the spouses of H-1B visa holders–and in particular, the wives of Silicon Valley workers who “are integral to the continued success of the Valley’s multibillion-dollar computing industry – but also entirely invisible to it.” Many of these H-4 holders are the spouses of engineers from around the world who work at companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook.

The majority of H-4 spouses are not authorized to work in the US (except those whose spouses have reached a certain step of their Green Card application). Therefore, many H-4 spouses give up careers in their home country to follow their spouses who have been offered dream jobs and salaries too good to refuse in the US. One new H-4 arrival tells The Guardian: “Before, I was very career-focused…my career was my identity. Coming here has forced me to ask questions: who am I? What am I good at? What are my hobbies?”

This issue is of particular importance to Indian nationals in the US, who make up 80% of the 125,000 H-4 dependent visas. Sandhya Ravindran, a thirty-eight-year-old Indian woman who has lived in the Bay Area since 2007, says “99%” of her social network comprises other Indian H-4 wives. “Honestly? If I had known what life on an H4 would be like, I would not have come,” she says in The Guardian.

While last year the US government extended employment eligibility to certain H-4 visa holders of spouses who are seeking permanent resident status, many are still unable to work. Heather Zachernuk, a thirty-three-year New Zealander whose husband works for Apple, hasn’t been able to work since she arrived in Silicon Valley. “I feel guilt. So much guilt – for having this lifestyle...for resenting my situation even while it’s also a luxury.” The Guardian concludes: “Set against millions of vulnerable migrants, H4 visa holders are lucky. They are safe, and they are wealthy. But their experiences highlight a community of women pushed to the edges of Silicon Valley by an immigration system focused only on meeting corporations’ needs.”

Big Bling

Big Bling at Madison Square Park is a forty-foot high, multi-tiered wood structure wrapped in fine chain-link fence with a gold-leafed shackle secured at the top. The installation, by renowned American sculptor Martin Puryear, is "part animal form, part abstract sculpture, and part intellectual meditation. The artist’s signature organic vocabulary appears in a graceful, sinewy outline and an amoeboid form in the work’s center." According to Hilarie M. Sheets in The New York Times, the structure “will command Madison Square Park in New York like a kind of Trojan horse.” But instead of bringing death and destruction, the structure is sure to impress and delight. “Our goal is to bring world-class art to the public for free," Keats Myer, Executive Director of Madison Square Park Conservancy, says. "Madison Square Park is truly a neighborhood park with a far-reaching cultural perspective.”

USCIS Proposes to Raise Fees on I-129, I-140, I-90 and Other Applications by an Average of 21 percent This Summer

US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) proposed earlier this month to raise certain fees for petitions and applications, and is currently accepting comments for the required sixty-day comment period. USCIS conducts biennial fee reviews, and the latest review indicated that a twenty-one percent average fee increase is necessary to recover operating costs and to maintain “adequate service.” As the money obtained from USCIS filing fees accounted for ninety-four percent of the USCIS budget last fiscal year with the remaining funding coming from other fee accounts and a small Congressional appropriation fund, USCIS estimates a shortfall of $560 million if fees are not raised.

USCIS has “authority to set its IEFA fees at a level that recovers the full cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services. This includes the cost of providing services to asylum applicants or other immigrants without charge and any additional costs associated with the administration of the fees collected.” USCIS last adjusted its fees in November 2010. Some notable fee increases include:

I-129

Currently set at $325, USCIS is proposing to raise the fee for this form, used for such common non-immigrant visa petitions as H-1Bs, L-1s, and O-1s, among others, by over one hundred dollars to $460.

I-140

USCIS wants to raise the fee for this immigrant petition from $580 to $700.

I-90

This application to replace the permanent resident (Green Card) card will go from $365 to $455.

N-400

USCIS proposes to establish a three-level fee tier for this Application for Naturalization, which is very popular these days as people prepare for voting in the upcoming election. First, USCIS wants to increase the standard fee from $595 to $640. Second, DHS would "charge no fee to an applicant who meets the requirements of sections 328 or 329 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) with respect to military service and applicants with approved fee waivers." Third, USCIS would charge a reduced fee of $320 for "applicants with family income greater than 150 percent and not more than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines."

Form I-924A for EB-5 Investor Visa

Rather than a fee increase, USCIS wants to establish a new fee of $3,035 to recover the full cost of processing this form. While approved EB-5 Regional Centers are required to file Form I-924A annually, there is currently no filing fee and as a result, USCIS does not fully recover the processing costs associated with such filings.

What Will Customers Get in Return for These Fee Increases?

The last time USCIS raised fees, they committed to certain goals and performance improvements toward “increasing accountability, providing better customer service, and increasing efficiency.” USCIS claims some improvements since that time but acknowledges that the “agency has experienced elevated processing times” which have led to backlogs; however, they believe that the fee increases this year would increase “resources to fund the personnel needed to improve case processing, reduce backlogs, and achieve processing times that are in line with the commitments in the FY 2007 Fee Rule, which USCIS is still committed to achieving.”  

"When USCIS increases filing fees, our hope is that they will use the increased revenue to improve efficiency and reduce processing times," Justin Storch with the Council for Global Immigration tells the Latin Post, reflecting sentiments shared by many immigration practitioners. Public comments for the fees increase are scheduled to close July 5.

Joseph?

I was up on the High Line the other day enjoying the gorgeous weather, and I was initially concerned that Joseph had a breakdown after the stresses of H-1B cap season and was scaring the tourists! But don't worry, upon closer inspection, I found out it wasn't Joseph at all. Instead it was a hyper-realistic work titled Sleepwalker by Tony Matelli, a New York-based artist known for his lifelike sculptures. Sleepwalker is a very realistic painted bronze sculpture of a "somnambulant man lost and adrift in the world, meandering about in a deep sleep." Matelli’s work "questions the extent to which any one of us is ever fully aware of our own surroundings, especially considering the constant distraction of the screens that supplement our lived experience." So true. But don't let that dissuade you from reading our blog!