S386 GOP Politics and Sen. Durbin

[qesehmk]

Let's use this thread to discuss S386, Unanimous Consent, and how IV may have inadvertently hurt EB-I community.

Context
S386 is a bill that primarily aims to remove country quota for EB green cards.
A very similar bill HR1044 is already approved in the congress.
S386 is waiting to be passed in the senate. If it does pass the senate then the two bills can be merged be made into a law.


Timeline
Feb 2019 HR1044 Introduced in the senate by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (DEM)
Feb 2019 S386 Introduced in the senate by Sen. Mike Lee (GOP)

July 2019 HR1044 passed by the House
July 2019 Sen. Rand Paul (GOP) opposes S386. Proposes a fixed quota amendment for healthcare workers.
July 2019 S386 Referred to the Judiciary Committe

? Sen. Lindsey Graham (GOP) asked for Unanimous Consent for S386 and did not want to spend too much time on it in the senate.
Sep 2019 Sen. Purdue (GOP) lifts his opposition to S386

Dec 2019 Sen. Durbin (DEM) and Sen. Lee (GOP) agreement on S386 and HR1044 (See clip (https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4840492/user-clip-durbin-lee-announce-reaching-agreement-s386))
Dec 2019 Durbin and Lee announce that S386 would not be put to vote since they do not believe the bill could muster enough votes.

Mar 2020 Sen. Lee announces more changes to the December agreement between him and Durbin
Mar 2020 AILA opposes S386 changes proposed by Sen. Lee

Jul 2020 Sen. Durbin declared that Democrats were on board with the December agreement with Lee.
Jul 2020 Sen. Durbin asked for Unanimous consent for 3 bills in this order viz. 1) his own version of S386 2) The dec agreement
with Lee 3) a narrow bill only removing aging out provision. All 3 versions were objected to by Sen. Lee.

Aug 2020 Sen. Durbin and Sen Lee agreed to a version jointly on the senate floor. Rick Scott (R) Florida, objected.

Current Status - S386 is yet to pass senate.

All along IV had painted Sen. Durbin (minority whip in the senate) as a racist senator opposed to S386. Even as of Aug 2020 IV continues to maintain the same position while disregarding the fact that Sen Durbin has helped the junior senator from UT come this far where they both agree on S386. But it GOP senator Rick Scott who is opposing.


Analysis

GOP chose a lightweight senator from Utah and asked for Unanimous consent for a such a contentious bill was a tell tale sign of GOP's intentions about S386. GOP did not honor their own senators agreement with Lee nor they were really interested in even a partial but critical amendment for "Aging out children". This establishes their position quite clear.
Historically speaking this fits GOP's anti immigrant pattern. The 2013 CIR was passed by democratic controlled senate but held back by GOP controlled congress. Currently the dem controlled congress has passed HR1044 but the GOP controlled senate is engaged in delaying tactics using unanimous consent.

Conclusion
It is amply clear that republicans' never had the intention of to pass S386.
They used Unanimous consent as a way delay this bill and pin the blame on Sen. Durbin. And later on they wasted time by making changes to the Dec. agreement.
Now that both Sen. Durbin and Lee have agreement on the record on Senate floor, another GOP senator objects on a very flimsy ground and asks for quotas based on language spoken (racist flag folks !!! ).
Unfortunately it seems IV can not see these games. Worse, IV is willing to be partisan and personal and that too with a senator who was one of the original architect of CIR.
IV is hurting EB-I immigrant community.


What Now
Regardless what IV does, it is important for backlogged EB-Indians to acknowledge both Sen Durbin and Sen Lee for their work.
It is critical that Indian EB backlogged community makes special effort to applaud Sen. Durbin.
I request IV to issue an apology to Sen. Durbin as well as to all EB-I backlogged folks.
Perfect is enemy of good. Before the year ends, and both S386 and HR1044 become permanent history, it is important to at least pass parts of S386 if not whole of it. It is important to push Sen. Lee in that direction and bring the bill to the table without waiting for his party's unanimous consent.
Please send emails to Rick Scott asking him to lift his demand.

[altek001]

Senator Tom Cotton has acknowledged the dire state of EB Immigrant visas pending during an MSNBC interview. It would a right on our part to send a note of thanks as he is a trusted advisor on Immigration policy along with Stephen Miller. He can be reached on his website for comments.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/01/14/sen-tom-cotton-durbin-is-lying-about-what-trump-said

[smuggymba]

Looks like Durbin has officially placed HOLD on S386. Damn. This guy is super racist towards indians.

[iatiam]

Looks like Durbin has officially placed HOLD on S386. Damn. This guy is super racist towards indians.

Yes, he is. If you have been involved in IV advocacy or gone to DC for meeting with lawmakers, you will know. Also, IV's current strategy to shame him and force him to remove the hold will backfire.

Iatiam

[jackbrown_890]

Yes, he is. If you have been involved in IV advocacy or gone to DC for meeting with lawmakers, you will know. Also, IV's current strategy to shame him and force him to remove the hold will backfire.

Iatiam

NO he is not. This is the reason I can't stand IV. Everyone on IV now saying that Durbin is Racist. You and I might not agree on his logic behind his hold on this bill. But just because of that you don't call a person racist. Also, everyone on IV telegram just got so sensitive all of a sudden. The guy laughed at a joke on paper GC and IV people/followers (like an angry mob) started calling him racist on all over social media. I think we need to start growing thick skin if we want to win this politically and sometimes take a joke as joke. If you can't take a joke, fight hard to convince the person that his logic is wrong. Not get distracted and start calling him/her racist OR start a fight with someone. Our focus should be to pass S386 not to fight a senator who is serving for 22+ years and call him/her racist publicly for something you disagree with. It appears to be more like a frustration move and not a well planned move.
The country CAP is definitely unfair to Indians right now. But it was introduced a long time ago and at that time there was no backlog. So the intent was not to discriminate against Indians. When you and I applied for this Green Card; the country cap was already in place long before that. So we either knew or were too naive to understand how the backlog is going to affect us Indian applicants. Now we do know it is unfair. So I agree it should be removed. But not because all the people who are opposing it are racists.
We need to convince Durbin that the system is unfair to Indians...the employment based GC should not be based on country of birth etc..make stronger argument... not call him racist. If we can't, that means the opposing team (ROW) is more persuasive than us.
This is just my opinion,,, you don't have to agree with it...

[iatiam]

NO he is not. This is the reason I can't stand IV. Everyone on IV now saying that Durbin is Racist. You and I might not agree on his logic behind his hold on this bill. But just because of that you don't call a person racist. Also, everyone on IV telegram just got so sensitive all of a sudden. The guy laughed at a joke on paper GC and IV people/followers (like an angry mob) started calling him racist on all over social media. I think we need to start growing thick skin if we want to win this politically and sometimes take a joke as joke. If you can't take a joke, fight hard to convince the person that his logic is wrong. Not get distracted and start calling him/her racist OR start a fight with someone. Our focus should be to pass S386 not to fight a senator who is serving for 22+ years and call him/her racist publicly for something you disagree with. It appears to be more like a frustration move and not a well planned move.
The country CAP is definitely unfair to Indians right now. But it was introduced a long time ago and at that time there was no backlog. So the intent was not to discriminate against Indians. When you and I applied for this Green Card; the country cap was already in place long before that. So we either knew or were too naive to understand how the backlog is going to affect us Indian applicants. Now we do know it is unfair. So I agree it should be removed. But not because all the people who are opposing it are racists.
We need to convince Durbin that the system is unfair to Indians...the employment based GC should not be based on country of birth etc..make stronger argument... not call him racist. If we can't, that means the opposing team (ROW) is more persuasive than us.
This is just my opinion,,, you don't have to agree with it...

Of course I don't agree with you because I have worked on the ground on advocacy events with IV at DC and I have first-hand info on him.

Iatiam

[jackbrown_890]

Of course I don't agree with you because I have worked on the ground on advocacy events with IV at DC and I have first-hand info on him.

Iatiam

I am not sure what First hand info IV is getting. As far as public sees, he has always been proponent of immigration. He still wants to increase total immigration. That would be great but not practical right now. He has worked across the aisle on comp. reform bills in the past. I don't see how he is racist from his opposition to this bill. again as i said, whoever briefed him might have presented wrong/half facts (knowingly or unknowingly) about this bill and we should focus on clarifying those. If we have 365 votes in the house from both parties, 34 senate co-sponsors; there has to be someone who can convince him to change his mind without going into discussion of comp. immigration reform.

[qesehmk]

Well said. Just because Dick Durbin doesn't agree with a bill does not make him racist. Just to keep things in perspective, Dick Durbin was the very first prominent politician to encourage Obama to run for President in 2008. He saw the talent and encouraged his junior senator from Illionois to run for President.

If you burn people like Dick Durbin then what chance you have to change opinions of real racist people who actually oppose browing of America? IV should careful not just with Durbin but with all leaders. In politics nothing is personal. They are only representing their constituents. That's why I say desi folks must win this fight in the hearts and minds of American people. Talk about the discrimination you face in GC process. If not today someday Americans will listen. And when they do ... the politicians will fall in line.



NO he is not. This is the reason I can't stand IV. Everyone on IV now saying that Durbin is Racist. You and I might not agree on his logic behind his hold on this bill. But just because of that you don't call a person racist. Also, everyone on IV telegram just got so sensitive all of a sudden. The guy laughed at a joke on paper GC and IV people/followers (like an angry mob) started calling him racist on all over social media. I think we need to start growing thick skin if we want to win this politically and sometimes take a joke as joke. If you can't take a joke, fight hard to convince the person that his logic is wrong. Not get distracted and start calling him/her racist OR start a fight with someone. Our focus should be to pass S386 not to fight a senator who is serving for 22+ years and call him/her racist publicly for something you disagree with. It appears to be more like a frustration move and not a well planned move.
The country CAP is definitely unfair to Indians right now. But it was introduced a long time ago and at that time there was no backlog. So the intent was not to discriminate against Indians. When you and I applied for this Green Card; the country cap was already in place long before that. So we either knew or were too naive to understand how the backlog is going to affect us Indian applicants. Now we do know it is unfair. So I agree it should be removed. But not because all the people who are opposing it are racists.
We need to convince Durbin that the system is unfair to Indians...the employment based GC should not be based on country of birth etc..make stronger argument... not call him racist. If we can't, that means the opposing team (ROW) is more persuasive than us.
This is just my opinion,,, you don't have to agree with it...

[iatiam]

I am not sure what First hand info IV is getting. As far as public sees, he has always been proponent of immigration. He still wants to increase total immigration. That would be great but not practical right now. He has worked across the aisle on comp. reform bills in the past. I don't see how he is racist from his opposition to this bill. again as i said, whoever briefed him might have presented wrong/half facts (knowingly or unknowingly) about this bill and we should focus on clarifying those. If we have 365 votes in the house from both parties, 34 senate co-sponsors; there has to be someone who can convince him to change his mind without going into discussion of comp. immigration reform.

Again, come over to a DC advocacy event and you will have first-hand info rather than making up your opinion from news.

Iatiam

[jackbrown_890]

Again, come over to a DC advocacy event and you will have first-hand info rather than making up your opinion from news.

Iatiam

:) I actually used too and stopped coming to the events based of my experience not because of the opinion of any news network.
Not saying, everything they are doing (or everyone involved) is wrong. But did enough to make me stop supporting. some intentions are good but don't agree on paths to get there.

[smuggymba]

Yes, he is. If you have been involved in IV advocacy or gone to DC for meeting with lawmakers, you will know. Also, IV's current strategy to shame him and force him to remove the hold will backfire.

Iatiam

That's what I'm worried about - he becoming more stubborn and shoving it up our arse.

But, that's what he's used to doing and it hasn't worked for us so far. So if we curse him, he will screw us. If we don't curse him, he has been screwing us. Not much we can do.

My only hope is that it goes to vote (not possible in current scenario), and we get 2/3rds and move on.

The fact that he asked for MORE number of green cards is basically code for - I want this bill dead since it helps the desis. Simple.

[rohanvus]

The fact that he asked for MORE number of green cards is basically code for - I want this bill dead since it helps the desis. Simple.
You got it . Thats what it is . He maybe non-racist but he certainly does not like desis -- lets not overthink or overcomplicate this .

[smuggymba]

You got it . Thats what it is . He maybe non-racist but he certainly does not like desis -- lets not overthink or overcomplicate this .

Being a senior senator and a Washington insider for 20+ years he knows one simple thing: MORE GC = DEAD Bill.

It is so dead that the 34 co-sponsors will backtrack their sponsorship if you ask for MORE GCs. And he's doing it on purpose so we have every reason to hate him.

[FarAwayfromGC]

There is not really anything I can say that can really help you and others with your hurt.

But I just wanted to say that America sure has a racist past as well as its fair share of racism even today. However America is not a racist country. I know today my words may not make much sense to you. But hopefully someday you will realize this.

Immigration policy used to be driven purely through economic and geopolitical objectives. The Trump folks have injected racism into it. But America will bounce back to sanity sooner or later.


With all due respect, I disagree with you. Racism is prevalent in different forms in different parts of the world and it's more open and prominent in America from past (way before the Civil War days). You say this just because you are nice person and you have to defend this country.

Check out all Dictator's of the world present and past supported by US - you will realize it's not true. As you said earlier , America is the best country to live and also a country with numerous opportunities. But, no way near to "Not a racist country" - - because of politicians may be .

[rohanvus]

On other hand i dont understand why current President is labeled as racist .
He made it very clear that he does not like illegals or legals - basically he treats all immigrants as one , he does not discriminate when it comes to immigrants .
Whereas his predecessor would make it the policy to appease illegals at the cost of legals , the 2015 fiasco of backtracking the dates ,etc .. Sure he seemed good for optics and on books, admired by a lot

Btw, I dont want to get into the debate of who is suffering more or less (illegals/legals) . One can disagree with me and i respect that !

Lets be honest , one cant spend a generation just to have a voice heard in this country . Well certainly at some point someone will hear but that will take another generation

Just my opinion - using so called freedom of speech

[iatiam]

On other hand i dont understand why current President is labeled as racist .
He made it very clear that he does not like illegals or legals - basically he treats all immigrants as one , he does not discriminate when it comes to immigrants .
Whereas his predecessor would make it the policy to appease illegals at the cost of legals , the 2015 fiasco of backtracking the dates ,etc .. Sure he seemed good for optics and on books, admired by a lot

Btw, I dont want to get into the debate of who is suffering more or less (illegals/legals) . One can disagree with me and i respect that !

Lets be honest , one cant spend a generation just to have a voice heard in this country . Well certainly at some point someone will hear but that will take another generation

Just my opinion - using so called freedom of speech

Well said.

Iaitiam

[abcx13]

NO he is not. This is the reason I can't stand IV. Everyone on IV now saying that Durbin is Racist. You and I might not agree on his logic behind his hold on this bill. But just because of that you don't call a person racist. Also, everyone on IV telegram just got so sensitive all of a sudden. The guy laughed at a joke on paper GC and IV people/followers (like an angry mob) started calling him racist on all over social media. I think we need to start growing thick skin if we want to win this politically and sometimes take a joke as joke. If you can't take a joke, fight hard to convince the person that his logic is wrong. Not get distracted and start calling him/her racist OR start a fight with someone. Our focus should be to pass S386 not to fight a senator who is serving for 22+ years and call him/her racist publicly for something you disagree with. It appears to be more like a frustration move and not a well planned move.
The country CAP is definitely unfair to Indians right now. But it was introduced a long time ago and at that time there was no backlog. So the intent was not to discriminate against Indians. When you and I applied for this Green Card; the country cap was already in place long before that. So we either knew or were too naive to understand how the backlog is going to affect us Indian applicants. Now we do know it is unfair. So I agree it should be removed. But not because all the people who are opposing it are racists.
We need to convince Durbin that the system is unfair to Indians...the employment based GC should not be based on country of birth etc..make stronger argument... not call him racist. If we can't, that means the opposing team (ROW) is more persuasive than us.
This is just my opinion,,, you don't have to agree with it...

I understand where you are coming from, but I'll just say if he did this about immigrants from Africa, everyone would all be over him and calling him racist and they wouldn't be wrong. Not just that, he wouldn't dare do it with black people (or Jewish or Irish or whatever).

[iatiam]

Being a senior senator and a Washington insider for 20+ years he knows one simple thing: MORE GC = DEAD Bill.

It is so dead that the 34 co-sponsors will backtrack their sponsorship if you ask for MORE GCs. And he's doing it on purpose so we have every reason to hate him.

More GC is the ultimate poison bill. In a political environment where nothing gets done, asking more GCs is suicide. Another good one is mixing legal and illegal immigration. I remember dealing with Nanci Pelosi's staffers and they basically said she is only interested in CIR and that too with citizenship for DACA folks. In other words, I don't care about legal immigration because well, it doesn't win me elections.

Iatiam

[qesehmk]

On other hand i dont understand why current President is labeled as racist .
He made it very clear that he does not like illegals or legals - basically he treats all immigrants as one , he does not discriminate when it comes to immigrants .
This is factually wrong. He did say that he wants less immigration from "Shithole" countries and more from countries like "Norway".

[qesehmk]

With all due respect, I disagree with you. Racism is prevalent in different forms in different parts of the world and it's more open and prominent in America from past (way before the Civil War days). You say this just because you are nice person and you have to defend this country.

Check out all Dictator's of the world present and past supported by US - you will realize it's not true. As you said earlier , America is the best country to live and also a country with numerous opportunities. But, no way near to "Not a racist country" - - because of politicians may be .
Thank you for your kind words for me. Your observations about dictators and US foreign policy are generally agreeable but they are a separate topic from racism. Empires never are built on racism and religion. I will rest is there because honestly that's a huge and separate discussion.
As per racism in US ... of course it exists and we experience it and yet I do think relatively US has more people that are not racist (even among white people). Otherwise Obama wouldn't be president twice! Anyway ... but this too is my personal opinion. I respect yours. My last on this topic.

[qesehmk]

My final post on Durbin controversy.

Unless you understand the logic behind his opposition, it is hard to convert him or anybody into a supporter. His laughter was in bad taste but turning that into a useless racism narrative is incredibly stupid and does disservice all Indians backlogged or otherwise.

The so called "poison-pill" amendment is actually something that is worth considering because with that he is trying to protect interests of the ROW candidates. You may not agree with him. But that's exactly what he is doing.

Instead of understanding other person's motives if you try to push yours you are going to get nothing. Once you understand his perspective, the question is how to work with him to arrive at something meaningful.

Calling him racist is one of the stupidest strategies and you should support it at your own peril.

[smuggymba]

More GC is the ultimate poison bill. In a political environment where nothing gets done, asking more GCs is suicide. Another good one is mixing legal and illegal immigration. I remember dealing with Nanci Pelosi's staffers and they basically said she is only interested in CIR and that too with citizenship for DACA folks. In other words, I don't care about legal immigration because well, it doesn't win me elections.

Iatiam

ROW (who can't vote) claims the bill is unfair and it doesn't add more GC's so Durbin is stepping up to save them.

Imagine how much US citizens (who can vote) will be pissed if a bill adds more GCs.

So Durbin is playing a dirty game against the Indians specifically. I bet he doesn't like Iranians as well but he definitely has something against us.

[rohanvus]

Supporting or not supporting does not matter anymore . Its like damn if you do it and double damned if you dont . This demands more than a life to change anything for desis in this country , so there is nothing perilous beyond what it is already.

Am not calling anyone racist but then i would not be so naive to think Mr. durbin is better in any manner compared to Repubs ,etc. You are entitled to your opinion as you have your own experience . Likewise having spent more than a decade in this country i have my own experience and looking from my own perspective ( you can call me selfish ) Mr. Durbin is no better . It could very well be that beyond him there are others waiting in line to put hold , but currently he is the main obstacle for desis who have waited patiently so far .There is no way in my life time anything will pass . Its time to move on

[Politicalpawn]

First time poster here. Lots of good points of views and so many questions, emotions. A few of my thoughts on this, apologize for the length.

1) Is India such a bad place? No its not. However, once you spend a decade or two in the US, especially your adult life (e.g. coming to school etc.), you get used to a few things in life. On average, quality of life is better, work is more challenging, less politics, better work life balance etc. Gets harder when you have kids who are used to this country and asking them to adjust to a new way of life is a bit unfair to them.
2) On savings, how to live, those are generally true whether you live here, or India or Canada. Don't spend more than you can manage....
3) Is US a racist place? Not on average. Yes, there is Far Right who dont want anyone colored. There is also a misconception that all H1Bs are fraud, all Indians are stealing American jobs. There are a very few cases where this is real and that has gotten a lot of media attention (Disney, Sun Edison etc.). However, 95+% of H1B workers from India deserve their job. Again, I am don't have expertise in all the industries, but from what I have seen. Some of it is borne from racism, but a lot of it is borne from fear. Fear of what will happen to me, my kids in the future. Media should have done a better job of assuaging these, US Govt should have done a better job of minimizing fraud. Both parties are to blame here.
4) Durbin - If this were a new Senator who does not understand this situation, and one needs to explain this to that person, its a different story. He has been handling immigration for decades now, and I find it hard to believe (even if I want to give him the benefit of doubt), that he doesn't know what is real vs. what is made up. His amendment was added to the bill. He had months, actually decades to bring the fixes. But, he chose to derail it in the 11th hour.
Maybe he wants to curb fraud, maybe he wants to use us as leverage for daca, maybe he feels we have a very high tolerance for pain and humiliation and doesnt care. Could be anything. Lets say he had some legitimate concern that came up, the video, the blog has left a very bad taste in my mouth - about US politics, Senators, specifically Democrats, especially when you see a super conservative Republican senator fighting for this. All the effort that Rep Lofgren put to pass the bill has become a distant memory, which is very sad. People are asking are Democrats just posturing and only care about DACA because of the vote bloc, or do they even understand our issue. Holding us hostage for DACA is no different than Trump holding DACA for Border Wall. Both are wrong, and as leaders they both need to change their behavior.
Having said that, it is sad that a lot of folks prefer Trump over Durbin, which I find laughable, but TBH Sen Durbin has not done anything to think otherwise.
5) Next steps for us (Indian Americans) - Continue advocacy, beg, cry, negotiate do whatever. But, don't fight. Even if one really feels he is a racist, dont be so stupid to shame him in public. You dont anything, literally anything by fighting with a person in power. I have seen IV shout at desis, but did not expect them to do this...Well, maybe they know its not going anywhere and there is nothing to lose.
6) Next steps for U.S. - If many Indians start to leave, America will suffer. US doesn't realize how good it has it, from attracting smart people, and some of the smartest people I have interacted with are from our own country. They would have done the stupidest thing by not passing the bill because all of these actions have a reaction. If Indians start leaving in droves (highly unlikely given our tolerance for pain :)), US will follow a similar trajectory of Europe.
7) Next steps for us (me and my family) - I have 15 years of experience, MS, Ivy league MBA. However, with a PD in 2010 and the uncertainty that looms, we are making a call to move back to India by summer. Yes, will be hard for a year or so, but as I told before, India is a great place. I mean, I grew up there and have done well. My kids are US citizens, so we may come back at a different point in life, but I don't find this worthwhile anymore.

At this point, we are "Frankly dear, I don't give a damn".

[rohanvus]

This is factually wrong. He did say that he wants less immigration from "Shithole" countries and more from countries like "Norway".

Atleast he is honest - he clearly spoke his intention .There is no double speak on his part on this aspect ,whereas likes of Mr. Durbin fake about being fair on immigration but are opposite . Again , this is purely from my lens .No one has to agree with me or need to convince me otherwise

[@rvsuc]

I am no expert in movement prediction, but three years for EB2I to reach Jan 2011 seems like a stretch. There are about 15,000 people from May 2009 to March 2010. With a conservative 3,000 approvals per year, it will take 5 years for the inventory to clear but the filing dates may move quicker than that. Your better bet might actually be to cross-file in EB3 since it may move faster. Again, I am no expert and there is limited data especially for EB3


Experts - Congress passing a bill to resolve the Green Card backlog is clearly a long-shot. So, can the SIIA and IV groups start advocating for a bill that would provide I-140 based EAD for the primary applicant and family members. This would help the backlogged immigration community to change employers, start business, and specifically help children from aging-out related issues.

Most of the proposed bills have failed in Congress over the last ten years, but the I-140 EAD bill may pass this time. Experts, your thoughts please.

[@rvsuc]

This is factually wrong. He did say that he wants less immigration from "Shithole" countries and more from countries like "Norway".

Congress passing a bill to resolve the Green Card backlog is clearly a long-shot. So, can the SIIA and IV groups start advocating for a bill that would provide I-140 based EAD for the primary applicant and family members. This would help the backlogged immigration community to change employers, start business, and specifically help children from aging-out related issues.

Most of the proposed bills have failed in Congress over the last ten years, but the I-140 EAD bill may pass this time. Experts, your thoughts please.

[rohanvus]

First time poster here. Lots of good points of views and so many questions, emotions. A few of my thoughts on this, apologize for the length.

1) Is India such a bad place? No its not. However, once you spend a decade or two in the US, especially your adult life (e.g. coming to school etc.), you get used to a few things in life. On average, quality of life is better, work is more challenging, less politics, better work life balance etc. Gets harder when you have kids who are used to this country and asking them to adjust to a new way of life is a bit unfair to them.
2) On savings, how to live, those are generally true whether you live here, or India or Canada. Don't spend more than you can manage....
3) Is US a racist place? Not on average. Yes, there is Far Right who dont want anyone colored. There is also a misconception that all H1Bs are fraud, all Indians are stealing American jobs. There are a very few cases where this is real and that has gotten a lot of media attention (Disney, Sun Edison etc.). However, 95+% of H1B workers from India deserve their job. Again, I am don't have expertise in all the industries, but from what I have seen. Some of it is borne from racism, but a lot of it is borne from fear. Fear of what will happen to me, my kids in the future. Media should have done a better job of assuaging these, US Govt should have done a better job of minimizing fraud. Both parties are to blame here.
4) Durbin - If this were a new Senator who does not understand this situation, and one needs to explain this to that person, its a different story. He has been handling immigration for decades now, and I find it hard to believe (even if I want to give him the benefit of doubt), that he doesn't know what is real vs. what is made up. His amendment was added to the bill. He had months, actually decades to bring the fixes. But, he chose to derail it in the 11th hour.
Maybe he wants to curb fraud, maybe he wants to use us as leverage for daca, maybe he feels we have a very high tolerance for pain and humiliation and doesnt care. Could be anything. Lets say he had some legitimate concern that came up, the video, the blog has left a very bad taste in my mouth - about US politics, Senators, specifically Democrats, especially when you see a super conservative Republican senator fighting for this. All the effort that Rep Lofgren put to pass the bill has become a distant memory, which is very sad. People are asking are Democrats just posturing and only care about DACA because of the vote bloc, or do they even understand our issue. Holding us hostage for DACA is no different than Trump holding DACA for Border Wall. Both are wrong, and as leaders they both need to change their behavior.
Having said that, it is sad that a lot of folks prefer Trump over Durbin, which I find laughable, but TBH Sen Durbin has not done anything to think otherwise.
5) Next steps for us (Indian Americans) - Continue advocacy, beg, cry, negotiate do whatever. But, don't fight. Even if one really feels he is a racist, dont be so stupid to shame him in public. You dont anything, literally anything by fighting with a person in power. I have seen IV shout at desis, but did not expect them to do this...Well, maybe they know its not going anywhere and there is nothing to lose.
6) Next steps for U.S. - If many Indians start to leave, America will suffer. US doesn't realize how good it has it, from attracting smart people, and some of the smartest people I have interacted with are from our own country. They would have done the stupidest thing by not passing the bill because all of these actions have a reaction. If Indians start leaving in droves (highly unlikely given our tolerance for pain :)), US will follow a similar trajectory of Europe.
7) Next steps for us (me and my family) - I have 15 years of experience, MS, Ivy league MBA. However, with a PD in 2010 and the uncertainty that looms, we are making a call to move back to India by summer. Yes, will be hard for a year or so, but as I told before, India is a great place. I mean, I grew up there and have done well. My kids are US citizens, so we may come back at a different point in life, but I don't find this worthwhile anymore.

At this point, we are "Frankly dear, I don't give a damn".

Very well put .It pains when you hit the wall everytime after such a long wait . May this country bring prosperity to others who were lucky/close to being lucky in crossing the finish line .
I think for folks like me who have PD in 2011 , its high time that we stop chasing the mirage and look beyond GC/US . Your "I dont give a damn" attitude can help ride through the mental agony

[smuggymba]

Very well put .It pains when you hit the wall everytime after such a long wait . May this country bring prosperity to others who were lucky/close to being lucky in crossing the finish line .
I think for folks like me who have PD in 2011 , its high time that we stop chasing the mirage and look beyond GC/US . Your "I dont give a damn" attitude can help ride through the mental agony

Mine is PD March 2010 and my wife has EAD and a good job. Mine is a good job but promotion/progression is becoming a problem. Bought a house 7 years ago so only 8 left to pay it off :)

I hoping with no spillover etc, I'm 3-4 years away i.e. 2022-2023. I can't even imaging 2011 and beyond PD staying here in the same situation. That makes me more pissed off at Durbin; that's exactly what he wants. The system is designed to frustrate you to leave - that's exactly the goal.

Anyway, @politicalpawn can be back on EB1-C with your experience and Ivy MBA; enjoy your time in India and hopefully you come back in a couple of years. They can't get rid of us that easily ;)

[iatiam]

First time poster here. Lots of good points of views and so many questions, emotions. A few of my thoughts on this, apologize for the length.

1) Is India such a bad place? No its not. However, once you spend a decade or two in the US, especially your adult life (e.g. coming to school etc.), you get used to a few things in life. On average, quality of life is better, work is more challenging, less politics, better work life balance etc. Gets harder when you have kids who are used to this country and asking them to adjust to a new way of life is a bit unfair to them.
2) On savings, how to live, those are generally true whether you live here, or India or Canada. Don't spend more than you can manage....
3) Is US a racist place? Not on average. Yes, there is Far Right who dont want anyone colored. There is also a misconception that all H1Bs are fraud, all Indians are stealing American jobs. There are a very few cases where this is real and that has gotten a lot of media attention (Disney, Sun Edison etc.). However, 95+% of H1B workers from India deserve their job. Again, I am don't have expertise in all the industries, but from what I have seen. Some of it is borne from racism, but a lot of it is borne from fear. Fear of what will happen to me, my kids in the future. Media should have done a better job of assuaging these, US Govt should have done a better job of minimizing fraud. Both parties are to blame here.
4) Durbin - If this were a new Senator who does not understand this situation, and one needs to explain this to that person, its a different story. He has been handling immigration for decades now, and I find it hard to believe (even if I want to give him the benefit of doubt), that he doesn't know what is real vs. what is made up. His amendment was added to the bill. He had months, actually decades to bring the fixes. But, he chose to derail it in the 11th hour.
Maybe he wants to curb fraud, maybe he wants to use us as leverage for daca, maybe he feels we have a very high tolerance for pain and humiliation and doesnt care. Could be anything. Lets say he had some legitimate concern that came up, the video, the blog has left a very bad taste in my mouth - about US politics, Senators, specifically Democrats, especially when you see a super conservative Republican senator fighting for this. All the effort that Rep Lofgren put to pass the bill has become a distant memory, which is very sad. People are asking are Democrats just posturing and only care about DACA because of the vote bloc, or do they even understand our issue. Holding us hostage for DACA is no different than Trump holding DACA for Border Wall. Both are wrong, and as leaders they both need to change their behavior.
Having said that, it is sad that a lot of folks prefer Trump over Durbin, which I find laughable, but TBH Sen Durbin has not done anything to think otherwise.
5) Next steps for us (Indian Americans) - Continue advocacy, beg, cry, negotiate do whatever. But, don't fight. Even if one really feels he is a racist, dont be so stupid to shame him in public. You dont anything, literally anything by fighting with a person in power. I have seen IV shout at desis, but did not expect them to do this...Well, maybe they know its not going anywhere and there is nothing to lose.
6) Next steps for U.S. - If many Indians start to leave, America will suffer. US doesn't realize how good it has it, from attracting smart people, and some of the smartest people I have interacted with are from our own country. They would have done the stupidest thing by not passing the bill because all of these actions have a reaction. If Indians start leaving in droves (highly unlikely given our tolerance for pain :)), US will follow a similar trajectory of Europe.
7) Next steps for us (me and my family) - I have 15 years of experience, MS, Ivy league MBA. However, with a PD in 2010 and the uncertainty that looms, we are making a call to move back to India by summer. Yes, will be hard for a year or so, but as I told before, India is a great place. I mean, I grew up there and have done well. My kids are US citizens, so we may come back at a different point in life, but I don't find this worthwhile anymore.

At this point, we are "Frankly dear, I don't give a damn".

I would say please post the day before you leave for India. It would encourage a lot more people to move back, stop chasing the dream and frankly clear the backlog a little

[kb2013]

< >

[qesehmk]

First time poster here. Lots of good points of views and so many questions, emotions. A few of my thoughts on this, apologize for the length.


With a PD in 2010, you may want to give it one more year and then move to India potentially in 2021 rather than 2020. It's really your decision but honestly even if you move now, it may turn out great.

In 2008 somebody offered me $5M to found an e-retailer in India. I had a great plan. Flipkart and snapdeal did not exist then. I strongly believe my business model was much better than theirs. I did not take the offer and thought I could do it later. But then life happens and I never went that way.

Long story short - you seem like a wise man and I would say you would be successful as long as you are at peace with your decisions. All the best.

[kb2013]

< >

[smuggymba]

So with IV coming out with all guns blazing against Durbin, what do you guys think.

My perspective is, we're screwed anyway so it's doesn't really matter. Initially I didn't agree with IV shaming Durbin openly but now I have a different thought. Just like after article 370 was removed, it forced many closet anti-India ppl to come out in open and now we know who they are. Similarly, if Durbin is able to convince other senators to put a hold on S386, at least we'll know who they are in open rather than having them back-stab us every year.

[rohanvus]

Thats means its all dead - which anyway brain was saying but heart was wishing for miracle .
Its the reality that no immigration reform can ever happen in this century ( perhaps after 2/3 generations of sacrifice maybe at some point sanity may prevail)

I dont think anyone needs to convince Mr. Durbin . You can convince one who is not aware of the situation but cant convince one who is fully aware and has a history of opposing such bills on purpose ( every time) .There is nothing more perilous than the status quo

So maybe its now out in open . Right or wrong , i dont know . Hell , yeah - free country , right ? Why cant others speak their mind based on what is meted out to them ?

[smuggymba]

So maybe its now out in open . Right or wrong , i dont know . Hell , yeah - free country , right ? Why cant others speak their mind based on what is meted out to them ?

Who knows we spend another 2 years being nice to Durbin and then Sanders comes as opposer in 2021. Then Warren in 2024....and so on.

It's better to know who hates us upfront.

[qesehmk]

I request all IV supporters to please push IV agenda on IV's website.

They have been mucking around for far too long. Without us they wouldn't know head or tail of the real problems behind backlogs.

And now they are turning one person - Dick Durbin - into a lightening rod while ignoring the racist president and his ultra right wing supporters who are totally on record advocating against non-white immigrants.

So effective now, I am freezing this thread for a day. And tomorrow onwards I don't want to see an IV bot on this thread.

All informative, factual posts with analysis will be welcome. Misinformation and bigoted views are not welcome.

[ziggy2k]

Fair enough, perhaps I was expecting way too much from the USCIS director.

Durbin's latest tweet promoting his bill, in which he proposes that international students with STEM degrees + a job offer should be exempt from EB visa limits, appears to sum up his stance in a nutshell. It's consistent with his comments that the current yearly EB visa limit is an arbitrary number and makes no sense. It's an interesting position, not sure how rooted in reality it is tbh.


Jessica Vaughn from CIS had an article where she says -

“I think it’s a bad idea to scrap the per-country caps, at least independently of a major overhaul of the entire system,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for CIS. “It will reward this dysfunctional employment visa system, but also cut off the opportunity for green cards to people from the rest of the world, who tend to be more uniquely qualified than the folks who are waiting after having been contract H-1B workers.”

Per John Miano - "The green card backlog problem is overblown. It only affects a few countries that supply large numbers of H-1B workers."

CIS/Breitbart are immigrant haters and their so called "analysis" shows it clearly.

[NJMavarick]

Fair enough, perhaps I was expecting way too much from the USCIS director.

Durbin's latest tweet promoting his bill, in which he proposes that international students with STEM degrees + a job offer should be exempt from EB visa limits, appears to sum up his stance in a nutshell. It's consistent with his comments that the current yearly EB visa limit is an arbitrary number and makes no sense. It's an interesting position, not sure how rooted in reality it is tbh.

Its perhaps his way of showing that he is not a racist and not against Indians in particular. Its like killing 2 birds with one stone. Kill S386 and come out as a propagator of legal skilled immigration

[ziggy2k]

Its perhaps his way of showing that he is not a racist and not against Indians in particular. Its like killing 2 birds with one stone. Kill S386 and come out as a propagator of legal skilled immigration

I'm very new to following bills/proposals etc. but as an outsider I can't come to the conclusion that he's racist ... perhaps indifferent/uncaring at worst; looking up S.1744 it was introduced on 06/05/2019 which is quite a while ago. Anyway the discussion appears to have moved on from this subject and probably everyone's minds are made up by now.

[NJMavarick]

I'm very new to following bills/proposals etc. but as an outsider I can't come to the conclusion that he's racist ... perhaps indifferent/uncaring at worst; looking up S.1744 it was introduced on 06/05/2019 which is quite a while ago. Anyway the discussion appears to have moved on from this subject and probably everyone's minds are made up by now.

OK. Maybe, calling him a racist would be premature but we all know the STEM bill is DOA in the current political climate. We will see how this ends...the latest update that I am hearing is that he is ready to work with Mike Lee after the recess.

I am not sure if you have seen the video being circulated on social media showing him mocking the plight of people waiting in the backlogs. That was in poor taste and not needed.

[qesehmk]

If we look at immigration as a zero sum game then all advocacy and litigation will turn into a failure. If EB2 fights for themselves while cursing EB1 and EB3 or if Indians fight ROW ... this is not going to gain anything for current backlogged folks. The stars are perfectly aligned against current backlogged candidates.

The only way coming out of this is by fighting for justice for all or at least many. So that's where Durbin is coming from.

[excalibur123]

If we look at immigration as a zero sum game then all advocacy and litigation will turn into a failure. If EB2 fights for themselves while cursing EB1 and EB3 or if Indians fight ROW ... this is not going to gain anything for current backlogged folks. The stars are perfectly aligned against current backlogged candidates.

The only way coming out of this is by fighting for justice for all or at least many. So that's where Durbin is coming from.

I am surprised that the bill even made this far. It has been long known that Democrats want CIR where they can combine backlogged folks with DACA, etc. And nothing has changed on the ground. May be Sen. Durbin is doing what most Democrats want but won't say it.

On an another note, I credit IV for coming this far. However they aimed for the moon - I wish someone could tell them it wasn't going to work at all. Even outside of Senate, the appearance that all countries would be impacted would have given this so much bad press.

It would have been better if they had asked for an increase in country quotas - say 25-35%. (Right now we are not getting any spillovers so even 20% visas going to India is turning out to be myth). That would have alleviated the problem for 2009-2014 filers, and would have kicked the can down the road to solve this in combination with CIR or some form of Merit Immigration in a few years.

[qesehmk]

You shouldn't be surprised because the fundamental argument is very solid on Moral ground. viz. Indians or anybody shouldn't suffer excessive delay because where they were born. As I always keep saying - by and large Americans - ARE - fair people. You just need to keep telling them how unfair the system has been to you and things will improve. There is no magic bullet. One person at a time. One senator at a time.

Instead of turning Durbin into a lightening rod, send durbin's office roses and tell him how bad Indians have it. I guarantee you the guy next time will be more sympathetic.

Political partywise at the end of the day it all boils down to this:
1) Democrats want more immigration.
2) Republican extreme right wing ideally wants no immigration ... and they can live with white immigration. Today GOP is hostage to the extreme right. So go figure.

But do not EVER confuse Amercan people for either of these parties. As I said, American by and large are still a nation of immigrants. A third of the nation has at least one family member born outside US. So take this defeat as glass half full. Keep working on it and it will happen.


I am surprised that the bill even made this far. It has been long known that Democrats want CIR where they can combine backlogged folks with DACA, etc. And nothing has changed on the ground. May be Sen. Durbin is doing what most Democrats want but won't say it.

On an another note, I credit IV for coming this far. However they aimed for the moon - I wish someone could tell them it wasn't going to work at all. Even outside of Senate, the appearance that all countries would be impacted would have given this so much bad press.

It would have been better if they had asked for an increase in country quotas - say 25-35%. (Right now we are not getting any spillovers so even 20% visas going to India is turning out to be myth). That would have alleviated the problem for 2009-2014 filers, and would have kicked the can down the road to solve this in combination with CIR or some form of Merit Immigration in a few years.

[excalibur123]

There you go - you said it.

One it is a moral argument and not necessarily a practical one. The argument from other side is also very forceful - the need for diversity of talent pool and also that a number of categories have no access to H1 visa and therefore getting GC is their only way to get work.

Second you mentioned excessive wait time. This is where the crux of issue is. All families need to plan their future and therefore the measure should be time spent in the system. Just as in UK where the PR is given after about 7 to 8 years wait. If the bill had gone for max wait time instead of hitting the diversity principle it would have been more palatable. Something like max 5 yrs wait for eb1, 8 yrs for eb2 and 10 yrs for eb3. It is not equal to other countries but nearly all Indians would take this - it brings a certainty to the process, and eliminates stress, predictions and other psychological issues resulting from the backlog.

Maybe it is still time for IV to pivot to this. They probably would have a stronger moral foundation and better negotiation with this proposal having the previous one rejected. What do you think?

[qesehmk]

There you go - you said it.

One it is a moral argument and not necessarily a practical one. The argument from other side is also very forceful - the need for diversity of talent pool and also that a number of categories have no access to H1 visa and therefore getting GC is their only way to get work.

Second you mentioned excessive wait time. This is where the crux of issue is. All families need to plan their future and therefore the measure should be time spent in the system. Just as in UK where the PR is given after about 7 to 8 years wait. If the bill had gone for max wait time instead of hitting the diversity principle it would have been more palatable. Something like max 5 yrs wait for eb1, 8 yrs for eb2 and 10 yrs for eb3. It is not equal to other countries but nearly all Indians would take this - it brings a certainty to the process, and eliminates stress, predictions and other psychological issues resulting from the backlog.

Maybe it is still time for IV to pivot to this. They probably would have a stronger moral foundation and better negotiation with this proposal having the previous one rejected. What do you think?

To summarize my advice would be:
1) Make the core argument about justice and fairness while not forgetting that current policy is economic and geopolitical. So be prepared to address those opposing concerns.
2) Win one senator at a time. Understand their opposition and use it to build your argument better.
3) Use a triad of advocacy + litigation + public perception.

[ziggy2k]

I am surprised that the bill even made this far. It has been long known that Democrats want CIR where they can combine backlogged folks with DACA, etc. And nothing has changed on the ground. May be Sen. Durbin is doing what most Democrats want but won't say it.

On an another note, I credit IV for coming this far. However they aimed for the moon - I wish someone could tell them it wasn't going to work at all. Even outside of Senate, the appearance that all countries would be impacted would have given this so much bad press.

It would have been better if they had asked for an increase in country quotas - say 25-35%. (Right now we are not getting any spillovers so even 20% visas going to India is turning out to be myth). That would have alleviated the problem for 2009-2014 filers, and would have kicked the can down the road to solve this in combination with CIR or some form of Merit Immigration in a few years.

I'd call CIR aiming for the moon. Even if CIR passes it's unknown how long it would take for USCIS to implement it. Since the timeline is uncertain there is a strong case for some sort of interim relief either now or in the near future.

In my opinion the bill in it's current form is simple and easy to understand. Arguing for increasing country quotas at the outset would come across as legitimizing the country quotas in some way and would confuse the message.

Perhaps the transition periods could have been widened to cope with the practical realities on the ground. To me, it makes sense to start from a position and negotiate/compromise as needed.

[mcmilers]

anyone following S386 today? IV has a lot of folks lined up to see the senate session.

[rocketfast]

>anyone following S386 today? IV has a lot of folks lined up to see the senate session.

Yeah. It is basically a show of resolve.

IMHO, the doctors of Illinois are the only people that can turn this around. If I remember right, a doctor from Iowa was the one that got Grassley to reverse his hold in 2012.

[NJMavarick]

>anyone following S386 today? IV has a lot of folks lined up to see the senate session.

Yeah. It is basically a show of resolve.

IMHO, the doctors of Illinois are the only people that can turn this around. If I remember right, a doctor from Iowa was the one that got Grassley to reverse his hold in 2012.

IMHO, Durbin has got a different agenda! He seems to be aware of the plight but refused to budge..that says a lot

[Immigo]

I'd call CIR aiming for the moon. Even if CIR passes it's unknown how long it would take for USCIS to implement it. Since the timeline is uncertain there is a strong case for some sort of interim relief either now or in the near future.

In my opinion the bill in it's current form is simple and easy to understand. Arguing for increasing country quotas at the outset would come across as legitimizing the country quotas in some way and would confuse the message.

Perhaps the transition periods could have been widened to cope with the practical realities on the ground. To me, it makes sense to start from a position and negotiate/compromise as needed.

Perhaps removal of the country quotas has to wait for CIR. I know there is no appetite to increase the number of GCs. A smaller/stricter increase may be feasible, especially if accompanied by stricter H1B regulations. E.g. NIWs or anyone who has been consistently above level 4 wage and waiting for 5/8 years be made cap-exempt... my pipe dreams :)

[smuggymba]

Perhaps removal of the country quotas has to wait for CIR. I know there is no appetite to increase the number of GCs. A smaller/stricter increase may be feasible, especially if accompanied by stricter H1B regulations. E.g. NIWs or anyone who has been consistently above level 4 wage and waiting for 5/8 years be made cap-exempt... my pipe dreams :)

Any number to increase GC's that is more than zero is a non-starter with Reps. No need to spend even 1 min on it.

[EB22010Dec]

Any number to increase GC's that is more than zero is a non-starter with Reps. No need to spend even 1 min on it.

Why only UC ? I never understood that, if it is such a strong bill ...

[srimurthy]

Why only UC ? I never understood that, if it is such a strong bill ...

As expected the bill S386 is dead and Senator seems to introduce his own bill S2603 to remove or increase GCs, that is never going to happen.

https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2019/10/17/sen-dick-durbin-proposes-s-2603-relief-act-in-place-of-s-386-439070/

[rocketfast]

Why only UC ? I never understood that, if it is such a strong bill ...

My understanding is that Senator Lindsay Graham (head of senate judiciary committee) does not think the bill is important enough to spend a week of their time on it.

[qesehmk]

Guys I'd recommend to work with Durbin to include provisions of S386 in Durbin's bill.
That way it is a win-win-win-win for Durbin-Lee-EB-India-EB-ROW.

Dont be a naysayer. Remember the politicians are all fighting for future votes. Durbin WILL agree to removal of country quota if the overall cap is doubled. And Lee will still be happy because he can still say that he worked to remove discrimination against India.

Regardless of what others say or do, call Durbin and tell him that he should introduce removal of country quota. And that EB-India community will still be pleased if it is done in a phased manner to ensure minimal impact on ROW.
e.g. The numbers subject to country quota will go down from 50% in 1st year to 0% in 3rd year onwards.

Remember - if you want to achieve your goals you must understand other people's goals.

[iatiam]

Guys I'd recommend to work with Durbin to include provisions of S386 in Durbin's bill.
That way it is a win-win-win-win for Durbin-Lee-EB-India-EB-ROW.

Dont be a naysayer. Remember the politicians are all fighting for future votes. Durbin WILL agree to removal of country quota if the overall cap is doubled. And Lee will still be happy because he can still say that he worked to remove discrimination against India.

Regardless of what others say or do, call Durbin and tell him that he should introduce removal of country quota. And that EB-India community will still be pleased if it is done in a phased manner to ensure minimal impact on ROW.
e.g. The numbers subject to country quota will go down from 50% in 1st year to 0% in 3rd year onwards.

Remember - if you want to achieve your goals you must understand other people's goals.

And that's how you kill bills. Any bill which increases the GCs by even a single number is DOA in Senate/House.

Iatiam

[qesehmk]

And that's how you kill bills. Any bill which increases the GCs by even a single number is DOA in Senate/House.

Iatiam
S386 is already dead. So how does this kills S386.

[singax]

S386 is already dead. So how does this kills S386.
IV followers on Trackitt and Facebook -are very direct, blunt and aggressive towards Senetor Durbin. Seems like IV is not in mood of compromise or any discussion , they are attacking him directly, calling him racist. Given the situation, S386 or related bill not pass, because environment is not conducive.

Does anyone else see light at the end of tunnel?

[qesehmk]

IV followers on Trackitt and Facebook -are very direct, blunt and aggressive towards Senetor Durbin. Seems like IV is not in mood of compromise or any discussion , they are attacking him directly, calling him racist. Given the situation, S386 or related bill not pass, because environment is not conducive.

Does anyone else see light at the end of tunnel?


IV is run by thick skulled - Solah doone aath - kind of people. They don't understand strategy. They should've recognized the win so far and try to build on top of the progress so far.

Why destroy future potential? Why burn bridge .... especially when there is light at the end of the tunnel.

And the light is exactly as I described above.

The world operates on give and take. It will be very hard to take away from ROW something they already have. GOP might just be open to negotiate with Indians given how desperate Trump is to once again win over Indians for 2020 election.

[iatiam]

S386 is already dead. So how does this kills S386.

How do you know it's dead?

Iatiam

[qesehmk]

How do you know it's dead?

Iatiam

A birdie named Durbin.

[mcmilers]

IV is run by thick skulled - Solah doone aath - kind of people. They don't understand strategy. They should've recognized the win so far and try to build on top of the progress so far.

Why destroy future potential? Why burn bridge .... especially when there is light at the end of the tunnel.

And the light is exactly as I described above.

The world operates on give and take. It will be very hard to take away from ROW something they already have. GOP might just be open to negotiate with Indians given how desperate Trump is to once again win over Indians for 2020 election.

I dont know the right way of proceeding so cannot comment on how to move forward but I agree with Q on attacking Sen. Durbin here. There is no need to make it personal. All IV is doing is burning bridges and in politics you never know who you'll need help from in the future.

[singax]

I dont know the right way of proceeding so cannot comment on how to move forward but I agree with Q on attacking Sen. Durbin here. There is no need to make it personal. All IV is doing is burning bridges and in politics you never know who you'll need help from in the future.

I am not IV member but if we (normal people) can comprehend that aggressiveness of IV and it's member is doing more harm then good, why can't they? No agreements can be reached by aggressiveness and attacking opposing party.

Are they (IV) doing it on purpose to keep this topic alive forever? ( I know, we can't answer).

Loosers : Indian Origin people- hatred against is being spread , it will also impact future employment chances.
Winners : IV, Attorney, Corporate, Senators (Mike and Durbin)

[eaglenow]

Not calling out anyone specifically, but there are a lot of armchair critics who have no idea about advocacy but give out free advice. I have volunteered with IV before and been to the hill multiple times to advocate for the fix. Our community is in this state because of people like this who are just armchair critics and do nothing but give advice, suggest strategies, give options, promote compromises etc without having any idea about ground reality.

For IV to take the stand they have, there is very specific reason. Read through their posts on Facebook and you will understand. The fact that some of you think a compromise is the way suggests you have no idea about the opposition you are facing.

Here is the reality. Nothing related to immigration will pass in the next few years. Immigration is a second term priority, which means any first term president will not take up immigration. If trump wins a second term, he will take it up and if possible, pass a restrictive version where most of you in the line will either be kicked out or will start in a new process from the scratch.

And no, even a single GC increase is not possible outside of CIR, either directly or indirectly through recapture, not count dependents etc.. There are only 2 possible immigration related bills even remotely possible in the next few years outside of CIR. One is DACA and the other is removal of per country limits. That’s it.

You can compromise till cows come home, but you will not get anything passed. The current bill is blocked only by Sen. Durbin and he has no good intention behind it. Given the no harm provision, no row applicant with an approved 140 will be impacted by passing this bill.

His position essentially is: unless future applicants, who are not even in the system yet, do not have to wait for GC, applicants born in India must continue to be discriminated. He knows very well that increasing GC is impossible in the current climate. So all he is trying to do is kill the bill, thereby impacting only Indian applicants.

Look at his interview recently where he talked about DACA and mentioned that it is not possible to get DACA done under trump admin. And he thinks asking for GC increase is possible? There is a reason no one else is with him on opposing this bill. Everyone on the hill knows he is only trying to kill the bill and is not acting in good faith.

He is looking for some way to get out of this and is already under tremendous pressure, even from within his own party. All he needs is for some Indian immigrants to support his relief act or say they agree with him about not impacting Row etc and or suggest some other similar compromise that will bring in opposition of other senators. He will use that to show that not all backlogged applicants support this bill and he will use that to kill the bill.

Whether you like it or not, IV is the only org that has worked on this for more than a decade. For people who are not familiar, IV is not 2 or 3 people. It includes multiple different groups of volunteers over the years who have spent their personal time and money to advocate for this bill, both at local levels and on the hill.

The support for this bill was EARNED one office at a time. This includes Sen Durbin as well, who co-sponsored the bill in an earlier congress. The bill has been analyzed and debated for more than 10 years and he suddenly has concerns? Back in 2010 when I was on the hill, the first question the staffer asked is: will this not make wait times of other countries longer? My response was country of birth has no relevance in employment based GC and if people born in India can wait, why is it wrong for others to wait? This was the first question. Pretty much every single office had the same question and a lot more. That statement still holds true.

All this discussion on it impacts ROW and helps only Indians etc are all BS. Current system discriminates against Indians. Why? because other Indians applied in large numbers. Now tell me what control you or Any ROW person has regarding who else applies for GC from their country of birth? Yet, that is the criteria used to keep you waiting while another non-Indian applicant with the same skills and category who starts 10 years after you will get GC in a year.

If the senators ask was reasonable and in good faith, it can be worked through. The hold by Sen. Perdue and Sen. Paul are examples. What Sen. Durbin is asking for would be the same as a Republican senator asking to stop family based immigration completely. It is completely illogical and is designed to only kill the bill.

Now is the time for the backlogged community to stand together and show that they don’t agree with the senator. Even if you don’t think he is racist, he is still impacting your life by showing more concern for people who are not even in the system yet over people who are already in backlogs for more than a decade. So there is nothing wrong in asking him to remove his hold and telling his office of the impact the current discrimination has on you and your family.

There is nothing stopping him from working on his bill AFTER passing this bill.

Remember the status quo only helps future applicants at the expense of backlogged applicants. The argument that only Indians benefit and row will be impacted is absurd. This bill removes discrimination and so naturally the people being discriminated will benefit and those are current beneficiaries of the discrimination will not have that benefit anymore.

As an analogy, this is the same as arguing slavery/desegregation only benefits one race and will impact plantation owners/caucasians and so should not be abolished. It sure is an argument, but an absurd one. After this bill is passed, all applicants, regardless of where they are born, will have the same wait time if they have similar skills in the same criteria. In the meantime, people who are discriminated against will start getting relief. Not overnight, but over the years.

This along with the no harm provision and transition by themselves are a compromise.

I humbly request anyone here to think about all the efforts of all the IV volunteers and the thousands of meetings by those volunteers over the years for this fix, before you deride IV as if it is a single person. I request you not undermine the effort of all of those volunteers.

Before you give any advice to IV or its volunteers, please think about your participation in advocacy. The core members have been doing this for more than a decade and a couple of them are on the hill every single day. If you think you have better strategy or idea think again. This would be akin to a first grader thinking they know better than their parents.

Please remember, this is our only chance. We need to keep the pressure up. Miss this chance and you are not going to see anything else for the next decade or more.

[qesehmk]

My friend - clearly I am the one giving advice so I must respond to your post.

This blog is hardly a first grader in giving advice. We are the only ones who established that country quota is the root of all EVIL as far as backlogged candidates go. Without us IV was already irrelevant in 2006-2007.

And given I am running this site for last 12 years I am hardly an armchair critic.

I do agree that advocacy on ground is a tough sport. But my friend even though I am not on the ground I have predicted things with almost 100% accuracy. I am screaming from the bottom of my lungs how stars are perfectly aligned against EB-India. The whole system is the way it is because there are strong interests aligned on how it works today.

I say this with most respect for the advocacy efforts that if you do not know the lay of the land, your direct and strategies are ought to turn wrong. And you are going to go in circles despite honest efforts.

As far as durbin goes .... again ... nothing is personal ... this is a sport... if it is not Durbin it will be somebody else. The story will remain similar. So don't make it personal. Simply focus on building on the success you already had.


Not calling out anyone specifically, but there are a lot of armchair critics who have no idea about advocacy but give out free advice. I have volunteered with IV before and been to the hill multiple times to advocate for the fix. Our community is in this state because of people like this who are just armchair critics and do nothing but give advice, suggest strategies, give options, promote compromises etc without having any idea about ground reality.

For IV to take the stand they have, there is very specific reason. Read through their posts on Facebook and you will understand. The fact that some of you think a compromise is the way suggests you have no idea about the opposition you are facing.

Here is the reality. Nothing related to immigration will pass in the next few years. Immigration is a second term priority, which means any first term president will not take up immigration. If trump wins a second term, he will take it up and if possible, pass a restrictive version where most of you in the line will either be kicked out or will start in a new process from the scratch.

And no, even a single GC increase is not possible outside of CIR, either directly or indirectly through recapture, not count dependents etc.. There are only 2 possible immigration related bills even remotely possible in the next few years outside of CIR. One is DACA and the other is removal of per country limits. That’s it.

You can compromise till cows come home, but you will not get anything passed. The current bill is blocked only by Sen. Durbin and he has no good intention behind it. Given the no harm provision, no row applicant with an approved 140 will be impacted by passing this bill.

His position essentially is: unless future applicants, who are not even in the system yet, do not have to wait for GC, applicants born in India must continue to be discriminated. He knows very well that increasing GC is impossible in the current climate. So all he is trying to do is kill the bill, thereby impacting only Indian applicants.

Look at his interview recently where he talked about DACA and mentioned that it is not possible to get DACA done under trump admin. And he thinks asking for GC increase is possible? There is a reason no one else is with him on opposing this bill. Everyone on the hill knows he is only trying to kill the bill and is not acting in good faith.

He is looking for some way to get out of this and is already under tremendous pressure, even from within his own party. All he needs is for some Indian immigrants to support his relief act or say they agree with him about not impacting Row etc and or suggest some other similar compromise that will bring in opposition of other senators. He will use that to show that not all backlogged applicants support this bill and he will use that to kill the bill.

Whether you like it or not, IV is the only org that has worked on this for more than a decade. For people who are not familiar, IV is not 2 or 3 people. It includes multiple different groups of volunteers over the years who have spent their personal time and money to advocate for this bill, both at local levels and on the hill.

The support for this bill was EARNED one office at a time. This includes Sen Durbin as well, who co-sponsored the bill in an earlier congress. The bill has been analyzed and debated for more than 10 years and he suddenly has concerns? Back in 2010 when I was on the hill, the first question the staffer asked is: will this not make wait times of other countries longer? My response was country of birth has no relevance in employment based GC and if people born in India can wait, why is it wrong for others to wait? This was the first question. Pretty much every single office had the same question and a lot more. That statement still holds true.

All this discussion on it impacts ROW and helps only Indians etc are all BS. Current system discriminates against Indians. Why? because other Indians applied in large numbers. Now tell me what control you or Any ROW person has regarding who else applies for GC from their country of birth? Yet, that is the criteria used to keep you waiting while another non-Indian applicant with the same skills and category who starts 10 years after you will get GC in a year.

If the senators ask was reasonable and in good faith, it can be worked through. The hold by Sen. Perdue and Sen. Paul are examples. What Sen. Durbin is asking for would be the same as a Republican senator asking to stop family based immigration completely. It is completely illogical and is designed to only kill the bill.

Now is the time for the backlogged community to stand together and show that they don’t agree with the senator. Even if you don’t think he is racist, he is still impacting your life by showing more concern for people who are not even in the system yet over people who are already in backlogs for more than a decade. So there is nothing wrong in asking him to remove his hold and telling his office of the impact the current discrimination has on you and your family.

There is nothing stopping him from working on his bill AFTER passing this bill.

Remember the status quo only helps future applicants at the expense of backlogged applicants. The argument that only Indians benefit and row will be impacted is absurd. This bill removes discrimination and so naturally the people being discriminated will benefit and those are current beneficiaries of the discrimination will not have that benefit anymore.

As an analogy, this is the same as arguing slavery/desegregation only benefits one race and will impact plantation owners/caucasians and so should not be abolished. It sure is an argument, but an absurd one. After this bill is passed, all applicants, regardless of where they are born, will have the same wait time if they have similar skills in the same criteria. In the meantime, people who are discriminated against will start getting relief. Not overnight, but over the years.

This along with the no harm provision and transition by themselves are a compromise.

I humbly request anyone here to think about all the efforts of all the IV volunteers and the thousands of meetings by those volunteers over the years for this fix, before you deride IV as if it is a single person. I request you not undermine the effort of all of those volunteers.

Before you give any advice to IV or its volunteers, please think about your participation in advocacy. The core members have been doing this for more than a decade and a couple of them are on the hill every single day. If you think you have better strategy or idea think again. This would be akin to a first grader thinking they know better than their parents.

Please remember, this is our only chance. We need to keep the pressure up. Miss this chance and you are not going to see anything else for the next decade or more.

[iatiam]

My friend - clearly I am the one giving advice so I must respond to your post.

This blog is hardly a first grader in giving advice. We are the only ones who established that country quota is the root of all EVIL as far as backlogged candidates go. Without us IV was already irrelevant in 2006-2007.

And given I am running this site for last 12 years I am hardly an armchair critic.

I do agree that advocacy on ground is a tough sport. But my friend even though I am not on the ground I have predicted things with almost 100% accuracy. I am screaming from the bottom of my lungs how stars are perfectly aligned against EB-India. The whole system is the way it is because there are strong interests aligned on how it works today.

I say this with most respect for the advocacy efforts that if you do not know the lay of the land, your direct and strategies are ought to turn wrong. And you are going to go in circles despite honest efforts.

As far as durbin goes .... again ... nothing is personal ... this is a sport... if it is not Durbin it will be somebody else. The story will remain similar. So don't make it personal. Simply focus on building on the success you already had.

Country caps are the issue and Bob's your uncle

Iatiam

[eaglenow]

My friend - clearly I am the one giving advice so I must respond to your post.

This blog is hardly a first grader in giving advice. We are the only ones who established that country quota is the root of all EVIL as far as backlogged candidates go. Without us IV was already irrelevant in 2006-2007.

And given I am running this site for last 12 years I am hardly an armchair critic.

I do agree that advocacy on ground is a tough sport. But my friend even though I am not on the ground I have predicted things with almost 100% accuracy. I am screaming from the bottom of my lungs how stars are perfectly aligned against EB-India. The whole system is the way it is because there are strong interests aligned on how it works today.

I say this with most respect for the advocacy efforts that if you do not know the lay of the land, your direct and strategies are ought to turn wrong. And you are going to go in circles despite honest efforts.

As far as durbin goes .... again ... nothing is personal ... this is a sport... if it is not Durbin it will be somebody else. The story will remain similar. So don't make it personal. Simply focus on building on the success you already had.

Since you responded, I will say this, it is not just you. My post was not directed at you, but I see a lot of folks with their own ideas, suggestions, discoveries etc. without having been through a single day of advocacy. Not just here, but in forums and even in IV channels.

I have seen first hand through multiple meetings, all the setbacks, how they were overcome, the number of times the bill died and then came to life again over the years. This has given me perspective on how things work on the hill.

With all due respect, unless one has been advocating on the hill and locally for at least a year, there is no way to know the ground reality. Running this site and predicting using available incomplete data is entirely different from advocating on the hill to get a bill passed.

While you are free to give your suggestions, just keep in mind that you have the potential to mislead others given the credibility you have based on your predictions and this site. I am sure you have no bad intentions, but without information from the ground and understanding the actual situation, there is no way to give right direction or suggestions. Specifically the one you gave in your post is all Sen. Durbin needs to kill this bill completely. Again I am sure you have no bad intentions, but your lack of day to day advocacy knowledge and ground level reality and landscape does not afford you the opportunity to see things the same as those on the ground.

And no you cannot get the lay of the land without advocating on the hill to understand how things are done. The bill is where it is today primarily due to the relentless efforts of thousands of volunteers over the years and many thousands of meetings both locally and in DC. I have personally witnessed a number of times blocks and setbacks to the bill and how they were overcome.

Anyone have any idea how the block from Sen. Grassley was overcome? Sen. Leahy? From Irish lobby? From DACA lobby? From CIR groups? Innumerable other special interests, lobbies, oppositions? I hope IV core leadership decides to do a book or documentary on how this bill started and how this was passed. That is a lesson that everyone needs to know so that in the future our community is not discriminated in any way.

I have no idea about IV or your role in 2006-2007. Back in 2005, I also realized that per country limits were a stupid idea in EB GC and will lead to backlogs. This was a time when EB2I was actually current.

But I do know for a fact that the removal of per-country limits was proposed by one of the Republican lawmakers as the only one that has any chance of passing from the list of all requested fixes. This list included everything under the sun from recapture to dependent exemption, file 485 with approved 140 etc. This was back in 2009. In fact one of my first advocacy events was about this list of asks and the request from the offices on what they thought was possible to be passed.

And since then every single office support was earned through numerous meetings.
I see people who proudly claim they are not part of IV, some who claim they don’t know what they are doing and come up with ideas, some who openly undermine the efforts of so many volunteers. This happens only within our community. They think IV is one person or some people are making a fortune by milking this etc. An example is one of the comments that mentions IV as one of the beneficiaries of a broken system. That is absurd to the extreme. It not only undermines the effort of so many people, but just mocks and insults their efforts.

And to be blunt, any suggestion you give, regardless of your lack of malice, if it derails the efforts, it has no impact on you. But for those in backlog, it could mean the difference between them getting GC and never getting one.

I don’t mean to come off aggressive, but I am just tired of people dishing out advice and being armchair critics without having spent a day advocating for this bill. And to think they can come up with a better suggestion/strategy/direction/ideas than the ones on the ground working on this over the years along with lobbyists and spending numerous hours and thousands of meetings is frankly arrogant.

An honest question. Does anyone really think that all the thousands of volunteers who have advocated for this bill over the years are all idiots and just blindly followed IV leaders without looking at the ground reality or questioning the strategy or direction? Some are already citizens now and many have GCs. Yet they choose to volunteer their time and money for the cause so that the discriminating n is removed.

One of the reasons our community is in the current state is because of lack of unity. There are multiple splinter groups who have no reason to exist other than to show themselves as leaders. Do you know how many times those groups killed the bill? And the numerous hours spent by IV volunteers to undo the damage.

I am not even that active nowadays given my current life circumstances. But given my past involvement I can tell you first hand, this volunteering is a thankless job, especially for our community. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I feel IV should just shut down and let our community just die in backlogs. I am glad I am not the one running the show nor am I in the core team. I would have closed out IV to let others rot in backlogs given the amount of negative cynicism about IV without having attended one advocacy event or contributed in any way.

For me personally all it took was one event in DC to see for myself what we faced. The lack of knowledge of our community is astounding. And add to this our arrogance in questioning everything someone else is actually doing that will benefit us.

Regarding H4EAD, IV said in December 2016 that it is being targeted and it would go away. Many lawyers and groups just called it FUD and just to raise money. When they really were going ahead, there was debate in IV on whether to intervene or not. Eventually IV intervened with a couple of volunteers. That is the only reason the admin did not just settle with plaintiffs to kill H4EAD. This was confirmed as such by the acting USCIS director in a recent event. Without this intervention there would be no H4EAD now. This is also only delaying the inevitable.

The real fix is to remove the per country caps. And the only senator preventing that is Sen. Durbin. This bill almost passed but for his objection. He is trying to get others to object as well, but so far he has not been successful. Now it is on our community to keep the pressure on from our end by calling their office and sharing our stories.

There is no reason for the senator to block this bill. His relief act can be worked on after passing this bill. The only chance we have is to keep calling and sharing our stories and how we are impacted by the current discrimination.

Again please don’t take this as a personal attack. It is not. Just frustration at our community in general.

[abcx13]

^Well said, Eaglenow.

[GhostWriter]

Very well articulated Eaglenow. Thanks for your thoughts. Much needed and appreciated.

[qesehmk]

Eagle - I have utmost respect for all the volunteers as well as for IV leadership for their efforts. My comments are about advocacy strategy and direction.

If I am an armchair critic as you say and an influential person with ability to do harm to IV's strategy - then what you should be doing is sending a private message to me - and getting over a phone or a coffee and have a deep dialogue. Instead of that what you are doing is exactly the same thing you are doing to Durbin.

Public shaming / admonishing / or arguing .. howsoever sugarcoated hurts and people become more obstinate. So that's all my advice is - engage Durbin on his own ideas and then try to bring him around yours. And same with Lee. Again easier said than done. I get that. What I do guarantee you is this public shaming business is not going to work EVER. Durbin is still a liberal guy with Lithuanian mother - and yet he will not budge. So what does that tell you? That Durbin is a jerk?

I think it is immature of IV to think that way. They have far more power than me or this blog to harm EB-India and I think if they continue to shame Durbin then they are the ones who are harming EB-India, not me.


Since you responded, I will say this, it is not just you. My post was not directed at you, but I see a lot of folks with their own ideas, suggestions, discoveries etc. without having been through a single day of advocacy. Not just here, but in forums and even in IV channels.

I have seen first hand through multiple meetings, all the setbacks, how they were overcome, the number of times the bill died and then came to life again over the years. This has given me perspective on how things work on the hill.

With all due respect, unless one has been advocating on the hill and locally for at least a year, there is no way to know the ground reality. Running this site and predicting using available incomplete data is entirely different from advocating on the hill to get a bill passed.

While you are free to give your suggestions, just keep in mind that you have the potential to mislead others given the credibility you have based on your predictions and this site. I am sure you have no bad intentions, but without information from the ground and understanding the actual situation, there is no way to give right direction or suggestions. Specifically the one you gave in your post is all Sen. Durbin needs to kill this bill completely. Again I am sure you have no bad intentions, but your lack of day to day advocacy knowledge and ground level reality and landscape does not afford you the opportunity to see things the same as those on the ground.

And no you cannot get the lay of the land without advocating on the hill to understand how things are done. The bill is where it is today primarily due to the relentless efforts of thousands of volunteers over the years and many thousands of meetings both locally and in DC. I have personally witnessed a number of times blocks and setbacks to the bill and how they were overcome.

Anyone have any idea how the block from Sen. Grassley was overcome? Sen. Leahy? From Irish lobby? From DACA lobby? From CIR groups? Innumerable other special interests, lobbies, oppositions? I hope IV core leadership decides to do a book or documentary on how this bill started and how this was passed. That is a lesson that everyone needs to know so that in the future our community is not discriminated in any way.

I have no idea about IV or your role in 2006-2007. Back in 2005, I also realized that per country limits were a stupid idea in EB GC and will lead to backlogs. This was a time when EB2I was actually current.

But I do know for a fact that the removal of per-country limits was proposed by one of the Republican lawmakers as the only one that has any chance of passing from the list of all requested fixes. This list included everything under the sun from recapture to dependent exemption, file 485 with approved 140 etc. This was back in 2009. In fact one of my first advocacy events was about this list of asks and the request from the offices on what they thought was possible to be passed.

And since then every single office support was earned through numerous meetings.
I see people who proudly claim they are not part of IV, some who claim they don’t know what they are doing and come up with ideas, some who openly undermine the efforts of so many volunteers. This happens only within our community. They think IV is one person or some people are making a fortune by milking this etc. An example is one of the comments that mentions IV as one of the beneficiaries of a broken system. That is absurd to the extreme. It not only undermines the effort of so many people, but just mocks and insults their efforts.

And to be blunt, any suggestion you give, regardless of your lack of malice, if it derails the efforts, it has no impact on you. But for those in backlog, it could mean the difference between them getting GC and never getting one.

I don’t mean to come off aggressive, but I am just tired of people dishing out advice and being armchair critics without having spent a day advocating for this bill. And to think they can come up with a better suggestion/strategy/direction/ideas than the ones on the ground working on this over the years along with lobbyists and spending numerous hours and thousands of meetings is frankly arrogant.

An honest question. Does anyone really think that all the thousands of volunteers who have advocated for this bill over the years are all idiots and just blindly followed IV leaders without looking at the ground reality or questioning the strategy or direction? Some are already citizens now and many have GCs. Yet they choose to volunteer their time and money for the cause so that the discriminating n is removed.

One of the reasons our community is in the current state is because of lack of unity. There are multiple splinter groups who have no reason to exist other than to show themselves as leaders. Do you know how many times those groups killed the bill? And the numerous hours spent by IV volunteers to undo the damage.

I am not even that active nowadays given my current life circumstances. But given my past involvement I can tell you first hand, this volunteering is a thankless job, especially for our community. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I feel IV should just shut down and let our community just die in backlogs. I am glad I am not the one running the show nor am I in the core team. I would have closed out IV to let others rot in backlogs given the amount of negative cynicism about IV without having attended one advocacy event or contributed in any way.

For me personally all it took was one event in DC to see for myself what we faced. The lack of knowledge of our community is astounding. And add to this our arrogance in questioning everything someone else is actually doing that will benefit us.

Regarding H4EAD, IV said in December 2016 that it is being targeted and it would go away. Many lawyers and groups just called it FUD and just to raise money. When they really were going ahead, there was debate in IV on whether to intervene or not. Eventually IV intervened with a couple of volunteers. That is the only reason the admin did not just settle with plaintiffs to kill H4EAD. This was confirmed as such by the acting USCIS director in a recent event. Without this intervention there would be no H4EAD now. This is also only delaying the inevitable.

The real fix is to remove the per country caps. And the only senator preventing that is Sen. Durbin. This bill almost passed but for his objection. He is trying to get others to object as well, but so far he has not been successful. Now it is on our community to keep the pressure on from our end by calling their office and sharing our stories.

There is no reason for the senator to block this bill. His relief act can be worked on after passing this bill. The only chance we have is to keep calling and sharing our stories and how we are impacted by the current discrimination.

Again please don’t take this as a personal attack. It is not. Just frustration at our community in general.

[qesehmk]

What does that mean?
Country caps are the issue and Bob's your uncle

Iatiam

[Immigo]

Since you responded, I will say this, it is not just you. My post was not directed at you, but I see a lot of folks with their own ideas, suggestions, discoveries etc. without having been through a single day of advocacy. Not just here, but in forums and even in IV channels.

I have seen first hand through multiple meetings, all the setbacks, how they were overcome, the number of times the bill died and then came to life again over the years. This has given me perspective on how things work on the hill.

With all due respect, unless one has been advocating on the hill and locally for at least a year, there is no way to know the ground reality. Running this site and predicting using available incomplete data is entirely different from advocating on the hill to get a bill passed.

While you are free to give your suggestions, just keep in mind that you have the potential to mislead others given the credibility you have based on your predictions and this site. I am sure you have no bad intentions, but without information from the ground and understanding the actual situation, there is no way to give right direction or suggestions. Specifically the one you gave in your post is all Sen. Durbin needs to kill this bill completely. Again I am sure you have no bad intentions, but your lack of day to day advocacy knowledge and ground level reality and landscape does not afford you the opportunity to see things the same as those on the ground.

And no you cannot get the lay of the land without advocating on the hill to understand how things are done. The bill is where it is today primarily due to the relentless efforts of thousands of volunteers over the years and many thousands of meetings both locally and in DC. I have personally witnessed a number of times blocks and setbacks to the bill and how they were overcome.

Anyone have any idea how the block from Sen. Grassley was overcome? Sen. Leahy? From Irish lobby? From DACA lobby? From CIR groups? Innumerable other special interests, lobbies, oppositions? I hope IV core leadership decides to do a book or documentary on how this bill started and how this was passed. That is a lesson that everyone needs to know so that in the future our community is not discriminated in any way.

I have no idea about IV or your role in 2006-2007. Back in 2005, I also realized that per country limits were a stupid idea in EB GC and will lead to backlogs. This was a time when EB2I was actually current.

But I do know for a fact that the removal of per-country limits was proposed by one of the Republican lawmakers as the only one that has any chance of passing from the list of all requested fixes. This list included everything under the sun from recapture to dependent exemption, file 485 with approved 140 etc. This was back in 2009. In fact one of my first advocacy events was about this list of asks and the request from the offices on what they thought was possible to be passed.

And since then every single office support was earned through numerous meetings.
I see people who proudly claim they are not part of IV, some who claim they don’t know what they are doing and come up with ideas, some who openly undermine the efforts of so many volunteers. This happens only within our community. They think IV is one person or some people are making a fortune by milking this etc. An example is one of the comments that mentions IV as one of the beneficiaries of a broken system. That is absurd to the extreme. It not only undermines the effort of so many people, but just mocks and insults their efforts.

And to be blunt, any suggestion you give, regardless of your lack of malice, if it derails the efforts, it has no impact on you. But for those in backlog, it could mean the difference between them getting GC and never getting one.

I don’t mean to come off aggressive, but I am just tired of people dishing out advice and being armchair critics without having spent a day advocating for this bill. And to think they can come up with a better suggestion/strategy/direction/ideas than the ones on the ground working on this over the years along with lobbyists and spending numerous hours and thousands of meetings is frankly arrogant.

An honest question. Does anyone really think that all the thousands of volunteers who have advocated for this bill over the years are all idiots and just blindly followed IV leaders without looking at the ground reality or questioning the strategy or direction? Some are already citizens now and many have GCs. Yet they choose to volunteer their time and money for the cause so that the discriminating n is removed.

One of the reasons our community is in the current state is because of lack of unity. There are multiple splinter groups who have no reason to exist other than to show themselves as leaders. Do you know how many times those groups killed the bill? And the numerous hours spent by IV volunteers to undo the damage.

I am not even that active nowadays given my current life circumstances. But given my past involvement I can tell you first hand, this volunteering is a thankless job, especially for our community. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I feel IV should just shut down and let our community just die in backlogs. I am glad I am not the one running the show nor am I in the core team. I would have closed out IV to let others rot in backlogs given the amount of negative cynicism about IV without having attended one advocacy event or contributed in any way.

For me personally all it took was one event in DC to see for myself what we faced. The lack of knowledge of our community is astounding. And add to this our arrogance in questioning everything someone else is actually doing that will benefit us.

Regarding H4EAD, IV said in December 2016 that it is being targeted and it would go away. Many lawyers and groups just called it FUD and just to raise money. When they really were going ahead, there was debate in IV on whether to intervene or not. Eventually IV intervened with a couple of volunteers. That is the only reason the admin did not just settle with plaintiffs to kill H4EAD. This was confirmed as such by the acting USCIS director in a recent event. Without this intervention there would be no H4EAD now. This is also only delaying the inevitable.

The real fix is to remove the per country caps. And the only senator preventing that is Sen. Durbin. This bill almost passed but for his objection. He is trying to get others to object as well, but so far he has not been successful. Now it is on our community to keep the pressure on from our end by calling their office and sharing our stories.

There is no reason for the senator to block this bill. His relief act can be worked on after passing this bill. The only chance we have is to keep calling and sharing our stories and how we are impacted by the current discrimination.

Again please don’t take this as a personal attack. It is not. Just frustration at our community in general.

Clearly, if a bill like S386 was brought up back in 2005 when EB2I was current, it would not have faced so much resistance from ROW. Since backlogs built over a period of time, if the limits were removed today in a more phased way, it would have a better chance of success. For example going from 7% to 10%, 20%, 30%...100% (over a 9-10 year time frame). Was this ever considered as a compromise ?

Again, utmost respect for all those involved in advocacy and for bringing S386/HR1044 to as far as it came (.... has come).

[eaglenow]

Eagle - I have utmost respect for all the volunteers as well as for IV leadership for their efforts. My comments are about advocacy strategy and direction.

If I am an armchair critic as you say and an influential person with ability to do harm to IV's strategy - then what you should be doing is sending a private message to me - and getting over a phone or a coffee and have a deep dialogue. Instead of that what you are doing is exactly the same thing you are doing to Durbin.

Public shaming / admonishing / or arguing .. howsoever sugarcoated hurts and people become more obstinate. So that's all my advice is - engage Durbin on his own ideas and then try to bring him around yours. And same with Lee. Again easier said than done. I get that. What I do guarantee you is this public shaming business is not going to work EVER. Durbin is still a liberal guy with Lithuanian mother - and yet he will not budge. So what does that tell you? That Durbin is a jerk?

I think it is immature of IV to think that way. They have far more power than me or this blog to harm EB-India and I think if they continue to shame Durbin then they are the ones who are harming EB-India, not me.

Like I said, my intention is not to shame anyone. It was just general observation. Since you responded, I replied to you. Like I said, I do believe that you have no bad intentions and you are reasonable as demonstrated by the fact that you did not simply delete my posts and be done with it.

I am sure I can reason with you and sure will reach out to you for a longer discussion about advocacy and we can share perspectives.

IV stand with Sen. Durbin is not to shame him or harass him. They are just calling him out. If you look in the past, they have never done this, even to Sen. Grassley, Sen. Sessions and numerous other blocks and setbacks. But calling out Sen. Durbin is a necessity felt by IV leaders at this time.

Sen. Durbin is not being reasonable and is not ready to negotiate in good faith. He mocks Indians waiting in these perennial backlog line, blocks the most reasonable and possibly the only immigration bill that can pass outside of CIR, refuses to add aging out kids to his dream act, and on top of it comes out with a bill that has absolutely no chance of passing. And brings it to the floor for UC, a process he says is not right for the most agreed upon bipartisan bill. And this is for a bill he had cosponsored. The only difference being at that time, it had Irish relief provisions. He is literally mocking the entire community.

His Relief act is only to show that he is pro immigrant. This is how bills are killed. Look up the history of how bills are killed, especially common sense ones. It invariably involves the lawmaker agreeing with the bill in principle and they add a poison pill, that seems reasonable to outside world but in essence and reality is only designed to kill the bill.

His mother was an immigrant does not matter as his intentions are what matters. Now I did not personally witness this and saw it in a post on the IV main channel. So take it with a grain of salt. He apparently told one of the members in the cafeteria that Indians need to stop cheating and abuse. Now if that is not stereotyping, I am not sure what is.

And regardless of whether we think he is a racist or not, his actions speak louder than words. His position is let Indians keep waiting till more GCs can be allocated. He simply does not care that people are in backlogs for more than a decade and effectively any Indian filing for GC now will never get GC unless laws change. But he is acting concerned that future applicants not in the system yet will be impacted. So Indians are sub humans who are meant to be discriminated and others must not have any wait times?

And he has the audacity to say this will benefit only Indians at the expense of other communities. It is really the other way around. Today row is benefiting at the expense of backlogged Indians.

The core issue is that lack of GC numbers results in backlog. The compositiOn of backlog is proof of discrimination due to country of birth. This bill aims to remove discrimination and not fix backlogs.

He says the discrimination can be removed only if backlogs are removed at the same time. Why are the two linked? After passing the bill to fix discrimination, we can work on fixing backlogs. They are not related and need not be passed together nor are they mutually exclusive.

He is fine with Indians waiting for a decade now with people from 2015 never getting GC, but he is worried that future applicants will have to wait 8 to 10 years to get GC? And if this does not show his intent what will?

He is simply playing politics with the lives of people born in India. And his actions betray his thoughts.

We just need to make calls and share our stories and request him to remove his hold. The only thing our community can do at this time is to keep the calls going and show that we will not give up. Again, his acting in bad faith is very evident as noted by the tweet from Rep.Lofgren and the statement from Sen. warner on the floor. We need to stand together at this time and show that we will not fall for tricks like increasing GC etc. He has no logical reason to hold this bill.

If he thinks increasing GC will be quick, he should have no trouble passing the current bill and then passing the GC increase. If he knows increasing GC is not easy, why is he holding this bill and promoting his relief act instead. In either case there is no reason to block this bill. And that is what we need to keep calling about and sharing how we are impacted. All of us should be calling him to discuss the impact of current system and ask him to remove his hold. If we keep doing that, given the pressure from other sides, he will relent, maybe by asking for minor changes to existing bill or passing the bill as is. We do not have any other choice as nothing else will pass outside of CIR.

And even President Obama with his huge political capital and having won the house and senate did not touch CIR. And the partisan politics has only gotten worse. This is a rare bill that has huge bipartisan support that is being blocked by only one senator for no logical reason.

[eaglenow]

Clearly, if a bill like S386 was brought up back in 2005 when EB2I was current, it would not have faced so much resistance from ROW. Since backlogs built over a period of time, if the limits were removed today in a more phased way, it would have a better chance of success. For example going from 7% to 10%, 20%, 30%...100% (over a 9-10 year time frame). Was this ever considered as a compromise ?

Again, utmost respect for all those involved in advocacy and for bringing S386/HR1044 to as far as it came (.... has come).


Reistance from ROW? With the do no harm provision no row applicant with approved 140 will be impacted. So who is the resistance from? People who are not yet in the system?

And you need to stop negotiating with yourself. It just shows desperation. Why do you think it’s fine for people born in India to wait for 30 years (with your plan) while others cannot wait for 8? Given the current processing times, the real wait time is only 5 more years and this is for people who are not yet in the system. Why is this not fair? For backlogged applicants even with the existing transition, it will take 8 years or so to clear out backlogs. So any new applicant will wait for 8 years for their turn. This is assuming CIR or other bill does not pass in the meantime. Why is this not fair?

The bill as it currently stands with do harm provision is as fair as it gets. If there are other reasonable compromises to be made, let that come from the senator. The moment you start proposing things, he will latch on to that to portray that even backlogged applicants don’t think the bill is fair.

I am not sure why our community does not believe they deserve to be treated equally to others. You are not being fair by proposing these things, you are just saying you don’t deserve to be treated equally. Many row folks who won’t even be impacted by this bill oppose this bill because they think future applicants will be impacted. And here our folks who are already impacted and waiting for a decade are trying out various options. The irony is unbelievable.

[qesehmk]

Just do the same with Durbin. Reach out to him and reason and negotiate. There is no end to negotiation.

Politics is the art of negotiation and governance is the art of prioritization. He is just doing his job and prioritizing somebody else's interest above yours. If you want him to represent yours then blaming him and singling him out will not help.

I hope my posts changed your mind a bit about the utility of the advice from arm chair critics. But even if not - I guess further debate is not going to change my views and opinions. All the best for your continued efforts.


Like I said, my intention is not to shame anyone. It was just general observation. Since you responded, I replied to you. Like I said, I do believe that you have no bad intentions and you are reasonable as demonstrated by the fact that you did not simply delete my posts and be done with it.

I am sure I can reason with you and sure will reach out to you for a longer discussion about advocacy and we can share perspectives.

IV stand with Sen. Durbin is not to shame him or harass him. They are just calling him out. If you look in the past, they have never done this, even to Sen. Grassley, Sen. Sessions and numerous other blocks and setbacks. But calling out Sen. Durbin is a necessity felt by IV leaders at this time.

Sen. Durbin is not being reasonable and is not ready to negotiate in good faith. He mocks Indians waiting in these perennial backlog line, blocks the most reasonable and possibly the only immigration bill that can pass outside of CIR, refuses to add aging out kids to his dream act, and on top of it comes out with a bill that has absolutely no chance of passing. And brings it to the floor for UC, a process he says is not right for the most agreed upon bipartisan bill. And this is for a bill he had cosponsored. The only difference being at that time, it had Irish relief provisions. He is literally mocking the entire community.

His Relief act is only to show that he is pro immigrant. This is how bills are killed. Look up the history of how bills are killed, especially common sense ones. It invariably involves the lawmaker agreeing with the bill in principle and they add a poison pill, that seems reasonable to outside world but in essence and reality is only designed to kill the bill.

His mother was an immigrant does not matter as his intentions are what matters. Now I did not personally witness this and saw it in a post on the IV main channel. So take it with a grain of salt. He apparently told one of the members in the cafeteria that Indians need to stop cheating and abuse. Now if that is not stereotyping, I am not sure what is.

And regardless of whether we think he is a racist or not, his actions speak louder than words. His position is let Indians keep waiting till more GCs can be allocated. He simply does not care that people are in backlogs for more than a decade and effectively any Indian filing for GC now will never get GC unless laws change. But he is acting concerned that future applicants not in the system yet will be impacted. So Indians are sub humans who are meant to be discriminated and others must not have any wait times?

And he has the audacity to say this will benefit only Indians at the expense of other communities. It is really the other way around. Today row is benefiting at the expense of backlogged Indians.

The core issue is that lack of GC numbers results in backlog. The compositiOn of backlog is proof of discrimination due to country of birth. This bill aims to remove discrimination and not fix backlogs.

He says the discrimination can be removed only if backlogs are removed at the same time. Why are the two linked? After passing the bill to fix discrimination, we can work on fixing backlogs. They are not related and need not be passed together nor are they mutually exclusive.

He is fine with Indians waiting for a decade now with people from 2015 never getting GC, but he is worried that future applicants will have to wait 8 to 10 years to get GC? And if this does not show his intent what will?

He is simply playing politics with the lives of people born in India. And his actions betray his thoughts.

We just need to make calls and share our stories and request him to remove his hold. The only thing our community can do at this time is to keep the calls going and show that we will not give up. Again, his acting in bad faith is very evident as noted by the tweet from Rep.Lofgren and the statement from Sen. warner on the floor. We need to stand together at this time and show that we will not fall for tricks like increasing GC etc. He has no logical reason to hold this bill.

If he thinks increasing GC will be quick, he should have no trouble passing the current bill and then passing the GC increase. If he knows increasing GC is not easy, why is he holding this bill and promoting his relief act instead. In either case there is no reason to block this bill. And that is what we need to keep calling about and sharing how we are impacted. All of us should be calling him to discuss the impact of current system and ask him to remove his hold. If we keep doing that, given the pressure from other sides, he will relent, maybe by asking for minor changes to existing bill or passing the bill as is. We do not have any other choice as nothing else will pass outside of CIR.

And even President Obama with his huge political capital and having won the house and senate did not touch CIR. And the partisan politics has only gotten worse. This is a rare bill that has huge bipartisan support that is being blocked by only one senator for no logical reason.

[Ramsen]

Reistance from ROW? With the do no harm provision no row applicant with approved 140 will be impacted. So who is the resistance from? People who are not yet in the system?

And you need to stop negotiating with yourself. It just shows desperation. Why do you think it’s fine for people born in India to wait for 30 years (with your plan) while others cannot wait for 8? Given the current processing times, the real wait time is only 5 more years and this is for people who are not yet in the system. Why is this not fair? For backlogged applicants even with the existing transition, it will take 8 years or so to clear out backlogs. So any new applicant will wait for 8 years for their turn. This is assuming CIR or other bill does not pass in the meantime. Why is this not fair?

The bill as it currently stands with do harm provision is as fair as it gets. If there are other reasonable compromises to be made, let that come from the senator. The moment you start proposing things, he will latch on to that to portray that even backlogged applicants don’t think the bill is fair.

I am not sure why our community does not believe they deserve to be treated equally to others. You are not being fair by proposing these things, you are just saying you don’t deserve to be treated equally. Many row folks who won’t even be impacted by this bill oppose this bill because they think future applicants will be impacted. And here our folks who are already impacted and waiting for a decade are trying out various options. The irony is unbelievable.

I think Durbin thinking that without increasing GC numbers backlog will not be cleared if the purpose is clearing backlogs. I heard his speech in CSPAN. His views are as follows.Most Indians work in IT and 80 plus percentage will go IT and after 5 years most green cards will go to Indians. Because of that people from other fields like sports,nurse and arts will not be able to come. If a person comes for sports and his waiting time is 10 years by the time he gets gc no use for USA. No solution from IV for the problems raised. I remember before 2010 Grassley was accused as racist but after that it was realized that his concerns were valid. So why not address the concerns of Durbin? Anyhow I do not know what is happening in background but based on media some of Durbin concerns may be valid

In USA filibuster in other process and block in UC are used for different agenda. Still it is considered as a pillar of democracy. So every opposition needs to be respected and try to find a solution

[GhostWriter]

Sportsmen come under EB1 which does not have the severity of backlog like EB2 or Eb3.

Also with country cap the wait time for a sportsman or nurse from India is longer than similar professions from other countries. Country caps are discriminatory, just compare two people with same professions/skills. Across professions why is wait for a sportsman over nurse more concerning than wait for a doctor over nurse.

With the globalization wave getting a pause (if not reversal) there is no chance for increase in GCs regardless of the party in power. There will be redistribution across countries or categories. Family based categories will have to be reduced if EB has to be increased slightly along with country cap elimination. Durbin’s plan will just kill the whole issue and set the momentum 10-15 years back. Even if no compromise can be reached with him, the noise and shaming are bringing the urgency and importance to the issue that it deserves.


I think Durbin thinking that without increasing GC numbers backlog will not be cleared if the purpose is clearing backlogs. I heard his speech in CSPAN. His views are as follows.Most Indians work in IT and 80 plus percentage will go IT and after 5 years most green cards will go to Indians. Because of that people from other fields like sports,nurse and arts will not be able to come. If a person comes for sports and his waiting time is 10 years by the time he gets gc no use for USA. No solution from IV for the problems raised. I remember before 2010 Grassley was accused as racist but after that it was realized that his concerns were valid. So why not address the concerns of Durbin? Anyhow I do not know what is happening in background but based on media some of Durbin concerns may be valid

In USA filibuster in other process and block in UC are used for different agenda. Still it is considered as a pillar of democracy. So every opposition needs to be respected and try to find a solution

[gs1968]

Sportsmen come under EB1 which does not have the severity of backlog like EB2 or Eb3.

Also with country cap the wait time for a sportsman or nurse from India is longer than similar professions from other countries. Country caps are discriminatory, just compare two people with same professions/skills. Across professions why is wait for a sportsman over nurse more concerning than wait for a doctor over nurse.

With the globalization wave getting a pause (if not reversal) there is no chance for increase in GCs regardless of the party in power. There will be redistribution across countries or categories. Family based categories will have to be reduced if EB has to be increased slightly along with country cap elimination. Durbin’s plan will just kill the whole issue and set the momentum 10-15 years back. Even if no compromise can be reached with him, the noise and shaming are bringing the urgency and importance to the issue that it deserves.

To Ghostwriter

What do you imply by globalization reversal and the association with green card numbers?

[qesehmk]

Ghost it has been at least 2-3 years i believe you posted .. or perhaps i didn't notice. Anyway good to hear from you.

Regarding reversal of globalization .... i will say ... be prepared for reversal of the reversal of globalization. Why? Because the whole nationalistic thought was a reaction to losing out to globalization. We see that in US Aussie UK (where I first hand saw polish workers being discriminated against) hungary and even in India.

See ... there is no stopping globalization. Money is a great equalizing force. And it likes ROI. So in the end money will equalize nationalize borders.

Bottomline in US - This nationalistic wave will subside and globalization will continue in a few years. If that does not happen ... even country caps are difficult to remove.

So you might as well build a collective front of India and all other countries rather than try to create a zero sum game.


Sportsmen come under EB1 which does not have the severity of backlog like EB2 or Eb3.

Also with country cap the wait time for a sportsman or nurse from India is longer than similar professions from other countries. Country caps are discriminatory, just compare two people with same professions/skills. Across professions why is wait for a sportsman over nurse more concerning than wait for a doctor over nurse.

With the globalization wave getting a pause (if not reversal) there is no chance for increase in GCs regardless of the party in power. There will be redistribution across countries or categories. Family based categories will have to be reduced if EB has to be increased slightly along with country cap elimination. Durbin’s plan will just kill the whole issue and set the momentum 10-15 years back. Even if no compromise can be reached with him, the noise and shaming are bringing the urgency and importance to the issue that it deserves.

[excalibur123]

I just meant that across nations and particularly US/UK protectionist policies are increasing. Both for outsourcing and immigration. Trade wars, check on immigration, Make in America, Brexit etc. The new narrative being embraced is that unchecked globalization (both outsourcing and immigration) has come at the expense of local people and industries. The fear of automation through AI is further compounding these concerns. Add to it the global slowdown and fear of US recession in next 1-2 years. One may agree or disagree about how true each of these things is but these concerns are going to drive political choices for a while imo. DoesnÂ’t matter who is in the white house. Earlier globalization used to be a Republican agenda and Trump won on the exact opposite agenda.

One would think that reducing outsourcing should call for more immigration but that does not seem to be the direction either.

There is no appetite for increase in immigration levels. Add to it the chaos in congress, what major bill or issue has been tackled in last 8-10 years - none, doesnÂ’t matter if its Dems or Republicans running the show. With that context it is a miracle that S386 has reached so close to the finish line.

Do you see it differently ? You always have very informed views with respect to bills and politics so would be interesting to know your thoughts.


I think I had raised it before and would state again - Backlogs are Democrats' bargaining chip for CIR. It has been known for a long time. Without that CIR would just look like benefiting DACA and DAPA folks - so not really a CIR.

So why would they give it up? What has changed on the ground?

In fact all this hue and cry would convince them even more that this is politically a very useful bargaining chip. Imagine the crowds of both DACA and Backlogged marching together for CIR!

Having said, I am in no way supporting any of this - just stating my opinion.

[gs1968]

This from Charles Kuck

"It now appears likely that #S386 will be coming up for a vote on the Senate floor sometime tomorrow. This is NOT a UC vote. It is straight-up 60% vote, so if you think #NoS386 is the best outcome, you should be calling your Senator at 202-224-3121 today to oppose this bill."
4 mins ago

Maybe some light at the end of the tunnel.

[gs1968]

I am sorry about the above post.IV has confirmed that it was fake news.Knowing so many families that would benefit from this,my excitement got the better of me.I should be more patient in the future
There still appears to be some confusion about this news but one thing IV has done in the past is to dispel rumors at the outset to prevent distraction.If this Bill were to be voted on tomorrow they would have clearly announced it on social media channels and encouraged every member in every state to call aggressively every Senator to get to the 60 vote threshold.

[abcx13]

What about the suing the federal government idea?

IANAL, but I think the companies might have standing to sue the government for forcing them to take national origin into account. But I think the easier path to go would be getting them to support the bill on the hill and push for it with Durbin or anyone else rather than suing the government when Big Tech is already in the crosshairs for all sorts of things.

[gs1968]

Just a quick Senate Floor Update for people who missed it
Sen.Durbin asked again for unanimous consent for his RELIEF Act and Sen.Thune objected to it on Sen.Lee's behalf
Sen.Durbin made a floor speech after the objection and I have copied the text from the floor transcript

"I'M SORRY FOR THIS OBJECTION AND I THANK THE SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA FOR COMING TO THE FLOOR ON BEHALF OF THE SENATOR FROM UTAH. I'VE BEEN IN COMMUNICATION WITH THE SENATOR FROM UTAH. I HOPE HE'LL JOIN ME IN ASKING FOR A HEARING. THIS IS AN ISSUE WHICH LITERALLY AFFECTS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY, MANY OF WHOM HAVE BEEN HERE FOR YEARS AND DECADES. PRACTICING PHYSICIANS IN MY HOMETOWN OF SPRINGFIELD ARE AFFECTED BY THIS DEBATE. THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEIR FUTURE WILL BE AND THE FUTURE OF THEIR CHILDREN. I'M TRYING TO FIND A REASONABLE WAY TO WORK OUT A COMPROMISE ON THIS, AND I STAND READY TO DO SO. I HOPE SENATOR LEE WILL JOIN ME IN ASKING SENATORS GRAHAM AND CORNYN TO HAVE A HEARING BEFORE THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. I WANT TO EXTEND THIS INVITATiON TO SENATOR LEE TO JOIN SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE SIGNED A LETTER WITH ME TODAY REQUESTING THIS HEARING. I'M HAPPY TO SIT DOWN AND DISCUSS THIS ISSUE WITH THE SENIOR SENATOR FROM UTAH OR ANY OTHER SENATOR. IF WE WORK TOGETHER IN GOOD FAITH, I BELIEVE WE CAN REACH AN AGREEMENT, A BIPARTISAN AGREEMENT ON LEGISLATION THAT CAN PASS BOTH CHAMBERS AND BE SIGNED INTO LAW."

The Relief ACT now has 5 co-sponsors all Democrat. Hopefully a compromise will come soon

[qesehmk]

Just a quick Senate Floor Update for people who missed it


I'M TRYING TO FIND A REASONABLE WAY TO WORK OUT A COMPROMISE ON THIS, AND I STAND READY TO DO SO. I HOPE SENATOR LEE WILL JOIN ME

Is it any surprising? Durbin is not a jerk nor he hates Indians or immigrants. He just needs to carve out a win for himself first and then for his constituents. As simple as that. Lets hope Lee and Durbin can come together and merge relief act and s386 somehow.

[whereismygc]

by increasing the number GC's and keeping the same % allocation doesn't make significant change in backlogs but, over a period of time it will certainly ease the pressure.

Doubling the overall numbers, will instantly reduce backlog by 140K ... almost all of them from 2009-2011 timeframe. The overall backlog will be reduced in 3-5 years. In fact our estimate is that after backlogs are cleared the visas will start going waste.

[NJMavarick]

This forum has been awfully silent! Opinions on www.dropbox.com/s/mwvp4ec282x7bt7/S.%20386%20Amendment%20One%20Pager.doc?dl=0

[qesehmk]

This forum has been awfully silent! Opinions on www.dropbox.com/s/mwvp4ec282x7bt7/S.%20386%20Amendment%20One%20Pager.doc?dl=0 (http://www.dropbox.com/s/mwvp4ec282x7bt7/S.%20386%20Amendment%20One%20Pager.doc?dl=0)
I took a cursory look ... looks pretty good to me. Basically it will give benefits of GC while waiting for GC ...

[NJMavarick]

I took a cursory look ... looks pretty good to me. Basically it will give benefits of GC while waiting for GC ...

The 50:50 provision in the bill is why NASSCOM and ITServe are not on board with this. It looks good and I will take it any day! Durbin is on board with Lee, Cotton and Grassley. We will have to wait and watch..there could be other Senators who might oppose this...not to mention the whole process of reconciling with the house bill.

[abcx13]

Sounds like SD Sen Mike Rounds might block it now?

https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-S2603-Country-Cap
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/12/12/dairy-state-gop-senator-will-block-mike-lees-giveaway-to-indias-tech-workers/

[EB22010Dec]

Sounds like SD Sen Mike Rounds might block it now?

https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-S2603-Country-Cap
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/12/12/dairy-state-gop-senator-will-block-mike-lees-giveaway-to-indias-tech-workers/

This is news from 12/12 ... even before they reached the deal, he decided to block. Good stuff :)
I have 0 confidence at this point.

[NJMavarick]

This is news from 12/12 ... even before they reached the deal, he decided to block. Good stuff :)
I have 0 confidence at this point.

I would take this with a pinch of salt! These are 2 extreme right wing sites. The 50:50 provision would make them happy.

[abcx13]

Update 12/18/19: Sen. Durbin and Sen. Lee discussed S.386 on the Senate floor and postponed action
From: https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-S2603-Country-Cap

[abcx13]

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4840492/user-clip-durbin-lee-announce-reaching-agreement-s386

http://www.visalaw.com/section-section-summary-s-386-fairness-high-skilled-immigrants-act-2019/

[qesehmk]

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4840492/user-clip-durbin-lee-announce-reaching-agreement-s386

http://www.visalaw.com/section-section-summary-s-386-fairness-high-skilled-immigrants-act-2019/

This is unbelievably sane compromise. IMHO the chance of this passing senate and congress is almost 80-90%.

I think Dick Durbin is the main architect of this compromise and has shown his genius in reaching this compromise.

In nutshell - this compromise
a) brings all countries on equal footing
b) ensures backlogs are addressed without hurting current "current" ROW
c) ensures other key categories important to economy are addressed
d) protects aging out children
e) allows job switching and early filing of GC
f) does not increase GC cap

and thus is palatable (spelling?) to majority of senate and congress.


This bill will make backlog a universal pain and thus in 5-10 years it will force US to raise overall GC cap to 250K. And we all must recognize Durbin's genius in this.

Action
Please send an email to Durbin as well as Mike Lee to add a provision to count EB dependents towards family quota (at least for first 3 years)
This will relieve EB pressure and backlogs dramatically. Effectively it will make 150K more GCs available to EB every year.

[abcx13]

Two bucks says someone else will come out of the woodwork to block the amended bill for some stupid selfish reason. :(

[Blue_fairy]

Good news!! Dick Durbin has removed his hold on 386. Hopefully, 386 will come up for UC again soon in the senate and hopefully this time it will be passed.

[idliman]

Good news!! Dick Durbin has removed his hold on 386. Hopefully, 386 will come up for UC again soon in the senate and hopefully this time it will be passed.
Good to see some movement. However, the 50/50 provision (companies with 50 or more employees and 50% on H1B) may be the poison pill this time around. I see opposition from IT companies.

[srimurthy]

This is unbelievably sane compromise. IMHO the chance of this passing senate and congress is almost 80-90%.

This will relieve EB pressure and backlogs dramatically. Effectively it will make 150K more GCs available to EB every year.[/COLOR]

*****
Section 7. Adjustment of Status for Employment-Based Immigrants.

No comparable version in the House.

Non-immigrants in valid status who have an immigrant visa petition filed under an EB-1, EB-2 or EB-3 category may file an application with USCIS to adjust status if the petition has been approved or if the petition has been pending for more than 270 days, regardless of whether an immigrant visa is immediately available at the time the application is filed. Dependents filing to adjust based on this provision can continue to qualify as a dependent child regardless of the individual’s age or whether the principal beneficiary has died. Applicants filing to adjust based on this provision shall be eligible for work and travel authorization. The adjustment application may not be approved until after the immigrant visa becomes available.
****

Does the above mean we can file 485 if the I-140 has been approved and the dates did not become current. So the AoS and AP are available with EADs to all after 270 days?

[bloddy1]

This is unbelievably sane compromise. IMHO the chance of this passing senate and congress is almost 80-90%.

I think Dick Durbin is the main architect of this compromise and has shown his genius in reaching this compromise and thus is palatable (spelling?) to majority of senate and congress.


This bill will make backlog a universal pain and thus in 5-10 years it will force US to raise overall GC cap to 250K. And we all must recognize Durbin's genius in this.
[/COLOR]

Amen to that Bro, Completely Agree. This benefits the FAMILIES that are living day in day out in limbo. Whatever 'poison pills' the detractors are talking - 50:50 etc.,. is for Big corps which is workable, they can get around it by creating umbrella of companies. But honestly, even if not and helps the families, we should all support with 'blood & sweat' to get it pushed through .

Because the bottom line is the bill has 24-months before it needs to be re-introduced in House & Senate. The likelihood of this bill passing in election year 2020 is 5% at best. So early 2021 in new administration is when it will be passed and effective fiscal 2022. So any real benefit is not until Oct 2021/2022 but it would still be a windfall for anyone who is Dec 2009 priority date & beyond.

[NJMavarick]

Amen to that Bro, Completely Agree. This benefits the FAMILIES that are living day in day out in limbo. Whatever 'poison pills' the detractors are talking - 50:50 etc.,. is for Big corps which is workable, they can get around it by creating umbrella of companies. But honestly, even if not and helps the families, we should all support with 'blood & sweat' to get it pushed through .

Because the bottom line is the bill has 24-months before it needs to be re-introduced in House & Senate. The likelihood of this bill passing in election year 2020 is 5% at best. So early 2021 in new administration is when it will be passed and effective fiscal 2022. So any real benefit is not until Oct 2021/2022 but it would still be a windfall for anyone who is Dec 2009 priority date & beyond.


24 months? This bill has a chance until 2020 and after that it will have to be re-introduced. The bill in its current would be implemented with a start date of October 2020. The goal is to have it passed this year and probably in the next couple of months.

[bloddy1]

The goal is to have it passed this year and probably in the next couple of months.

See below from a chinese translation;
Solemnly declare that the content of this article is the copyright of the World Journal, and may not be arbitrarily reproduced, reproduced or copied without permission.
In the past few months, in the Senate of Congress, the S386, which attempted to pass the "Unanimous Consent" voting agenda, canceled the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act. (Dick Durbin) objected to being blocked again, but has recently raised concerns.


According to Indian lobbying organization Immigration Voice on its social platform in November, S386 sponsor senator Mike Lee will try to reach the Senate "consensus" vote, and S386 is expected to pass in the Senate two weeks later . Because the opposing senator Dick Durbin and the sponsor Mark Lee are making progress, it seems that Durbin has been persuaded to reach an agreement with the proposed lawmaker Mark Lee and no longer oppose the passage of S386.

Earlier, Voices of Indian Immigrants called on supporters to call Dr. Durbin's office to put pressure on him, saying that Mr. Durbin blocked S386 because of "hating Indians" and so on. Is Dr. Durbin pressured to relax and start thinking about not blocking S386? The Chinese opponents are very concerned. The organizer once again appeals to all interested Chinese skilled immigrants, foreign student opponents, and Chinese who are engaged in high-tech in the future. Call the relevant members of the parliament to prevent S386 from voting through the "sense consensus" of the Senate fast track. S386 Public Hearing procedures, enter the normal process of public debate in Congress, to discern the truth, rather than quietly pass through the so-called "consensus", because the S386 proposal to cancel the national quota of professional immigrants is very immigrants Important proposal.

Frank Tsang, an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles, said that he believes that S386 will not be easy to pass because the level of influence is very large. Once the implementation is completed, H-1B skilled worker applicants in other countries will be in the foreseeable future, all blocked by as many as 300,000 Indian applicants waiting to be scheduled, because the total quota has not increased. As far as he knows, for large high-tech companies, the stability of the personnel of the company's employees is very important. If employees need to stay in the company, unresolved identity issues can be a constraint. On the one hand, the salary company has the final say and cannot win more. Secondly, the identity issue is unresolved and cannot be moved while waiting for the green period, so it is not easy to change companies. Therefore, the current schedule is pending, which is more beneficial for high-tech companies to control talent.

He thought that high-tech companies might not really support the S386 adoption. These H-1B visa holders are slowly waiting for the schedule. It is not in the interests of the company that their status is limited and they are unlikely to require higher salaries.

Attorney Zang pointed out that even if the Senate has the opportunity to pass the S386 bill, it will not be easy for the president to pass. Therefore, it is unlikely that S386 will be passed before the end of the year. In the next election year, it will be even easier to pass such a controversial bill. In short, in the final analysis, the reason for the problem is not enough green card visas. What is needed is to change the structure of immigration, increase the number of professionals with professional skills that are more favorable to the United States, and financially-benefiting EB professional immigrants to help the United States develop the economy.

[idliman]

Found an interesting read countering S386 by an user lobbying in a forum.

If u r in h1b today, its a pain for u to switch ur job due to h1 transfer hassles. however, it is equally difficult for ur employer to replace u bcoz of the same h1 transfer hassle. its not easy to replace u with an OPT either bcoz they have to file a h1 in a yr or two and it comes with uncertainity of lottery and they have to maintain minimum wage levels. both of u r in a status quo situation.

u get ur EAD and are now free to work for anyone and u feel it gives u a better bargaining position with your employer to get a raise to 90k. However, ur employer now has a much bigger pool of readily available talent with I140 EAD to choose from which wasnt the case earlier. the increase in resource pool for the employer is >>> the number of job options available for a single individual who has to look into multiple other constraints (kids school, relocation, wife job location, etc). In the IT industry with fast paced technology changes, its far more beneficial for an employer to replace a senior guy than try to retain the talent. its advantage employers who can further drive down benefits.

A majority of the beneficiaries if s386 goes through will feel the pain once reality hits as the now rare and difficult to get GC is a common commodity which has lost its sheen and will not have the protection of minimum wage rules of h1b.

What we have now is a mess, but what is proposed will make it worse.
The argument is people without current skills will lose (with a spin). Isn't it the whole point of free market economy. Definitely there are some scared people with GCs or Citizenship afraid of the consequences of S386. However, for a non-immigrant waiting for a Green Card and worried of his kids aging out, anything to improve the situation is good. For them it is basic necessity. However, some people (like the user quoted above) with GCs/Citizenship are afraid that their dessert pudding is being taken away.

[NJMavarick]

---Copy paste from another forum----

A - No Harm clause removed.

B. Instead of a 3 year transition, a 9 year transition is being proposed. Year 1 - 30% reserved for ROW(42,000 if using 140k as the base), Year 2 - 25% reserved (35,000), Year 3 - 20% (28,000), Year 4 - 15% reserved (21,000 green cards), Year 5 and 6 - 10% (14,000), Year 7,8,9 reserve 5% or 7000 green cards for ROW. More green cards are given to offset the no harm clause and a longer transition period.

C. For seven years 2020 - 2026, about 4400 green cards reserved for Nurses and other occupations (Rand Paul and Perdue Amendment)

D. Effective date for the 50/50% amendement put by Sen. Durbin to start 3 years after enactment of the act. If signed by President in say April 1, 2020, then to start on April 1, 2023 or thereabouts.

E. People who have approved I-140 for over 2 years can apply for I-485 and receive EAD/AP travel authorization. Earlier version it was 270 days.

F. USCIS can charge money to do E.

[gs1968]

---Copy paste from another forum----

A - No Harm clause removed.

B. Instead of a 3 year transition, a 9 year transition is being proposed. Year 1 - 30% reserved for ROW(42,000 if using 140k as the base), Year 2 - 25% reserved (35,000), Year 3 - 20% (28,000), Year 4 - 15% reserved (21,000 green cards), Year 5 and 6 - 10% (14,000), Year 7,8,9 reserve 5% or 7000 green cards for ROW. More green cards are given to offset the no harm clause and a longer transition period.

C. For seven years 2020 - 2026, about 4400 green cards reserved for Nurses and other occupations (Rand Paul and Perdue Amendment)

D. Effective date for the 50/50% amendement put by Sen. Durbin to start 3 years after enactment of the act. If signed by President in say April 1, 2020, then to start on April 1, 2023 or thereabouts.

E. People who have approved I-140 for over 2 years can apply for I-485 and receive EAD/AP travel authorization. Earlier version it was 270 days.

F. USCIS can charge money to do E.

The main reason for the increase to the 2 year waiting period is to prevent STEM OPTs from filing I-140 and getting EADs before the 2 year period allowed for them. The No Harm clause was never clearly explained as to how it was going to be implemented. All it said was that nobody would have to wait longer than what they would under the current system. The delay in the 50/50 rule is probably to give the companies more time to restructure their work force. Maybe you can clarify if that rule applied to only initial filings or to renewals also. These are not minor edits as claimed especially the 2 year waiting period for EADs which I think is the main sticking point. Senator Durbin does not want to lose STEM talent from other parts of the world by increasing their wait time and although an increase in GCs would have been more ideal at least the ability to apply for EADs would be enough of a carrot to let them stay till further reforms are enacted sometime in the future

[NJMavarick]

Agree! D and E are going to be problematic and given the fact that H1B numbers are not going to be increased, you may have a lot of ROW folks who may not be able to stay which in my opinion levels the playing field.

[abcx13]

I think it is a unanimous consent request next week

I hope it passes and can be reconciled with HR1044.

I* posted this on their FB over the weekend blaming Durbin again, so who knows what will happen:


#UPDATE #DANGER #Beware #Treachery #SABOTAGE

Dear Friends,

As you might have been anticipating, Senator Lee has been working hard to work with his colleagues to get the amended #S386 where it can pass the Senate. To further that effort, he has been consulting with the Senate Offices that were not consulted during the negotiations with Senator Dick Durbin. As the result, these Senate Offices have requested MINOR changes to the Durbin Amendment to accommodate concerns by Senate Democrats, Republicans and Federal agencies like DHS. These changes were communicated to Senator Durbin’s office yesterday.

We believe that these are fair edits to the bill with changing the three-year transition period of 15%, 10%, 10% reserved for people enjoying special treatment for the “special skill” of being born in small countries to a nine-year transition period of 30%, 25%, 20%, 15%, 10%, 10%, 5%, 5%, 5% for the same people. As you can see, we made further concessions just so all sides could reach a consensus and the bill could pass.

Sadly, it seems as if instead of negotiating with Senator Lee in good faith, Senator Durbin has chosen to leak the substance of these changes to vested interests like shady immigration lawyers - who are minting obscene amounts of money by filing endless H1-B renewals - over the bodies of our members who are living as indentured servants and dying in the backlog - while widows, children and spouses who have spent decades in America self-deport. Some lawyers are now attacking the minor changes necessary to get #S386 done ( https://twitter.com/ckuck/status/1233173615673085952 ).

We will not be fooled - minor changes should not derail a bill that ends inequality, injustice, and racism in our immigration law. People who claim to be for immigrants who oppose the bill because of changes made for administrability purposes are showing they are truly for-profit racists.

If Senator Durbin does not negotiate in good faith regarding administrability changes requested by Senate offices that were not in the room when he made changes to the bill, we will hold Senator Durbin accountable for killing the bill. As we announced in our message dated 2nd October, 2019, we have known Senator Durbin’s prejudice towards Indian immigrants all along. We know that he did not add his amendment as a good-faith effort, but rather, he injected the poison pill into the bill. And his actions are proving us right, and the whole world will witness that Senator Dick Durbin is nothing but a racist who wants the systematic ethnic cleansing of Indian immigrants from the United States. We ask Senator Durbin to not ask Doctors to serve on the front lines to save lives in America if he doesn’t acknowledge their basic humanity.

In order to combat any mis-information and rumors being spread by lawyers, racists and other vested interests, we have no choice now but to release to you the latest amendment, so you can see for yourself how minor these changes are: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyzfnj2fwjhqkwp/

In the near future, we will find out if we were right all along about Senator Durbin on October 2nd ( https://www.facebook.com/…/we-will-never-…/2654882897911251/ ), or if Senator Durbin will live up to his own word- if he is honest and has any integrity based on his words on December 18th - when he promised to work in good faith to get #S386 done ( https://www.c-span.org/video/… )

Please be prepared to follow all action items diligently and precisely. Do no more and no less than we request of you.

Team IV

PS: Please share this post.

[qesehmk]

I hope it passes and can be reconciled with HR1044.

I* posted this on their FB over the weekend blaming Durbin again, so who knows what will happen:
Wow this letter is a shame. If I were any senator - democrat or republican - I would be inclined a little less to vote in favor of the bill.

[gs1968]

To abcx13
There are differing versions of what actually happened but I am not sure why they are stressed about it. The amendment would have become public anyway unless they wanted to sneak it through before any meaningful opposition built up for this. Anyway the cat is out of the bag but I am confident that Sen. Durbin's pragmatism will prevail and a solution will be found. Hypocritically they keep pointing fingers at Sen.Durbin but did not mention who the GOP objectors were. Thanks to Twitter we know Sen.Cotton was one of them.

[srimurthy]

To abcx13
There are differing versions of what actually happened but I am not sure why they are stressed about it. The amendment would have become public anyway unless they wanted to sneak it through before any meaningful opposition built up for this. Anyway the cat is out of the bag but I am confident that Sen. Durbin's pragmatism will prevail and a solution will be found. Hypocritically they keep pointing fingers at Sen.Durbin but did not mention who the GOP objectors were. Thanks to Twitter we know Sen.Cotton was one of them.

The letter and bickering just means that nothing may pass this week.

[abcx13]

The letter and bickering just means that nothing may pass this week.
Yes, this is what I fear. Why post that attack on Durbin if you had a deal? And that rant is totally incoherent - not sure what Durbin screwed up or what he takes issue with.

[gten20]

The letter and bickering just means that nothing may pass this week.


Yes, this is what I fear. Why post that attack on Durbin if you had a deal? And that rant is totally incoherent - not sure what Durbin screwed up or what he takes issue with.

Exactly, this is what IV fears and their post is a 'We told you so' alibi. It feels like they lack emotional strength and composure. I don't know how they don't get it that this is not a good look for them, if they want to work with politicians. I still feel they have the best shot for getting something done and the biggest voice for Indian EB Immigrants, but I do not understand some of their actions. Only time will tell.

[GCMirage]

What is wrong with IV? It is common sense that one should do NO HARM when dealing with senior politicians/senators, if they cannot make friends atleast don't make an enemy out of him. It is hard to wrap one's head around the allegation that Senator Durbin is anti India because he knows very well that there is a large contingent of Indians in Chicagoland and in Bloomington who lean mostly democratic. One other reason not to pick fights with a senior senator is, he is not going anywhere i.e., I don't see him losing his seat anytime soon, so why burn bridges.... What am I missing?

[qesehmk]

dick durbin is one of the most liberal pro immigrant senators in the senate. Given that FB is much larger than EB he has to weigh both sides.
Secondly, I suspect his mom is lithuanian jew. Jews usually like Indian people. So if my guess is correct he will at least not be an anti-india person as IV makes it out.

As others have said - I do wish IV actually succeeds for the sake of all EB backlogged folks. But they did come across extremely entitled. One must understand immigration is privilege not a right. Also one must understand their own power vis a vis key players and accordingly create a strategy that fulfils everybody's interest.

IV showed bad faith and pinned blame on senator durbin even before the vote. I do not know when the vote is scheduled. But I do think a simple campaign of sending personal emails and stories to Durbin's office would have been the most effective strategy.

[NJMavarick]

Wow this letter is a shame. If I were any senator - democrat or republican - I would be inclined a little less to vote in favor of the bill.

True! However, no one knows how much of direct access does IV have or is IV even on the negotiating table? This certainly is questionable tactics.

[abcx13]

Breitbart (yes, biased I know) quotes a Lee spokesman as saying as he has "no immediate plans for a UC".

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2020/03/03/mike-lee-rewrites-s-386-giveaway-bill-helps-indias-outsourcing-companies/

[GhostWriter]

Q
This is not very helpful or fair.

1. The change for legal immigration has been tried over several administrations now, across both parties. If and when anything passes it will likely be because of bipartisan support. This bill is also hugely supported by both parties. People looking for change need both parties, they currently are far from having voting rights. You are expressing and mixing your personal political views with a bipartisan cause. For rest of us, we can have strong right/left/center political views but they are only theoretical. We are largely globally disenfranchised residents who don't get to vote anywhere in the world.

2. I V imo is a role model of advocacy and bringing change in democracy especially in today’s world. They have not made the government, the citizens or any of the parties their enemy and worked with both democrats and republicans regardless of who has been in power. The recent frustration against Durbin is only against one individual exercising his veto and not against a party, this is a huge distinction to be made. One can debate how wise it is, imo it is completely fair. I understand you disagree and that is fine too.

3. Purely with respect to labelling right wing as racist or left wing as communist is lazy thinking and not political analysis. There is fringe on both sides. They do not represent the party or the policies no matter how much opposite side claims.

4. I liked the recommendation you gave to someone else last week -
"Perhaps good idea to check 3 gates of speech !! Is it true? Is it kind? Does it improve silence?".
I am not sure your personal political views overlaid over immigration bill that needs bipartisan support or your views on I V from 10+ years ago pass these tests. Just imagine people with just 2 years over your priority date have spent over 10 years more than you in the wait. It is pure luck, have compassion for the not so lucky ones instead of anger for those who can help them, be it politicians you dislike or I V. A humble request. That would also be the liberal approach.





These right wing nuts don't deserve any room for doubt. They are racist. Period. Never ever mistake them for anything else.

Their boss is on record saying very clearly that immigration from Norway is good but others not so.

They are not fighting for little guy in Pennsylvania; they are fighting with an imaginary cultural attack from not-white people. If these guys were indeed worried about the little guy in PA then they would have fought for him long time back when millions of low paying manufacturing jobs moved to China. Even today most of Trump stuff is made in China. (which by the way I am all for. I am just pointing out the hypocrisy).

The liberal+libertarian masonic system of American government has created unprecedented wealth for all sections of the society here in the US. These extreme right wing morons if unchecked are going to ruin it. As far as immigrants go, I can't stress it enough, you can use republicans all you want. But, while there certainly are many good republicans; the fact of the matter is, the racists by and large belong to GOP.

[qesehmk]

Ghost

My observation about right wing folks has nothing to do with IV. They are two separate issues.




Q
This is not very helpful or fair.

1. The change for legal immigration has been tried over several administrations now, across both parties. If and when anything passes it will likely be because of bipartisan support. This bill is also hugely supported by both parties. People looking for change need both parties, they currently are far from having voting rights. You are expressing and mixing your personal political views with a bipartisan cause. For rest of us, we can have strong right/left/center political views but they are only theoretical. We are largely globally disenfranchised residents who don't get to vote anywhere in the world.

2. I V imo is a role model of advocacy and bringing change in democracy especially in today’s world. They have not made the government, the citizens or any of the parties their enemy and worked with both democrats and republicans regardless of who has been in power. The recent frustration against Durbin is only against one individual exercising his veto and not against a party, this is a huge distinction to be made. One can debate how wise it is, imo it is completely fair. I understand you disagree and that is fine too.

3. Purely with respect to labelling right wing as racist or left wing as communist is lazy thinking and not political analysis. There is fringe on both sides. They do not represent the party or the policies no matter how much opposite side claims.

4. I liked the recommendation you gave to someone else last week -
"Perhaps good idea to check 3 gates of speech !! Is it true? Is it kind? Does it improve silence?".
I am not sure your personal political views overlaid over immigration bill that needs bipartisan support or your views on I V from 10+ years ago pass these tests. Just imagine people with just 2 years over your priority date have spent over 10 years more than you in the wait. It is pure luck, have compassion for the not so lucky ones instead of anger for those who can help them, be it politicians you dislike or I V. A humble request. That would also be the liberal approach.

[srimurthy]

I guess it would have made more sense to highlight the scenarios and impact by IV to Durbin than calling names.
We could have stated a few examples, showing people from India coming in 2007-2010, with PDs in 2009 to 2011 having one or two year olds, still do not have EADs and SSNs for dependents.
The kids would be around 13 to 15 and getting into college in a couple of years with no SSNs and can't get any internship or work experience.

And not counting the people on H1, who can't start a business with any ideas they have and with those 10 to 15 years gaps the ideas may now be longer feasible. For an enterprise to establish and flourish time is of essence.
Where as person from another country around the same time with a same PD is already greened in 2011 or 2012 and changed to a citizen if wanted to by 2016 or so. The kids are also citizens.
They can start and explore any ideas for business ventures from 2011 itself with EADs. and from 2012 or 2016 can also sponsor parents for GCs in the family category. So this anyway indirectly adds to the GC factor.

So the US economy itself is loosing that the people in backlog can't start business increasing employment and also the kids who grew up here all along can't contribute back from what they learned.

[abcx13]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/immigration-voice/how-many-indians-immigrants-must-die-before-senator-durbin-will-acknowledge-our-/3006241826108688/

[qesehmk]

IV has clearly chosen its side and is trying to make a deal with the devil. A deal is long overdue. But using outright stupid phrases like Durbin-Widow is incredibly stupidly populist. It is noteworthy that such vilification was not never inflicted on Nebrasca Senator Chuck Grassley who is about as rabidly anti-immigrant senator as there ever was. Neither such scorn was reserved for AILA who just last week provided a very twisted way of opposing S386.

So why only Sen. Durbin is being singled out?

I think IV is being played by the right wing in rallying Indian immigrant community against democrats and with republicans in this election year. I personally don't care what your political views are. But choosing sides during an immigration battle and that too choosing the side that is so clearly anti-immigrant does not bode well for S386 or any other future bill. This letter is a slap in the face of Zoe Lofgren the very first politician and a democrat who tabled a bill that asked for removing country caps. This letter conveniently forgets all the efforts by the republicans to stop any immigration reforms under both George W Bush and Obama.

It is important to take a stand against injustice. But while doing so IV seems to be getting trapped in partisan politics. They continue to be naive. It hardly surprises me. Heck they wouldn't know head or tail of immigration without us. But that's a debate for another day. As per today - do call Durbin but if you want to be effective, clearly say that you don't agree with IV in vilifying him personally but that you are asking for his unconditional support for S386 AS IS.

He and every other senator - can and will do what s/he will. But don't get played by partisan politics.

[NJMavarick]

IV has clearly chosen its side and is trying to make a deal with the devil. A deal is long overdue. But using outright stupid phrases like Durbin-Widow is incredibly stupidly populist. It is noteworthy that such vilification was not never inflicted on Nebrasca Senator Chuck Grassley who is about as rabidly anti-immigrant senator as there ever was. Neither such scorn was reserved for AILA who just last week provided a very twisted way of opposing S386.

So why only Sen. Durbin is being singled out?

I think IV is being played by the right wing in rallying Indian immigrant community against democrats and with republicans in this election year. I personally don't care what your political views are. But choosing sides during an immigration battle and that too choosing the side that is so clearly anti-immigrant does not bode well for S386 or any other future bill. This letter is a slap in the face of Zoe Lofgren the very first politician and a democrat who tabled a bill that asked for removing country caps. This letter conveniently forgets all the efforts by the republicans to stop any immigration reforms under both George W Bush and Obama.

It is important to take a stand against injustice. But while doing so IV seems to be getting trapped in partisan politics. They continue to be naive. It hardly surprises me. Heck they wouldn't know head or tail of immigration without us. But that's a debate for another day. As per today - do call Durbin but if you want to be effective, clearly say that you don't agree with IV in vilifying him personally but that you are asking for his unconditional support for S386 AS IS.

He and every other senator - can and will do what s/he will. But don't get played by partisan politics.

I am neither a member of IV nor do I support the language they are using. However, there is no doubt that Durbin is the roadblock here and Lee has kept his promise of bringing the republicans on board. The only person who is trying to derail the bill is Durbin and why? Does he not know about children aging out or people dying in the backlog? IV had to come out and call him out considering Lee did his part. I really do not think they are playing partisan over here. Being the minority whip, its Durbin's responsibility to brings the Ds on board but he is clearly delaying the bill for reasons unknown.

I agree with you that we do have a few on the Republican side who are clearly anti-immigrant but the Ds are no saints either. They clearly favor the undocumented over the legals!

[qesehmk]

NJ thanks. Just think for a second what Unanimous Consent (UC) is. UC is a way to fast track something. Now on a contencious bill such as immigration why would anyone try for UC? The only reason is they want to give this a lip service.

So who is bluffing here. It's the republicans. And who is the sucker. It's IV.


I am neither a member of IV nor do I support the language they are using. However, there is no doubt that Durbin is the roadblock here and Lee has kept his promise of bringing the republicans on board. The only person who is trying to derail the bill is Durbin and why? Does he not know about children aging out or people dying in the backlog? IV had to come out and call him out considering Lee did his part. I really do not think they are playing partisan over here. Being the minority whip, its Durbin's responsibility to brings the Ds on board but he is clearly delaying the bill for reasons unknown.

I agree with you that we do have a few on the Republican side who are clearly anti-immigrant but the Ds are no saints either. They clearly favor the undocumented over the legals!

[NJMavarick]

NJ thanks. Just think for a second what Unanimous Consent (UC) is. UC is a way to fast track something. Now on a contencious bill such as immigration why would anyone try for UC? The only reason is they want to give this a lip service.

So who is bluffing here. It's the republicans. And who is the sucker. It's IV.

Well, on one side we have people who think that such a small bill would never be considered by Mitch as a candidate for floor voting so UC is the way to go and on the other we have your opinion which is that this is a contentious immigration bill which should not be taken up via UC due to the sensitivity of the topic and floor voting is the way to go.

Honestly, I think IV has just become a front to relay the news. There are bigger forces (i.e. Tech companies) at work who do not want this endless cycle of extensions because of the cost involved and on the other we have the notorious ITServe alliance who would feel empowered with the recent lawsuit win against USCIS.

This is an election year and Mitch is already busy with judicial appointments and it would take a miracle for this bill to come to the floor for voting. Lee may have already explored that route and he definitely seems committed to get this bill done. In conclusion, if Durbin negotiates in all fairness, he should be able to work this out. The ball is in his court. I hope you have seen the video of Durbin mocking the backlogged folks in one of his townhalls. What do you have to say about that?

[qesehmk]

Well, on one side we have people who think that such a small bill would never be considered by Mitch as a candidate for floor voting so UC is the way to go and on the other we have your opinion which is that this is a contentious immigration bill which should not be taken up via UC due to the sensitivity of the topic and floor voting is the way to go.

Honestly, I think IV has just become a front to relay the news. There are bigger forces (i.e. Tech companies) at work who do not want this endless cycle of extensions because of the cost involved and on the other we have the notorious ITServe alliance who would feel empowered with the recent lawsuit win against USCIS.

This is an election year and Mitch is already busy with judicial appointments and it would take a miracle for this bill to come to the floor for voting. Lee may have already explored that route and he definitely seems committed to get this bill done. In conclusion, if Durbin negotiates in all fairness, he should be able to work this out. The ball is in his court. I hope you have seen the video of Durbin mocking the backlogged folks in one of his townhalls. What do you have to say about that?

NJ - this is not a small bill by any means. It will fundamentally change the immigration pattern and accelerate browning of America, something current president and his followers are staunchly opposed to.

As per Durbin video - haven't seen it and I find it hard to believe he would mock an entire community. Have you seen it? Please post a link so all people see this and make their own judgement.

[NJMavarick]

NJ - this is not a small bill by any means. It will fundamentally change the immigration pattern and accelerate browning of America, something current president and his followers are staunchly opposed to.

As per Durbin video - haven't seen it and I find it hard to believe he would mock an entire community. Have you seen it?

Yes - I saw the video where a paper green card was handed over by antis S386 bill (i.e read it was an Iranian) to Durbin who was laughing and making a mockery of the plight of the backlogged folks. It was all over the immigration forums. I am unable to find the link now.

To your point of browning of America, this bill just gives GCs to people who are already here. If they want to stop the browning then its not this bill, they need to stop H1B. People are already here and just waiting in the endless cycles of H1B extensions. No H1B, no GCs.

[FarAwayfromGC]

Yes - I saw the video where a paper green card was handed over by antis S386 bill (i.e read it was an Iranian) to Durbin who was laughing and making a mockery of the plight of the backlogged folks. It was all over the immigration forums. I am unable to find the link now.

To your point of browning of America, this bill just gives GCs to people who are already here. If they want to stop the browning then its not this bill, they need to stop H1B. People are already here and just waiting in the endless cycles of H1B extensions. No H1B, no GCs.

I have seen it too, it was not fair for any one to act like that, specially being under oath of upholding American constitution.

Link available in this article.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-senator-richard-j-durbin-under-attack-for-mocking-indians/story-nhsMgq3gDAHI3V7YpKuLPK.html

Also, read 29th amendment to the constitution of the US. It forces Congress to face the mathematical realities of immigration policy as an integral component of population management policy, instead of only viewing it as “our heritage” or as some kind of fulfillment of an unspoken promise to the rest of the world.

Another document is the Declaration of Independence, which contains these words:

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal."

Those words did not free the slaves, but they started a movement for equal rights for all Americans but not for "all men" meaning anyone born in the world.

There is no solution to this hypocrisy. Enjoy what you have today !!!

[abcx13]

NJ - this is not a small bill by any means. It will fundamentally change the immigration pattern and accelerate browning of America, something current president and his followers are staunchly opposed to.

As per Durbin video - haven't seen it and I find it hard to believe he would mock an entire community. Have you seen it? Please post a link so all people see this and make their own judgement.

Yes, I saw the Durbin video. Unbelievable and openly mocking and racist. The Democrats are just as racist as the Republicans. They just hide it better.

[qesehmk]

I think people are getting caught into style vs substance. But I will leave it to individuals to look up the video and judge. What I see is that Durbin's simply said thank you to the person who gave him a mock green card. It was in poor taste but not racist.

On the other hand - the current president has openly said he does not welcome immigration from $hit--- countries and Norway would be fine. That is text book racist.

People like me are already past the pain of GC. Those who are suffering you know your own interests best. You all are extremely capable, accomplished, and independent people. So I don't mean to lead you into any direction. I wish you all godspeed to your Green Card, Freedom, and justice.

[NJMavarick]

I think people are getting caught into style vs substance. But I will leave it to individuals to look up the video and judge. What I see is that Durbin's simply said thank you to the person who gave him a mock green card. It was in poor taste but not racist.

On the other hand - the current president has openly said he does not welcome immigration from $hit--- countries and Norway would be fine. That is text book racist.

People like me are already past the pain of GC. Those who are suffering you know your own interests best. You all are extremely capable, accomplished, and independent people. So I don't mean to lead you into any direction. I wish you all godspeed to your Green Card, Freedom, and justice.

Thank you Q! We totally get your point of view and are grateful for this forum. All I am saying is that we have idiots on both sides of the aisle.

BTW, this pandemic is only going to make things more worse. Once the corona virus issue fades off, we might be staring at a recession. About this bill, we are pretty close to the finish line (I think) and Durbin has all the cards.

[qesehmk]

Thank you Q! We totally get your point of view and are grateful for this forum. All I am saying is that we have idiots on both sides of the aisle.

BTW, this pandemic is only going to make things more worse. Once the corona virus issue fades off, we might be staring at a recession. About this bill, we are pretty close to the finish line (I think) and Durbin has all the cards.
I think everybody should read how unanimous consent works. I remember how McCain's immigration bill could not be passed by a simple majority. What chance this has to get a unanimous consent? Just use some common sense. This makes me believe firmly that IV is only showboating. They don't understand nothing about senate business and games. I doubt if they are really at the table. I think republicans are playing them like a drum.

As I said ... all of you just go and read unanimous consent and how it is usually used for trivial things to lessen senate burden and not used to really push through serious legislation (unless it is of course national emergency like corona virus).

[NJMavarick]

I think everybody should read how unanimous consent works. I remember how McCain's immigration bill could not be passed by a simple majority. What chance this has to get a unanimous consent? Just use some common sense. This makes me believe firmly that IV is only showboating. They don't understand nothing about senate business and games. I doubt if they are really at the table. I think republicans are playing them like a drum.

As I said ... all of you just go and read unanimous consent and how it is usually used for trivial things to lessen senate burden and not used to really push through serious legislation (unless it is of course national emergency like corona virus).

I have been been getting conflicting reports from the Telegram groups where it seems Lee is no longer willing to do anything further due to further changes requested by Durbin. Not sure how much of this is true. IV seems to have been renegated to just a front to pass on the news. I do not think they have any leverage. While I am confident that the Senators understand the severity but it is unclear if they would decide to action upon it. At this point I do not see this going anywhere due to the corona virus issue.

[rocketfast]

IMO, the bill summary says unused greencards from 1992 to 2020. The last number gives me shivers. With general republican opposition for more GCs, the bill may get amended with taking this year's unused GCs and give it to healthcare professionals. Durbin may also have a vested interest in doing so.

[excalibur123]

When S386 got close over second half of last year, I was surprised by lack of general opposition to it from Democrats.

After all wasn’t it the goal to tie Daca Dapa and other programs with Backlogged to give it a shape of Comprehensive reform. Without backlogged folks it would like a bill for Illegal immigrants.

How can something so important be dropped without any apparent reason?

Did they simply lose interest, or the lone opposition to the bill actually represents a much bigger set of people who just don’t want to be seen?

[eaglenow]

When S386 got close over second half of last year, I was surprised by lack of general opposition to it from Democrats.

After all wasn’t it the goal to tie Daca Dapa and other programs with Backlogged to give it a shape of Comprehensive reform. Without backlogged folks it would like a bill for Illegal immigrants.

How can something so important be dropped without any apparent reason?

Did they simply lose interest, or the lone opposition to the bill actually represents a much bigger set of people who just don’t want to be seen?

It was very explicit understanding between the groups. When DACA was brought up earlier in the year, the agreement was IV would support it and stand back without lobbying to derail the bill. Regardless of outcome, those groups will support and not derail our bill. This came into being after it was tried and it seemed like DACA alone may pass. If it was possible to combine the two, it would have been.

Nothing happens on the hill without alliances and agreements. This new bill is DOA for the same reason and is for optics. Nurses, who don’t quality for any temp work visas getting GC before NIW researchers, scientists and PHDs? What about people working in medical devices industry, physical therapy, defense etc? If you look at the history, there has never been any area where government choosing the winners and losers through immigration. They can get some reserved for some time, but this large scale reservation to only doctors and nurses will not fly.

Sen. Durbin is trying to split the immigrant community and pit them against each other. He is pointing to DACA but ignoring the people already backlogged for decades. His hope is we will start attacking the DACA group, which he can use to wiggle his way out of the bill. There is a reason why there is no more opposition from any dems other than one.

When recapture was brought up in 2008, it was flatly rejected by some republicans and a few dems as well, for different reasons. The political climate was a lot better at that time. Now it is highly partisan.

Regardless if this bill passes, it is good for all. Now there would be no hiding behind “Healthcare will be impacted if 386 passes” excuse.

[excalibur123]

It was very explicit understanding between the groups. When DACA was brought up earlier in the year, the agreement was IV would support it and stand back without lobbying to derail the bill. Regardless of outcome, those groups will support and not derail our bill. This came into being after it was tried and it seemed like DACA alone may pass. If it was possible to combine the two, it would have been.

Nothing happens on the hill without alliances and agreements. This new bill is DOA for the same reason and is for optics. Nurses, who don’t quality for any temp work visas getting GC before NIW researchers, scientists and PHDs? What about people working in medical devices industry, physical therapy, defense etc? If you look at the history, there has never been any area where government choosing the winners and losers through immigration. They can get some reserved for some time, but this large scale reservation to only doctors and nurses will not fly.

Sen. Durbin is trying to split the immigrant community and pit them against each other. He is pointing to DACA but ignoring the people already backlogged for decades. His hope is we will start attacking the DACA group, which he can use to wiggle his way out of the bill. There is a reason why there is no more opposition from any dems other than one.

When recapture was brought up in 2008, it was flatly rejected by some republicans and a few dems as well, for different reasons. The political climate was a lot better at that time. Now it is highly partisan.

Regardless if this bill passes, it is good for all. Now there would be no hiding behind “Healthcare will be impacted if 386 passes” excuse.

Thanks for the response. You seem to be more aware of how IV is operating, so I will take that though I find it unconvincing because the larger goals of Democrats have still not been met.

On the other hand, passing this bill related to health care could be a masterstroke - because of its timing and that it separates physicians from rest of the crowd. Also in current situation (or possibly in all situations) it will have little opposition. While I do feel physicians do deserve this, this sword has the second edge of telling other backlogged folks that they are less deserving and therefore they will not recapture visas for them.

It is difficult to build opposition against Nurses in times of pandemic. Second, any country has the choice to mark some occupations as shortage occupations (as it already happens in other countries) - so by same concept Nurses are currently more important than Math or Physics PHDs and researchers. Lastly this is just the starting position, they may alter this based on some objections and include some other deserving groups you have mentioned. Therefore I feel it has strong possibility of passing - the optics of favoring doctors and nurses are awesome even in times of partisan politics - it was just never taken up before.

Lastly I think IV over-reached significantly with S386. Whatever be the numbers, whatever be the history and whatever be the principle they want to enforce - the solution which bars nearly all other kinds of nationalities or professions, is both short-sighted and dangerous. I had alluded the same to one of my past comments last year. S386 just doesn't pass the common-sense test. It would have been better if they had aimed for something more palatable and less objectionable. (e.g. max wait time - like say 8 yrs for EB3, 5 for EB2, 3 for EB1 - I know most EB-I folks would take that, for that brings certainty to the process.)

[qesehmk]

Once again I see unnecessary blamegame and dragging Durbin's name. I would urge you to please stop this nonsense. We have debated this many times.

IV clearly has oversold their reach on the hill and have been played by the republicans. Enough said.

As per this new bill by Durbin here are some facts:
1) Nurses already fall under EB3. Most of them come from philippines using CP.
2) The nurses backlog has already been substantially reduced. So they will have to make substantial efforts to recruit nurses from around the world if they really want to use all their desired quota.
3) This has a fair chance of passing given the urgency around covid situation which will persist for next 18 months (according to resp. disease experts).
4) This bill does not steal a single visa from EB. Rather it will give away visas to other categories as well as create more room in EB by removing the backlogged doctors and nurses.

Bottomline - this bill is at the least harmless and very useful at best. No reason to badmouth Durbin. To my knowledge no serious legislation is ever accomplished through UC. Prove me wrong.

[excalibur123]

Once again I see unnecessary blamegame and dragging Durbin's name. I would urge you to please stop this nonsense. We have debated this many times.

IV clearly has oversold their reach on the hill and have been played by the republicans. Enough said.

As per this new bill by Durbin here are some facts:
1) Nurses already fall under EB3. Most of them come from philippines using CP.
2) The nurses backlog has already been substantially reduced. So they will have to make substantial efforts to recruit nurses from around the world if they really want to use all their desired quota.
3) This has a fair chance of passing given the urgency around covid situation which will persist for next 18 months (according to resp. disease experts).
4) This bill does not steal a single visa from EB. Rather it will give away visas to other categories as well as create more room in EB by removing the backlogged doctors and nurses.

Bottomline - this bill is at the least harmless and very useful at best. No reason to badmouth Durbin. To my knowledge no serious legislation is ever accomplished through UC. Prove me wrong.

Not sure who are you directing this to. No badmouthing or blame in my post. It is pretty balanced - and has same points as yours.

[eaglenow]

Lastly I think IV over-reached significantly with S386. Whatever be the numbers, whatever be the history and whatever be the principle they want to enforce - the solution which bars nearly all other kinds of nationalities or professions, is both short-sighted and dangerous. I had alluded the same to one of my past comments last year. S386 just doesn't pass the common-sense test. It would have been better if they had aimed for something more palatable and less objectionable. (e.g. max wait time - like say 8 yrs for EB3, 5 for EB2, 3 for EB1 - I know most EB-I folks would take that, for that brings certainty to the process.)

I take it you have never been to any advocacy events. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I generally see references to IV as one or two people. There have been hundreds of volunteers who did thousands of meetings over the past decade. So my request is please don’t dismiss the efforts so easily by saying they overreached.

No one is barring anyone. In fact in the current system, Indians are barred essentially due to country caps. The core issue is insufficient GC numbers, but it is not highlighted because the entire brunt of the issue is borne by Indians. So any relief will naturally benefit Indians first and only those who are already waiting.

And the new bill treats everyone the same, including Indians who apply after the bill is passed. How is it dangerous to request you be treated fairly and not based on your country of birth. Are you representing your country or is your country applying?

I am not being condescending. The fact that requesting equality and being treated the same is seen as overreaching is a failure on the part of our community. This negotiating with ourself is the reason we are in this backlog.

For example look at the Iranian students. They came here recently and already they are already advocating against this bill. Right or wrong they even go to the extent of impersonating US citizens and spreading misinformation against the bill. They do not want everyone to be treated equally. They do not want to wait for 2 years to get EAD. They are not even willing to agree to the bill with the do no harm and transition provisions.

In the latest version, visas are reserved for non backlogged who already have approved 140. Even if the bill passes this fiscal year, they will get GC in worst case of 2 years, for the most past earlier than that. They are not ready to compromise even for that. Here we are, in a backlog of more than a decade and saying why not ask for GC after 8 years.

Here is the issue. You cannot ask for special treatment on the hill, plain and simple. So what is being asked for is equality. And that equality also is not from day one. There is a transition of 9 years. Till that time, there are some visas reserved for non backlogged folks as well. That is aside from Nurse reservation. So this bill is as fair as it gets.

As for your suggestion about the easy fix of requesting GC after some time is not easy at all. What you are asking for is unlimited GCs. I strongly recommend people go to advocacy events and see for yourself what goes on in the hill. You will be surprised.

I hope this did not come across as condescending, that is definitely not the intent.

[qesehmk]

Not sure who are you directing this to. No badmouthing or blame in my post. It is pretty balanced - and has same points as yours.

Sorry. I should have referred to @eaglenow and @rocket... i was not responding to you.

Disagreements are welcome on our blog. Where people differ nuggets of wisdom are born.

I was responding to smearing a perfectly good senator. Durbin is not at all anti immigrant or anti Indian. So dont understand how smearing him serves backlogged community?

[eaglenow]

Once again I see unnecessary blamegame and dragging Durbin's name. I would urge you to please stop this nonsense. We have debated this many times.



Unnecessary blame game and dragging? Nonsense? I was just explaining what is going on. I am sorry you feel this is nonsense. He has a hold on 386, which can pass but for his hold. His reasoning is that others will have to wait longer.

Given the new provisions, anyone with approved 140 from row will GC in 2 to 3 years. Also in 2 years from 140 approval, everyone can file 485 regardless of dates being current and will get EAD till they get GC. There is a transition of 9 years (reserved visas for row) with separate reservations for nurses. This is the same thing he agreed on principle, but is not ready to accept the bill because of removal of do no harm and wait time of 2 years for filing 485.

These 2 changes were specifically requested by agencies as do no harm provision was vague and could not be implemented by them easily. Hence the reservations were increased for the first few years effectively achieving the same. This is the implementing do no harm provision for row. And waiting for 2 years to file 485 is not onerous either, which was requested by agencies due to anticipated workload and new regulations needed to be implemented. Now these rules apply for everyone including Indian applicants.

He is opposing the bill because it will increase wait time for row. Mind you, he is talking about people waiting for a couple of years and about those who are not even in the country yet. But he is fine with Indians not getting GC in their lifetime and feels it is ok to keep the people who are waiting for a decade in backlog. And he is reasonable? Why is it ok for Indians to not even get ead for decades but others should not wait for 2 years? Why is it ok for Indians to wait multiple decades but no one else should have to wait for a few years?

Look at his tweets. He tweets about DACA folks helping with coronavirus. I fully agree and support. Where is the similar tweet for backlogged folks? Also, only doctors and nurses are at the forefront is not the full truth. What about all the other supporting staff? What about tech folks who keep all related technology running during these times? What about medical devices company employees and supply chain folks and others who are essential during these times?

But he wants to pass larger bills by increasing GC numbers so that row folks who are not in the country yet are not impacted. He is worried about people who are not in the country yet and is willing to keep existing backlogged folks waiting till the right solution is found. Regardless of how many years or decades it takes.

And the worst part is there is nothing stopping the senator from passing this bill and working on the other bills he wants to champion.

Regardless, This is your site my friend, so your rules. And you seem to take offense to calling out the bad wolf. So I will refrain henceforth.




IV clearly has oversold their reach on the hill and have been played by the republicans. Enough said.

As per this new bill by Durbin here are some facts:
1) Nurses already fall under EB3. Most of them come from philippines using CP.
2) The nurses backlog has already been substantially reduced. So they will have to make substantial efforts to recruit nurses from around the world if they really want to use all their desired quota.
3) This has a fair chance of passing given the urgency around covid situation which will persist for next 18 months (according to resp. disease experts).
4) This bill does not steal a single visa from EB. Rather it will give away visas to other categories as well as create more room in EB by removing the backlogged doctors and nurses.

Bottomline - this bill is at the least harmless and very useful at best. No reason to badmouth Durbin. To my knowledge no serious legislation is ever accomplished through UC. Prove me wrong.



I like your mike drop moment, but no one has been played by anyone. If you think IV sides with republicans or democrats, you are mistaken. You will never get anywhere on the hill if you take sides. Observe carefully and IV is not attacking any party or siding with any party.

And there is no oversold reach. In fact there is no reach. You just keep working till you get your bill passed. That is how every bill is passed on the hill. What you read about in news is after several years of backend work. Look at DACA. Everyone, other than core anti immigrants agree with the bill and yet it has not passed, why? And if you think DACA came about recently, you would be mistaken. Every single wording and messaging is refined and honed over years (for eg. undocumented vs illegal, DACA kids etc)

I agree with all your points about nurses, but what I mentioned is also true. Nurses do not qualify for any temp work visa and hence the direct recruitment. Nursing requires only 2 year certification course. And my suggestion is please read up on Nurse staffing companies and how they operate. They are no different from and in many cases worse than predatory IT bodyshops.

Mark my words, if this bill passes, you will see a lot of folks do the certification course in US and abroad and will start coming in through that. So the numbers would fill out pretty quickly. This will also include IT folks in backlog.

And finally, this bill increases GC numbers through recapture. This will require offset from FB or removal of diversity visa or eating into existing eb quotas.

[eaglenow]

Sorry. I should have referred to @eaglenow and @rocket... i was not responding to you.

Disagreements are welcome on our blog. Where people differ nuggets of wisdom are born.

I was responding to smearing a perfectly good senator. Durbin is not at all anti immigrant or anti Indian. So dont understand how smearing him serves backlogged community?

With all due respect, smearing a perfectly good senator? Here are the things the good senator has done.
1. Blocked the bill he cosponsored in 2011, when it included relief for Irish relief provisions. Literally the same bill without the provisions was blocked by him.
2. Couple of days before the bill was brought to the floor, he held a “constituent tea” in DC. When our folks went, his staff checked every single Id to make sure they are from IL. Then suddenly a group of Iranian students came and were all let in without any checking. That was the time they joked about GC and waiting for it for a long time.
3. Actively sought support from other dems to block the bill, but could not get anyone else to support.
4. Tried to get other groups to oppose the bill, which most did not take up, when finally AMA took up his offer.
5. When negotiations were on, his office kept leaking the discussions to derail, which was in vain. So insisted on keeping the negotiations private and not including anyone else.
6. When a deal was reached, Sen. Lee wanted to socialize the deal to get inputs from others. But the good senator tried to get it on the floor hoping for some republican to oppose the bill. After a sustained calling effort, he let it go.
7. Based on inputs from others when minor modifications were made and discussions were still going back and forth, they leaked the contents once again in an effort to derail the bill.
8. Now the good senator does not want the minor changes and wants to get the bill he negotiated without input from others to be brought to the floor or no bill at all.
9. Even for DACA, when there was a deal almost on the verge, he talked about the Shithole countries comments from the president to the reporters, when everything went south from there.

As a disclosure, except for point 1, others are things I read about from others posts or articles. I was not there in person for those. So take it with a grain of salt.

But what is certain is at this time he is the only senator who has publicly held the bill. So unless he releases the bill or someone else also publicly objects, no one else is holding the bill from a public perspective. Another fact is based on his reason for holding the bill, he seems to be fine with Indians getting the short end of the stick in the zero sum game but does not want others to share the burden. Another fact is there is nothing stopping the senator from passing this bill and working on increasing GC numbers so no one is impacted.


But since you feel the senator should not be called out, I will refrain going forward.

[qesehmk]

My friend we have debated durbin to death. Just read prior comments. Unless you have something new to add, it's a waste of time to discuss any further. Also this whole concept of "country caps being the culprit behind EB-IC backlog and the need for fairness and justice" is something I proposed at least 10 years back. Advocacy is not as difficult thing as you make it out. Anybody with 2600 dollars can get a meeting with a senator or congressman. It is no big deal. Senators congressman are always looking to create new bills in their names and that too is not a big deal. That's their job. What would be a big deal is to show some grey matter and work across parties and corporations and american public to create a common understanding and agreement. That actually shouldn't be difficult to do. FB is where the American public is more upset. They can hate H1B and GC folks but the balance of power is different. But as I said IV is too thick skilled to understand nuances. It's a pity. They got played.

I have never shied away from a debate. But you have arrived late on the scene. We already discussed this and you have nothing new to add.

Unnecessary blame game and dragging? Nonsense? I was just explaining what is going on. I am sorry you feel this is nonsense. He has a hold on 386, which can pass but for his hold. His reasoning is that others will have to wait longer.

Given the new provisions, anyone with approved 140 from row will GC in 2 to 3 years. Also in 2 years from 140 approval, everyone can file 485 regardless of dates being current and will get EAD till they get GC. There is a transition of 9 years (reserved visas for row) with separate reservations for nurses. This is the same thing he agreed on principle, but is not ready to accept the bill because of removal of do no harm and wait time of 2 years for filing 485.

These 2 changes were specifically requested by agencies as do no harm provision was vague and could not be implemented by them easily. Hence the reservations were increased for the first few years effectively achieving the same. This is the implementing do no harm provision for row. And waiting for 2 years to file 485 is not onerous either, which was requested by agencies due to anticipated workload and new regulations needed to be implemented. Now these rules apply for everyone including Indian applicants.

He is opposing the bill because it will increase wait time for row. Mind you, he is talking about people waiting for a couple of years and about those who are not even in the country yet. But he is fine with Indians not getting GC in their lifetime and feels it is ok to keep the people who are waiting for a decade in backlog. And he is reasonable? Why is it ok for Indians to not even get ead for decades but others should not wait for 2 years? Why is it ok for Indians to wait multiple decades but no one else should have to wait for a few years?

Look at his tweets. He tweets about DACA folks helping with coronavirus. I fully agree and support. Where is the similar tweet for backlogged folks? Also, only doctors and nurses are at the forefront is not the full truth. What about all the other supporting staff? What about tech folks who keep all related technology running during these times? What about medical devices company employees and supply chain folks and others who are essential during these times?

But he wants to pass larger bills by increasing GC numbers so that row folks who are not in the country yet are not impacted. He is worried about people who are not in the country yet and is willing to keep existing backlogged folks waiting till the right solution is found. Regardless of how many years or decades it takes.

And the worst part is there is nothing stopping the senator from passing this bill and working on the other bills he wants to champion.

Regardless, This is your site my friend, so your rules. And you seem to take offense to calling out the bad wolf. So I will refrain henceforth.



I like your mike drop moment, but no one has been played by anyone. If you think IV sides with republicans or democrats, you are mistaken. You will never get anywhere on the hill if you take sides. Observe carefully and IV is not attacking any party or siding with any party.

And there is no oversold reach. In fact there is no reach. You just keep working till you get your bill passed. That is how every bill is passed on the hill. What you read about in news is after several years of backend work. Look at DACA. Everyone, other than core anti immigrants agree with the bill and yet it has not passed, why? And if you think DACA came about recently, you would be mistaken. Every single wording and messaging is refined and honed over years (for eg. undocumented vs illegal, DACA kids etc)

I agree with all your points about nurses, but what I mentioned is also true. Nurses do not qualify for any temp work visa and hence the direct recruitment. Nursing requires only 2 year certification course. And my suggestion is please read up on Nurse staffing companies and how they operate. They are no different from and in many cases worse than predatory IT bodyshops.

Mark my words, if this bill passes, you will see a lot of folks do the certification course in US and abroad and will start coming in through that. So the numbers would fill out pretty quickly. This will also include IT folks in backlog.

And finally, this bill increases GC numbers through recapture. This will require offset from FB or removal of diversity visa or eating into existing eb quotas.

[eaglenow]

I must say these bills are very hard to read. So I am not 100% sure either. But to me this section C is saying - Dependents get allocated visas through the 40K quota rather than the usual EB quota (because that would complicate the picture where primary is going through this new quota and dependent is not).

Reserved is 40k of recaptured, unreserved is either from remaining recaptured or from regular eb, most probably the former. Need to read the full text to confirm.

[eaglenow]

My friend we have debated durbin to death. Just read prior comments. Unless you have something new to add, it's a waste of time to discuss any further. Also this whole concept of "country caps being the culprit behind EB-IC backlog and the need for fairness and justice" is something I proposed at least 10 years back. Advocacy is not as difficult thing as you make it out. Anybody with 2600 dollars can get a meeting with a senator or congressman. It is no big deal. Senators congressman are always looking to create new bills in their names and that too is not a big deal. That's their job. What would be a big deal is to show some grey matter and work across parties and corporations and american public to create a common understanding and agreement. That actually shouldn't be difficult to do. FB is where the American public is more upset. They can hate H1B and GC folks but the balance of power is different. But as I said IV is too thick skilled to understand nuances. It's a pity. They got played.

I have never shied away from a debate. But you have arrived late on the scene. We already discussed this and you have nothing new to add.

Actually meeting with senators or congressman is free. You can book meetings with them both at local offices and in DC. No money needed. I have been to many.

Advocacy is easy? Tell that to the groups spending millions of dollars and armies of people to get Dream act passed. Tell that to the umpteen groups who are lobbying every single day on the hill. I don’t know what proof you are looking for? A bill for which so many cosponsors were obtained by huge groups of IV volunteers over the years, passed twice in the house with huge bipartisan support and specifically IV was called out and named by the congressmen and senator on the floor when bringing this bill to the floor. And when admin was ready to settle on H4EAD by siding with plaintiffs, IV inserted itself, which was granted by the courts, which is the sole reason we still have H4EAD. Why do you think the courts granted IV to insert itself to defend the case?
How do you think all of these happened?

I know you have a bad history with IV and that may cloud your views. I will only request you to see it without those clouded lenses of your bad experience with a couple of volunteers and see what all is being done by the huge group of volunteers. Even if you don’t, that is fine as well, but downplaying the efforts of huge groups of volunteers and minimizing & dismissing the work of all those folks does not help anyone, especially the viewers of this site. This is the time for folks to get serious and start focusing and participating in advocacy. While you will not be personally impacted by whatever happens or does not happen, same is not the case for everyone else still in backlog.

Finally, your comments just tells me that you have never advocated for anything on the hill. While you don’t have to do it, If you want to try it for yourself, try to get a congressman or senator to introduce any bill, however simple/trivial it may be and you will see for yourself how easy or difficult it is.

As for the awesome senator, you are right, we do have different views based on our individual experiences and so no need to discuss anymore. At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding.

If this bill does not pass due to hold by one senator, everyone in backlog for the next few decades will automatically know who is responsible. The cold reality is if this bill does not pass this year, we can kiss any relief for at least the next decade. Given the current economy no other immigration relief bill will be brought up by the new admin if new one is elected. If this admin continues, no need for any relief bill because most folks in backlog will be out of queue and sent back. Biden will not go for second term and so a new one will compete. Immigration is a second term priority for any president.

The only chances for any relief is either 386 or if dems are forced into a corner due to Supreme Court decision on DACA. Unfortunately based on last few decisions by the court, that could very well be the case. Tough times ahead for all immigrants, be it DACA, undocumented or backlogged immigrants.

[eaglenow]

I think I have vented enough. I just hope I get out of this idiotic backlog soon and wish the same for everyone else.

[qesehmk]

I think I have vented enough. I just hope I get out of this idiotic backlog soon and wish the same for everyone else.
Venting is fine. Everybody deserves it once a while. Just rest assured that the pain of backlogged folks is bigger than you me or IV. So every position we advocate every step we make needs to be in a positive direction.

I am happy to be proven wrong - but this whole non-issue about Durbin not supporting UC is baloney because to my knowledge there is no serious non-emergency legislation passed via UC. UC itself is the poison pill. So why IV fell for it?

As I said - forget IV. Just focus on this key question. Try to find any important non-emergency bill passed via UC.

[GC-Immigrant]

Please anyone clarify new house bill "(ii) ELIMINATION OF FALL ACROSS.—
For fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the number computed under subsection (c)(3)(C) of
section 201 of the Immigration and Na3 tionality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151), and the
number computed under subsection
(d)(2)(C) of such section, are deemed to
equal zero.

No Spillover from FB to EB

Page: 1732
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20200511/BILLS-116hr6800ih.pdf

[NJMavarick]

This was bound to happen. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the bigger strategy to cease all immigration.

This is not going to work with the Trump Administration. This is Ds way to ensuring that the FB visas do not go unused and roll over. The concomitant effect is that the EB dates do not progress and we stay cursed!

I do not think the bill in its current form will pass. For now, we are OK but we have to keep a watch on the immigration provisions that may get added in the stimulus bill accepted by the Rs. Keeping fingers crossed.

[Zenzone]

This is not going to work with the Trump Administration. This is Ds way to ensuring that the FB visas do not go unused and roll over. The concomitant effect is that the EB dates do not progress and we stay cursed!

I do not think the bill in its current form will pass. For now, we are OK but we have to keep a watch on the immigration provisions that may get added in the stimulus bill accepted by the Rs. Keeping fingers crossed.

Agree. This is posturing by Dems. There are other provisions in this bill where they are giving deferred action from pretty much all essential industry visa workers. These are far left proposals, dead on arrival. Stimulus 2.0 of sorts will pass sans immigration in my view.

[qesehmk]

Dems are pursuing an agenda which in my opinion has strong economic merit overall but certainly has no hope of passing the senate.

Immigration is relatively minor piece of the whole bill and has excellent provisions except the fallacross rule change for 2021/22.

The fall across rule change proposal is without a compelling argument for it. I sense a hint of animosity over Durbin name calling by IV.

In my judgement dems are generally more pro all kinds of immigration. And while this bill has almost zero chance of passing, it at least highlighted how much EB-I has alienated democrats. But in politics it is never too late to start building goodwill. For what is is worth, it is a good idea to write to whoever is writing this bill and try to influence them to drop fall across change.

[Zenzone]

Dems are pursuing an agenda which in my opinion has strong economic merit overall but certainly has no hope of passing the senate.

Immigration is relatively minor piece of the whole bill and has excellent provisions except the fallacross rule change for 2021/22.

The fall across rule change proposal is without a compelling argument for it. I sense a hint of animosity over Durbin name calling by IV.

In my judgement dems are generally more pro all kinds of immigration. And while this bill has almost zero chance of passing, it at least highlighted how much EB-I has alienated democrats. But in politics it is never too late to start building goodwill. For what is is worth, it is a good idea to write to whoever is writing this bill and try to influence them to drop fall across change.

Agree with you 100%. I also think its possible that Dems want a hook into GOP from further trying to curtail family immigration which is D's target rich pool for base expansion. Nevertheless, since immigration is not a prime focus of this bill, these provisions could be completely left out in the compromise for being addressed in a later bill just focused on immigration. For example, remember DACA ruling by Supreme Court could be out anytime this summer. There are simply more immigration chips to fall in near term that make it ripe for a full carve out from this bill.

[Zenzone]

Dems are pursuing an agenda which in my opinion has strong economic merit overall but certainly has no hope of passing the senate.

Immigration is relatively minor piece of the whole bill and has excellent provisions except the fallacross rule change for 2021/22.

The fall across rule change proposal is without a compelling argument for it. I sense a hint of animosity over Durbin name calling by IV.

In my judgement dems are generally more pro all kinds of immigration. And while this bill has almost zero chance of passing, it at least highlighted how much EB-I has alienated democrats. But in politics it is never too late to start building goodwill. For what is is worth, it is a good idea to write to whoever is writing this bill and try to influence them to drop fall across change.

Wait...One question here. This is not the Senate bill so hows your Durbin angle playing out on the house bill?

[qesehmk]

Wait...One question here. This is not the Senate bill so hows your Durbin angle playing out on the house bill?
Party loyalty. The lesson is - partisan advocacy will not work.

[alpha0]

My thinking is last year tech lobby was definitely involved in pushing country quota removal. The way Lee was interested in pushing the bill and the way they were able to get Paul and Purdue holds resolved, it was way beyond IV. My thinking is Durbin is just the dem front on holding the bill because he has the safest seat. If court decision on DACA went for administration, dems would have tried to show some push for DACA and would have likely includded 386/1044 in that bundle.

I agree with other poster that indian community who votes does not care about EB backlogs. I see IV tried to create this as Durbin vs Indian community but it did not get traction. In many areas of Illinois, desi community has strong presence and if they were involved, I am sure there would be lot more pressure on Durbin. I also think Covid helped Durbin hide behind facebook wall on this issue, otherwise if 100s of people showed up on every townhall / fund raisign events, it would have created more pressure on him.

I also feel that if the bill was freeing only 50% of the numbers from quota, it would have reduced the opposition and would have killed arguments of Durbin and likes that no oher country will get GC for a decade. For desis, it will be better to get 20k in a category than 3k. Hindsight is 20/20.

[smuggymba]

I see IV tried to create this as Durbin vs Indian community but it did not get traction. In many areas of Illinois, desi community has strong presence and if they were involved, I am sure there would be lot more pressure on Durbin. I also think Covid helped Durbin hide behind facebook wall on this issue, otherwise if 100s of people showed up on every townhall / fund raisign events, it would have created more pressure on him.

Indians in general are very coy and barely show their "alpha" and "aggressive" side especially here in the US and that too related to policy making even after being subjected to decades long backlog. I'm actually very happy to see IV/Desis going on overdrive against Durbin even though it might negatively affect us. Sometimes it's better to be aggressive rather than taking BS lying down.

[jackbrown_890]

Indians in general are very coy and barely show their "alpha" and "aggressive" side especially here in the US and that too related to policy making even after being subjected to decades long backlog. I'm actually very happy to see IV/Desis going on overdrive against Durbin even though it might negatively affect us. Sometimes it's better to be aggressive rather than taking BS lying down.

I still think it was stupid to go aggressively against Durbin. I agree Durbin didn't play fair but at the same time this was not a smart move by IV. and not only that they called a democrat racist which his constituents have hard time believing. His worst election win was 11% win. It has been over a year house passed the bill. let's say even with IV's aggressiveness somehow makes him loose this election.(which i doubt). but in that case also we still loose. I am not saying we should have kept quite against him when he opposed the unanimous consent; but I definitely don't think it was a smart move by IV the way they handled it. I still hope I am wrong and IV somehow gets a win here.

[qesehmk]

I still think it was stupid to go aggressively against Durbin. I agree Durbin didn't play fair but at the same time this was not a smart move by IV. and not only that they called a democrat racist which his constituents have hard time believing. His worst election win was 11% win. It has been over a year house passed the bill. let's say even with IV's aggressiveness somehow makes him loose this election.(which i doubt). but in that case also we still loose. I am not saying we should have kept quite against him when he opposed the unanimous consent; but I definitely don't think it was a smart move by IV the way they handled it. I still hope I am wrong and IV somehow gets a win here.

IV got played. UC is never used for serious legislation. It is used to clear non-important business in congress. By requiring UC for serious legislation, the GOP succeeded in pinning the blame on democrats and IV is doing their bidding without understanding this.

[alpha0]

I still think it was stupid to go aggressively against Durbin. I agree Durbin didn't play fair but at the same time this was not a smart move by IV. and not only that they called a democrat racist which his constituents have hard time believing. His worst election win was 11% win. It has been over a year house passed the bill. let's say even with IV's aggressiveness somehow makes him loose this election.(which i doubt). but in that case also we still loose. I am not saying we should have kept quite against him when he opposed the unanimous consent; but I definitely don't think it was a smart move by IV the way they handled it. I still hope I am wrong and IV somehow gets a win here.

At this point in time, i think S386 is a gone deal. If Covid did not happen, people definitely could have put more pressure on Durbin (just like what they did in last oct/nov). Even if Durbin has a safe seat, people could have made embarrasing situation for him if regular townhalls were going on. No politician likes hundreds of people opposing him and calling him racist outside his townhalls and fundraisers.

[qesehmk]

Every time people say Durbin I am seriously going to ask to show me one single important legislation that ever went through UC. EVER.

UC was a trap that IV got trapped in. Politicized an issue, made it personal, and hurt EB India. Got played at the hands of GOP.

[alpha0]

Every time people say Durbin I am seriously going to ask to show me one single important legislation that ever went through UC. EVER.

UC was a trap that IV got trapped in. Politicized an issue, made it personal, and hurt EB India. Got played at the hands of GOP.

I agree that UC is difficult for controversial bill where there is some opposition. IV may be trying to just keep the bill alive till there is a "vehicle" bill where this can be included. If we look at this decade, apart from S744 passed by senate in 2013, there has been no serious immigration effort. Country quota removal on its own will never pass seante thru regular process, period. No leader will keep it on floor for 5 days.

[eaglenow]

As IV volunteer who has advocated for various versions of the bill since 2008, I am amused by the comments of arm chair critics who talk policy, strategy and approach when they have zero idea about advocacy or experience working on the hill for anything. This is akin to a first grader criticizing the approach of a quantum physics Nobel prize winner in their area of speciality. Unless you have seen up close how to advocate for a bill, you have no idea what the strategy should be or approach. I mean that in the nicest possible way and not to offend anyone.

BTW look at the support Sen. Durbin has from within his own party. Why do you think he is the only one holding the bill. In politics, it is easy to let go of the bill and have someone else hold it for another reason. Being the whip, he can easily get it done if he had the support of any other democrat. So no, regardless of the approach, he is doing what he is doing because of his agenda. He feigns concern for others ho are not in the system yet and is blocking the bill he negotiated with Sen. Lee.

His reasoning is it is not the same bill he negotiated. Here is the summary. Removal of Do no harm provision. This was due to the concern from agencies implementing it in a concrete way. So the same concept was achieved by increasing the reserved numbers during initial years of transition. This is a more concrete way and achieves the same effect as Do no harm provision.

The other reasons are the addition of EAD through early filing when dates are not current. Again this was updated to take effect after 2 years. This is to prevent overwhelming the agencies and so they can hire required resources to process the deluge of applications. The third item of implementing 50:50 rule was delayed by 3 years, again so as to not disrupt existing structure abruptly. Note that the core of the bill or the negotiated items were not changed. The implementation was updated to prevent confusion, ambiguity and disruption.

But the great senator is opposing this and holding the bill. No one is asking him to just support it, just to negotiate in good faith to get this bill done. He is even refusing to negotiate. It’s his way or highway. In the meantime Indian backlog applicants are impacted. He is fine if Indians bear the brunt of a broken system and never get GC for 150 years, but is not ready to treat them equally if it means everyone will share the burden of a broken system and will wait approximately 8 to 9 years. So you can keep buttering him and enabling the bad behavior, it’s not going to change his mind. It’s time to call a spade a spade.

As for strategy, approach, falling into trap etc, are comments with no base. The core team has been at this since 2006 and has made every mistake there is and the strategy, approach are decided after consulting with the pros, lobbyists, strategists etc who do this for a living, not arm chair critics like many of us.

You can negotiate with yourself and say asking for 50% is easier, 10% is easier etc..but if the most powerful ideology of equality does not get you something done, you can rest assured nothing else will. Also all these easy, difficult, reasonable, controversial, substantial etc are in your mind and is not the reality of the hill. I suggest you take up advocacy and volunteer through IV and see for yourself what it takes. That is your only way out of you have PD beyond 2009.

[jackbrown_890]

As IV volunteer who has advocated for various versions of the bill since 2008, I am amused by the comments of arm chair critics who talk policy, strategy and approach when they have zero idea about advocacy or experience working on the hill for anything. This is akin to a first grader criticizing the approach of a quantum physics Nobel prize winner in their area of speciality. Unless you have seen up close how to advocate for a bill, you have no idea what the strategy should be or approach. I mean that in the nicest possible way and not to offend anyone.

BTW look at the support Sen. Durbin has from within his own party. Why do you think he is the only one holding the bill. In politics, it is easy to let go of the bill and have someone else hold it for another reason. Being the whip, he can easily get it done if he had the support of any other democrat. So no, regardless of the approach, he is doing what he is doing because of his agenda. He feigns concern for others ho are not in the system yet and is blocking the bill he negotiated with Sen. Lee.

His reasoning is it is not the same bill he negotiated. Here is the summary. Removal of Do no harm provision. This was due to the concern from agencies implementing it in a concrete way. So the same concept was achieved by increasing the reserved numbers during initial years of transition. This is a more concrete way and achieves the same effect as Do no harm provision.

The other reasons are the addition of EAD through early filing when dates are not current. Again this was updated to take effect after 2 years. This is to prevent overwhelming the agencies and so they can hire required resources to process the deluge of applications. The third item of implementing 50:50 rule was delayed by 3 years, again so as to not disrupt existing structure abruptly. Note that the core of the bill or the negotiated items were not changed. The implementation was updated to prevent confusion, ambiguity and disruption.

But the great senator is opposing this and holding the bill. No one is asking him to just support it, just to negotiate in good faith to get this bill done. He is even refusing to negotiate. It’s his way or highway. In the meantime Indian backlog applicants are impacted. He is fine if Indians bear the brunt of a broken system and never get GC for 150 years, but is not ready to treat them equally if it means everyone will share the burden of a broken system and will wait approximately 8 to 9 years. So you can keep buttering him and enabling the bad behavior, it’s not going to change his mind. It’s time to call a spade a spade.

As for strategy, approach, falling into trap etc, are comments with no base. The core team has been at this since 2006 and has made every mistake there is and the strategy, approach are decided after consulting with the pros, lobbyists, strategists etc who do this for a living, not arm chair critics like many of us.

You can negotiate with yourself and say asking for 50% is easier, 10% is easier etc..but if the most powerful ideology of equality does not get you something done, you can rest assured nothing else will. Also all these easy, difficult, reasonable, controversial, substantial etc are in your mind and is not the reality of the hill. I suggest you take up advocacy and volunteer through IV and see for yourself what it takes. That is your only way out of you have PD beyond 2009.
First of all Q and others- I apologise and if you think it is inappropriate, please delete my post.

Here we go again. This is the argument IV has used every single time if someone criticizes anything they do from the beginning. They make people feel they are worthless, low life - sitting on their couches, do-nothing, know-nothing unlike them. Anyone who says against them has no idea on how advocacy works. They know all and others are stupid.
Many people have been quite for too long against IV. I have had it enough of IV.
And FYI. Dude you not the only one who has volunteered since 2008. Before you start talking shit about people ..ask. FYI.. I have been involved as long as you have been..I have made advocacy trips to DC before I moved to DC. I live in DC now and I am still involved with advocacy.. I still show up at Senate/house when I can. I have personally met with reps and senators in support of these bills for over a decade now. And all these not just thru any other organization but as a volunteer of IV.
I have heard this argument on telegram for 100 times now if people ask questions, they make them feel worthless.
Well, you might have more knowledge then many of us but stop treating people like shit. You could talk to people like this if you were da shit but you are not otherwise the bill would have passed a long time ago. Again i am not saying that IV is not working hard.. you are working hard. But my argument is ..you are not working smart. you are no smarter than a fifth grader in this. Just my opinion. IV is still not sitting at grown up table.
Also, if things do happen now..I don't think it will only happen because of IV's actions now.. things might move because people will see there are people suffering due to inaction of Congress on this issue.market demands will also be a factor.. but IV will take full credit for any thing positive now
I do thank IV for providing platform for advocacy for people like us but at the same I do blame IV for missteps they have taken so far for dragging this bill so far.
If you demand someone to come to table for a negotiation with good faith..- you don't call them racist because he did not support your UC request the way you wanted and call him racist repeatedly before asking them to come to the table. Looks like to me that You have not shown good faith effort to start the negotiations..
Again I sincerely hope I am wrong about this strategy (even though I diasree with the approach) and IV pulls this off before November..

[rocketfast]

As IV volunteer who has advocated for various versions of the bill since 2008, I am amused by the comments of arm chair critics who talk policy, strategy and approach when they have zero idea about advocacy or experience working on the hill for anything. This is akin to a first grader criticizing the approach of a quantum physics Nobel prize winner in their area of speciality. Unless you have seen up close how to advocate for a bill, you have no idea what the strategy should be or approach. I mean that in the nicest possible way and not to offend anyone.

Sorry. You cannot compare IV leadership to nobel prize winners. Extremely thin skinned and immature. Removal of country caps made sense in 2012, when others would suffer for 5 years. Not in 2020 where everyone else will have to suffer for 10-15 years. In 2012, Indian service companies were not sponsoring green cards. For them H1B was simply outsourcing visa. Now, they sponsor en-masse mainly to get I-140 and unlimited extensions. You cannot in a serious face say that European researchers need to wait for 15 years to get their green cards and not expect any opposition. So the fix has to be something different. Either more green cards or some other filtering.

[eaglenow]

Here we go again. This is the argument IV has used every single time if someone criticizes anything they do from the beginning. They make people feel they are worthless, low life - sitting on their couches, do-nothing, know-nothing unlike them. Anyone who says against them has no idea on how advocacy works. They know all and others are stupid.
Many people have been quite for too long against IV. I have had it enough of IV.
And FYI. Dude you not the only one who has volunteered since 2008. Before you start talking shit about people ..ask. FYI.. I have been involved as long as you have been..I have made advocacy trips to DC before I moved to DC. I live in DC now and I am still involved with advocacy.. I still show up at Senate/house when I can. I have personally met with reps and senators in support of these bills for over a decade now. And all these not just thru any other organization but as a volunteer of IV.
I have heard this argument on telegram for 100 times now if people ask questions, they make them feel worthless.



First of all, thanks for volunteering, advocating for the bill and showing up to advocacy events. I never addressed my comments at you specifically.

Since you addressed my comment specifically, I will respond. The majority of the folks questioning strategy, approach etc have zero experience advocating for anything on the hill. My comment was towards those folks. Telling someone they don’t know something because they don’t have relevant experience in that area is not to make them feel worthless or anything else you mentioned. On the contrary, it is just being pointed out that they are just sharing their opinions based on their knowledge and experience, which is lacking critical details necessary to make sound judgements.

Also to clarify, I am not IV and I am not part of the core team nor am I as active as I was in the past. There have been hundreds of volunteers over the years who have advocated for the bill and I am just one of them, same as you. I have tried to convey this in the best possible manner and every single time, people keep popping up with the same air of superiority that they know something better. Do this hundreds of times and then tell me how you feel and would handle it. Since you have been to advocacy events, you know the questions are immature. So why don’t you volunteer to explain in the nicest possible way to make sure people understand. What is stopping you?

I don’t know why you are done with IV. Were you doing IV a favor when you advocated for the bill? You want to go against IV, feel free to do so. IV is not the one being impacted. You are. Go ahead, cut off your nose to spite your face. You talk as if IV was single person or a couple of people running a for profit company. Since you have been to events, you know how many people volunteered their time and effort every single time. Thousands of meetings have been done with lawmakers on the hill.

I was in the same boat a decade back. But instead of just being an arm chair critic, I decided to go for an event and see for myself. It is readily apparent what it takes to get something done on the hill. The experience humbled me and I learnt how active democracy works. So while I may have my opinions, I have the humility to try to understand what is happening based on what I am seeing and what I have learnt form the past. It is very easy to see why something is being done the way it is done.



Well, you might have more knowledge then many of us but stop treating people like shit. You could talk to people like this if you were da shit but you are not otherwise the bill would have passed a long time ago. Again i am not saying that IV is not working hard.. you are working hard. But my argument is ..you are not working smart. you are no smarter than a fifth grader in this. Just my opinion. IV is still not sitting at grown up table.

I am not treating anyone poorly. Please point to what I said that led you to conclude this and feel free to point out how you would phrase it. I mean that in the sincerest way.

In your opinion, IV is not working smart, no smarter than 5th grader and is not sitting at the adult table and the bill would have passed a long time ago if IV done things your way. You are entitled to your opinion. Since you have been to events before, why do you think hundreds of others who have been to far more events, worked harder and more closer to this than you and I have, do not share the same opinion? Do you not think they would have voiced their thoughts? Once you get to the events you know that you can interact with more experienced folks and see easily they do not share these thoughts? Do you honestly think you are smarter then all of them or do you think all of them are just sheep who follow instructions without questioning them? Since you are already a volunteer who has been to many events, have you tried reaching out to fellow experienced volunteers to discuss your thoughts?



Also, if things do happen now..I don't think it will only happen because of IV's actions now.. things might move because people will see there are people suffering due to inaction of Congress on this issue.market demands will also be a factor.. but IV will take full credit for any thing positive now

Take full credit? Who else do you think paved the way for this? How do you think people come to see that immigrants are suffering due to inaction of congress? What market demands are you talking about? I will agree that things will need to fall in place for the bill to pass and we should be thankful for everyone who supported the bill. Who else do you think worked on the bill, advocated for it every single day, hired lobbyists, formulated strategy, messaging, coordinated events, sessions etc? Why do you think the bill passed with such overwhelming bipartisan majority in the house? Please feel free to elaborate.

I will just quote what I heard from Aman in the past. “Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan”



I do thank IV for providing platform for advocacy for people like us but at the same I do blame IV for missteps they have taken so far for dragging this bill so far.
If you demand someone to come to table for a negotiation with good faith..- you don't call them racist because he did not support your UC request the way you wanted and call him racist repeatedly before asking them to come to the table. Looks like to me that You have not shown good faith effort to start the negotiations..
Again I sincerely hope I am wrong about this strategy (even though I diasree with the approach) and IV pulls this off before November..

Can you please elaborate on the missteps? Do you have any idea on what is going on behind the scenes with Sen. Durbin? What he is doing to derail the bill and the pressure he is under? You seriously think IV is doing things in a knee jerk fashion, which will derail something that hundreds of volunteers have spent thousands of hours and meetings over the past decade?

While I have heard what’s going on, I am not going to believe everything I hear. I will analyze myself. I will share some hints. Has IV done this in the past with any other senators or reps, even some who can easily be alleged as racists? Are they doing this with every senator/rep who opposed the bill? How did they handle the opposition? Is this the first senator to oppose the bill in the past decade? HR3012, which Senator Durbin also cosponsored was also meant to pass through UC. Why did he not oppose then? Why is the senator not ready to negotiate this bill to completion?

I am not sure why the core team is still working on this bill. They are already done with their process. Some of the comments I see and the questions I see about IV, if it were me, I would have been out a long time ago. Even now, this bill will not help me personally. And I don’t know how long I will keep advocating for this. We need the community to come together. Otherwise there will be no end in sight. You have a choice. You can sit on the sidelines hoping for a miracle. You can join a new org or start your own org and try to do it your way reinventing the wheel and get the same experience IV got over the past decade. or you can join the org and become a volunteer and leverage the experience they have. In any case, you are not doing anyone a favor or depriving them of any opportunity. You decide what you want to do.

[eaglenow]

Sorry. You cannot compare IV leadership to nobel prize winners. Extremely thin skinned and immature. Removal of country caps made sense in 2012, when others would suffer for 5 years. Not in 2020 where everyone else will have to suffer for 10-15 years. In 2012, Indian service companies were not sponsoring green cards. For them H1B was simply outsourcing visa. Now, they sponsor en-masse mainly to get I-140 and unlimited extensions. You cannot in a serious face say that European researchers need to wait for 15 years to get their green cards and not expect any opposition. So the fix has to be something different. Either more green cards or some other filtering.

Not sure what to say other than that the example was an analogy not a literal comparison.

And you think country cap removal doesn’t make sense now? Wow. If there are problems in the system, it has to be borne by everyone not one specific group. You think it’s ok for Indian researchers to wait 150 years because there were a lot of other Indian applicants before them? Equality is timeless.

Boy, am I glad I am not dependent on the bill with even impacted people thinking like this. Don’t know what to say. You may be fine with discrimination based on country of birth. I will not accept punishment just because there are a lot of applicants from the same country I was born in and for no fault of my own. I will recognize that Nobel prize winners take precedence before me, but anyone else with the same skill, education and experience as me getting GC before me just because they were born in a different country is plain discrimination based on my country of birth. I am not fine with that and it is not justifiable.

Also there is a 9 year transition before all GCs are allocated on a first come first served basis. Till that time, some visas are reserved for the European researchers.

[eaglenow]

And here is the kicker. This is the only immigration bill that has any chance of passing for the next few years if not a decade. If you think CIR will pass, GC increase will happen, recapture will happen etc, dream on. In 2008 there was a chance, but the admin decided that they did not have the votes. The climate has grown more partisan now.

Let’s give the benefit of doubt to Sen. Durbin. If he thought recapture, increasing GC or anything else was possible, he would have removed the hold and worked on the other bill. He knows it’s not possible. He said so on the floor. Yet he wants you to rally behind his bill to increase GC.

Here is another clue. The bill to recapture visas for Doctors directly serving COVID is also not moving. That should tell you something. The only way CIR will pass is if dems capture more than 60 seats in the senate and have a majority in the house with a dem President.

[rocketfast]

Not sure what to say other than that the example was an analogy not a literal comparison.

And you think country cap removal doesn’t make sense now? Wow. If there are problems in the system, it has to be borne by everyone not one specific group. You think it’s ok for Indian researchers to wait 150 years because there were a lot of other Indian applicants before them? Equality is timeless.

Boy, am I glad I am not dependent on the bill with even impacted people thinking like this. Don’t know what to say. You may be fine with discrimination based on country of birth. I will not accept punishment just because there are a lot of applicants from the same country I was born in and for no fault of my own. I will recognize that Nobel prize winners take precedence before me, but anyone else with the same skill, education and experience as me getting GC before me just because they were born in a different country is plain discrimination based on my country of birth. I am not fine with that and it is not justifiable.

Also there is a 9 year transition before all GCs are allocated on a first come first served basis. Till that time, some visas are reserved for the European researchers.

You are looking for an idealistic solution and I happily support that idealistic solution. (Before any condescension towards me, do know that I have met Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo to advocate for this. I have contributed money to IV and made many calls to others). Immigration bills don't pass easily. So, telling that let everyone suffer and then there will be a fix is a easy cop-out. You are basically saying that you don't want any opposition and others should not fight your bill and shut up. People who are getting GCs in a year are not going to sit silently if something is going to mean that they now have to wait 15 years. You don't realize how much stupid it sounds.

[eaglenow]

You are looking for an idealistic solution and I happily support that idealistic solution. (Before any condescension towards me, do know that I have met Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo to advocate for this. I have contributed money to IV and made many calls to others). Immigration bills don't pass easily. So, telling that let everyone suffer and then there will be a fix is a easy cop-out. You are basically saying that you don't want any opposition and others should not fight your bill and shut up. People who are getting GCs in a year are not going to sit silently if something is going to mean that they now have to wait 15 years. You don't realize how much stupid it sounds.

I am not asking anyone to suffer nor am I saying there will/should be no opposition and I am also not telling everyone to suffer before there will be a fix. Not sure where you got that from in my message. Also, I will not be condescending towards anyone. If anything, I am just saddened that our community still has not come together even after suffering so much due to the discrimination.

I am fine if people who are benefited from current discrimination oppose the bill, which in fact they do. All I am saying is that I will advocate to be treated equally and not be discriminated based on my country of birth. If that means people who currently benefit from discrimination will have to share the burden, so be it. They can advocate for why the discrimination should continue, which they are doing anyway.

Note that the bill is not favoring Indians, it just removes discrimination. Since mostly Indians are discriminated in the current system, they directly benefit from removal of discrimination.

There is a transition of 9 years after which all GCs will be FCFS. The do no harm provision exits by reserving higher numbers initially and with early filing of 485, ead and 50:50 rule, the system will be cleaned up. After the bill passes, any Indian starting the process will have the same wait as another applicant from any other country. What is unfair about this?

Asking for more GC is the idealistic situation, not asking for equal treatment or saying country of birth is not a skill. You can compromise as much as you want, at the end of the day, the discrimination has to go and it is not based on preconditions. The ask is for the senator to come to negotiating table. To your point, if you say let’s do 50% country caps, it still is discrimination. But that is what is in place with the transition albeit with less cap.

As an analogy, when segregation was in place, the idea was separate but equal. You know how it turned out. If someone argued that segregation will need to be removed slowly or only parts of segregation must be removed and others must remain in place, would that be a good argument?

Asking for equal treatment is not stupid. It is the right thing to do. If people impacted by the discrimination don’t ask for its removal, no one else will. I understand in your mind negotiating with yourself is being reasonable, but in oppositions mind, no nothing is reasonable other than current system.

For ROW who have already started the process, with transition numbers, they will get GC in 2 to 3 years and they can get ead at the end of 2 years. For EBI folks who started in 2015, they will still get GC only after the existing row folks will get GC. So this is compromise anyway. Not sure what other compromise you are talking about. Please elaborate.

[rocketfast]

I am fine if people who are benefited from current discrimination oppose the bill, which in fact they do. All I am saying is that I will advocate to be treated equally and not be discriminated based on my country of birth. If that means people who currently benefit from discrimination will have to share the burden, so be it. They can advocate for why the discrimination should continue, which they are doing anyway.

Sorry. I don't agree with you. What opponents are saying is that Indian outsourcers have taken 70% of H1Bs by mass-applying. They need head-count and not individual with a skill. In top silicon valley companies, Indians are not beyond 30% of headcount. They want reforms there - which is what Durbin advocated. In his initially agreed upon text, Indian outsources would be shut out of the system. Naturally ( I am conjecturing via John Cornyn), they lobbied and got it fixed by moving it to a hypothetical future date. Now, if you ask me, it is a losing battle for us. We can't expect that Indian outsources has to be shut-out for it to be fixed for us.

I would guess that our opposition would have not existed if country-cap was slowly removed with something like
a) A country can take a max of 10% a year for the first year
b) It can take 15% a year for the second year and so on and given it a long fat tail. And only complete removal after 15 years or so - if that is the ideal goal. This would keep all people currently in the US (say studying or working and haven't started their PERM) as non-carers.

Instead, we have the opposite implementation. The no-harm clause is muddied. It leaves out all people that have spent thousands of dollars to study in the US.

You are also shutting out other professions like Nurses, agriculture workers and so on. There are industries dependent on it.

[qesehmk]

Eagle - let's stay factual and objective. This is not about IV. This is about backlogged community.

Let's discuss this objectively along these questions rather than getting personal or emotional.

If I and others are indeed arm chair critics then it should be easy to answer the following questions. I have also included them at the top of the thread.

Key Questions

1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
3. Why only Sen. Graham is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)


I think IV has unnecessarily politicized and personalized this. So lets deconstruct the whole propaganda and speak objectively.

[eaglenow]

Sorry. I don't agree with you. What opponents are saying is that Indian outsourcers have taken 70% of H1Bs by mass-applying. They need head-count and not individual with a skill. In top silicon valley companies, Indians are not beyond 30% of headcount. They want reforms there - which is what Durbin advocated. In his initially agreed upon text, Indian outsources would be shut out of the system. Naturally ( I am conjecturing via John Cornyn), they lobbied and got it fixed by moving it to a hypothetical future date. Now, if you ask me, it is a losing battle for us. We can't expect that Indian outsources has to be shut-out for it to be fixed for us.

I would guess that our opposition would have not existed if country-cap was slowly removed with something like
a) A country can take a max of 10% a year for the first year
b) It can take 15% a year for the second year and so on and given it a long fat tail. And only complete removal after 15 years or so - if that is the ideal goal. This would keep all people currently in the US (say studying or working and haven't started their PERM) as non-carers.

Instead, we have the opposite implementation. The no-harm clause is muddied. It leaves out all people that have spent thousands of dollars to study in the US.

You are also shutting out other professions like Nurses, agriculture workers and so on. There are industries dependent on it.

I will add a few points which will hopefully answer your question. The applicants from witch companies are already in the system. They are not going anywhere whether anyone likes it or not. They went through the system and process the same as anyone else. So if there is an issue, they need to be addressed separately. Also regardless of what you do you cannot make existing applicants disappear from the system. Only future applicants can be controlled.

The 50:50 rule will take care of this issue in the future, which was originally part of Durbin-Grassley bill. The request from few senators was to push this out to take effect after 3 years so as not to disrupt the existing system abruptly. This is required for orderly transition as you cannot immediately push half of the employees of outsourcers and many startups out that quickly without impacting the companies and the economy. As such many outsourcing companies have stopped bringing their employees on visas and are hiring locally though they are definitely far off the required number.

Since you mentioned outsourcers, I would request you do some research on Nurse staffing companies. You will find that witch companies are actually saints by comparison. And guess where majority of folks for Nursing come from? Not all over the world, but from a few places. In fact Nurses don’t even qualify for H1B because it is a 2 year certification course.

And there is a carve out specifically for Nurses for the 9 year period precisely because of this inability to bring them on any other visa.

Also agriculture workers today are primarily hired through H2B and not through employment based immigration. The very few who are can still go through the transition reserved visas.

One final item about your suggestion. While I am sure you think it is reasonable, the opposition will still not go for it. Given the transition numbers, EAD and early filing in 2 years the existing students as well as existing applicants not be impacted. And even with the no harm provision and all the original provisions, the opposition was still present and they did not agree to it.

Also finally, Sen. Durbin is holding the bill not because of opposition but because of his agenda. In fact he is trying to get more senators to oppose it in vain. Even if there was one senator who was willing to oppose this, he would release the hold. If in fact it was the opposition that is making him hold this, he would not say that he will let the original bill go through as there was still opposition for that one as well.

So regardless of your compromise, he will still find a way to hold this. Th only way forward I can see is to call a spade a spade and continue to push for this bill. Unless you are willing to be known as a racist forever, there is no choice but to release the hold. All the other senators are seeing through what is happening. If not, being the minority whip, he would have found another senator to hold the bill. I am sure he is missing Sessions in the senate.

I am not saying no other senator will oppose this bill in the future, but as of now no one has expressed any concern other than this one senator.

[eaglenow]

Eagle - let's stay factual and objective. This is not about IV. This is about backlogged community.

Let's discuss this objectively along these questions rather than getting personal or emotional.

If I and others are indeed arm chair critics then it should be easy to answer the following questions. I have also included them at the top of the thread.

Key Questions

1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
3. Why only Sen. Graham is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)


I think IV has unnecessarily politicized and personalized this. So lets deconstruct the whole propaganda and speak objectively.

I am assuming you are referring to Sen. Durbin not Sen.Graham. I think you have identified the core of the issue. You think it is a controversial bill and hence the reasoning for your questions. It is not controversial at all. Therein lies the disconnect.

The proof is the passage of the bill with more than 85% of the house votes in a bipartisan manner through suspension of rules, a process similar to UC in senate. This is the most cosponsored immigration bill in the last 30 years.

Based on what I have seen and heard over the last decade, this bill has already died a thousand deaths and come back to life. Senator Durbin is not the first or only senator to hold the bill and the same is the case with representatives as well. I have seen how the opposition was handled, pretty much through advocacy by working with that office one day at time with the help of constituents. Even senators who can easily be alleged as racist were not called out as such.

The content of the bill is equality and no one denies that. When anyone had objections, they had a valid reason to oppose and when it was addressed, they removed their hold or at least were willing to negotiate in good faith.

The only other senator who would not even engage is sessions who has thankfully left the senate. This bill almost passed last year when Rep. Kevin Yoder made it part of appropriations. Unfortunately the timing did not help and the shutdown and politics around it led to CRs and no appropriations bill passing. Otherwise it would have passed then.

This time I was a shocker to see Senator Durbin hold the bill while all along he said he agreed with the bill and had no objections. And he literally manufactured opposition using the constituent coffee event. Talk to the people who went there and read their accounts. One such account is on medium.

While every other senator was willing to engage in a negotiation, he simply refused until he was pressured into it by his constituents. But he insisted no one else be part of the negotiation but kept leaking details to opposition and tried to get more senators to oppose. In the end when the negotiations were done he insisted that he bill be directly brought to the floor and not review it with anyone else because he wanted to derail the bill and claim someone else did it.

There was a call campaign asking the senator to not bring the bill to the floor before Sen. Lee has a chance to discuss with others as the negotiations were supposed to be private. Eventually he relented. Now after review, there were 3 minor edits to implementation and now he is refusing to come to the table for any negotiation.

That is not how any law is passed. The negotiations are ongoing till the last minute.

And as for your question about UC, unless you are talking about something like healthcare bill, social security, Medicare, tax reform etc, which are extensive all other bills go through UC. UC is not about controversy bill or not but rather based on agreement between senators and the size of the bill. Also this bill is not controversial at all and hence the path for UC. While UC May look like a simple process, there is still a process for it behind the scenes before something is brought to the floor for UC.

The reality is this bill has broad bipartisan support from every single caucus on the hill from the extreme left to the extreme right. Show me another bill where a liberal democrat like Rep. Lofgren and a tea party candidate like former rep. Chaffetz cosponsor and are original sponsors of a bill. On the senate side, there are 30 bipartisan cosponsors.

I have seen how patient the core team is and how they move very cautiously on EVERYTHING. So for them to do what they are doing, in my opinion, it just means all other options have been exhausted. Again I go back to my earlier comment. In the past decade how many times has IV done what they are doing now.

Hope this helps.

[eaglenow]

An additional point, UC requires a very extensive process behind the scenes and is not something that anyone can just get through. In fact before something is considered for UC, all offices are consulted and if anyone has any objections, it is not brought to the floor. If more than a few senators object it is not even considered for UC.

For any bill to be in UC, it is literally passed by checking with every single office before it is decided. That is the reason I say that this is not something that anyone is deceived or tricked into doing. The process just does not lend itself for it.

Also for every time you see a bill on the floor for UC, it is not brought to the floor due to some objection a hundred times.

Whether people like IV or not, there is imply no other org that has the experience, know-how, strategy, resources, credibility on the hill and most importantly the willingness and dedication to work on relief for backlogged immigrants. All the other orgs simply do not have all the above criteria.

One example I can give is before the bill passed the house another group went for advocacy for the same bill and the messaging was so off base that many offices got the impression and angry that this was a Indian IT only bill.

Then the volunteers had to spend weeks of their time and effort both locally and in DC to work with the office again and get the office back to supporting the bill. While it may look simple on the surface, advocacy is not just about calling offices. That has to be preceded by strategy, messaging, expected outcome, grassroots support and continuously monitoring the progress and shifting messaging based on ground realities. This is a tedious effort. The easiest part is the grassroots engagement of calling the offices, hence the request to do so when it is deemed necessary.

Get any one of this wrong and your efforts are in vain.

[smuggymba]

Sorry. You cannot compare IV leadership to nobel prize winners. Extremely thin skinned and immature. Removal of country caps made sense in 2012, when others would suffer for 5 years. Not in 2020 where everyone else will have to suffer for 10-15 years. In 2012, Indian service companies were not sponsoring green cards. For them H1B was simply outsourcing visa. Now, they sponsor en-masse mainly to get I-140 and unlimited extensions. You cannot in a serious face say that European researchers need to wait for 15 years to get their green cards and not expect any opposition. So the fix has to be something different. Either more green cards or some other filtering.

If you have a better idea/plan @rocketfast, why don't you go ahead with it and help us all backlogged people.

[qesehmk]

Eagle

Can you please be succint and answer question by question so that all people can follow. Here are the questions once again.

Key Questions

1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
3. Why only Sen. Graham is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)



Here are answers to some of your observations/questions:
1) The bill is controversial not to us obviously. But it is controversial to others. No need to elaborate this further I assume.
2) Lindsey Graham is the person who floated the idea of UC. He absolutely did not want to spend senate time on this bill (in other words he was not interested in this bill but did not want to be seen opposing and hey if in the process if dems can be thrown under the bus then why not). Prove me wrong on this.
3) Role of UC - Contrary to what you say UC is not common for serious and controversial legislation. Routine mundane stuff gets done using UC to expedite senate proceedings.
4) IV's role - absolutely does work on the ground. Respect to them. But that is no excuse for making this a political or personal issue.

So please stay focused on my questions and summarize them question by question please so all can read. I will be the first to change my mind if I see anything useful.

[eaglenow]

Can you please be succint and answer question by question so that all people can follow. Here are the questions once again.


I did answer all of your questions in my previous post. I will indulge you once again. i encourage others to read my earlier post as well so as to get the detailed picture.




Key Questions
1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
3. Why only Sen. Graham is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)


Here are answers to some of your observations/questions:
1) The bill is controversial not to us obviously. But it is controversial to others. No need to elaborate this further I assume.


The bill is NOT controversial. It is demonstrated by the broad bipartisan support with support from every single caucus across congress and the fact that it passed the house twice with overwhelming majority.

Please do not confuse opposition with controversial. Every bill will have opposition even things you think/assume are mundane. It’s just that when it passes the floor through UC you do not see how it was handled behind the scenes.

Any truly controversial bill will not be UCed. If a bill is brought out as a UC, it means it has already been vetted with every single office to bring it on as UC. That is the process. This bill has always followed UC for the past decade.




2) Lindsey Graham is the person who floated the idea of UC. He absolutely did not want to spend senate time on this bill (in other words he was not interested in this bill but did not want to be seen opposing and hey if in the process if dems can be thrown under the bus then why not). Prove me wrong on this.



Actually no. I am assuming you are referencing some statement made by him suggesting it be UCed. The history of this bill goes back to 2009 and the approach has always been Suspension in house and UC in senate given the contents and nature of the bill.

only bills that do not have broad support go through regular order given the extensive process and time commitment needed for it.

If more than 95 senators agree to a bill as UC, the senate will not want to spend the time on regular order. In this case, Sen. Durbin is the only hold as of now. The usual suspects, even those who oppose the process in general, have all let it go through.

To give you an example, former Sen.Reid suggested bringing this to regular order if there was time because only Sen. Sessions was blocking it at that time. But it never panned out due to lack of time and debt limit issue.




3) Role of UC - Contrary to what you say UC is not common for serious and controversial legislation. Routine mundane stuff gets done using UC to expedite senate proceedings.



I have explained this above. Serious, controversial etc are all in your mind. On the hill this bill has been accepted as a UC. Any bill with such broad support will not be brought as regular order as it is a waste of time and not needed. If it was, at least a few senators would have opposed bringing this as UC and this would not have hit the floor at all.

That is also the reason in the last Congress, Rep. Yoder added it to appropriations bill, which is a must pass bill. No controversial items will be allowed to be added to must pass bills. That is how hill works.




4) IV's role - absolutely does work on the ground. Respect to them. But that is no excuse for making this a political or personal issue.



It is your opinion that they are making this political or personal. You are entitled to it.
Unless you have worked with them over the years and have seen them handle opposition multiple times, you do not have context to establish the MO needed to see if this is personal, political etc.

I have seen them operate for a decade and they are extremely careful not to take sides or offend any group. Every single opposition has been handled with finesse and great care even when it was unreasonable or looked insurmountable. This has been demonstrated over and over again in the messaging as well to every single office and during trainings. So making this personal or political at this last push point just does not fit the pattern or the goal.

Based on what I have seen, they would not have resorted to this unless this was absolutely the only option. I again request you to see how many times in the past has this happened?

And IV is pretty public about their statements. If other dem offices were offended, which they would be if there was some hidden agenda, they would have already withdrawn support and made it public. The fact that Sen. Durbin is the only one still holding the bill with no support should be telling.




So please stay focused on my questions and summarize them question by question please so all can read. I will be the first to change my mind if I see anything useful.



Hope I have answered your questions. I would be happy if it helped change your mind or answer any follow up questions.

In the end, this bill is not going to impact you in any way and it does not personally benefit me in any way as well.

I have only shared my experience working with IV on this and what I have learnt over the past decade. I will end by saying this bill is the last chance in the next few years unless there is a drastic flip of senate (more than 60 seats) house and presidency. If our community unites behind the bill and the org, it will help push it to the finish line. Otherwise the wait continues. The choice is with the backlogged applicants.

[Ramsen]

Ok What next in the bill? If Sen Durbin continues to hold till this year end. He will win for sure and he may put a hold for another 6 years. So IV is going to continue for UC only option and only removal of country cap and try for another 6 years or 10 years? Why not they consider increasing the quota to 50% which may have lesser opposition. Why not try committee process?

[qesehmk]

Eagle - you don't have to indulge me. just speak normal, with facts and to the point.

I think you really need to come down from your high horse. I too have volunteered at least 10000 hours in my career - not counting what I do here. So take it easy and rest assured you just don't know what others may have done or not in their careers and life. All we can and should do is discuss things as they are in front of us.

Glad to learn that you agree that UC is not used for controversial bills. So that's a start.

Interesting you think that immigration issue which was the central issue (border wall) for Trump, is not a controversial issue. I disagree. Immigration remains the hot button topic perhaps the one that now comes close is china. The bill if it had such a broad support across all caucuses then it should have passed senate. But Lee and Durbin both even after their agreement concluded that it will not pass. So your statements are quite delusional that the bill has broad support and is not controversial. Perhaps you consider minority bipartisan support as broad support. I don't think that way. To me broad means majority.

So lets come back to the questions again.

1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
- You say "Lindsey was one of persons who said so". And that may be right. But he is one of the senior most GOP leaders and chairman of the judiciary committee. So he is not just speaking for himself. So it was GOP leadership who asked for UC not dems. You also say "The bill was always supposed to be UCd". I think that's baloney. First this bill was tabled in 2019 not 2009. I am amazed you are counting all random efforts since 2009 as this bill. It is not. Second, why would a hot button topic (in case you don't like "controversial") be UCd at all - except to kill the bill? This whole line of thinking is outright stupid. I am sorry for saying so - but you are absolutely wasting my time and challenging everybody's intelligence when you make that kind of argument.

2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
You already admitted that controversial / hot topic button things don't use UC. Please confirm.

3. Why only Sen. Durbin is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)
You wrote a lot but did not answer this. Durbin is only the whip. But he and Lee both confirmed that the senate does not have majority to pass this bill. If Durbin is the only holdout that means all other Dem senators were on board and this bill could have passed by a simple senate majority. UC was not required at all.

See here is the problem with your arguments. They are hollow and without reason and common sense. I say it again. If UC was such a problem, they could have simply tabled the bill and vote on it. They just didn't have the numbers for a simple majority. How do you expect a bill that does not have simple majority get Unanimous Consent i.e. 100 votes.

4. IV's role. Has it hurt EB-I community.
I do agree this is subjective. But IV's emails are not subjective. They are very vivid and pointed. And they were not just addressed to any senator. They are addressed to the minority whip. So that is shocking to say the least.

If you disagree, I will be happy to indulge you. My only request is to please stick to these four points rationally and factually.


I did answer all of your questions in my previous post. I will indulge you once again. i encourage others to read my earlier post as well so as to get the detailed picture.



The bill is NOT controversial. It is demonstrated by the broad bipartisan support with support from every single caucus across congress and the fact that it passed the house twice with overwhelming majority.

Please do not confuse opposition with controversial. Every bill will have opposition even things you think/assume are mundane. It’s just that when it passes the floor through UC you do not see how it was handled behind the scenes.

Any truly controversial bill will not be UCed. If a bill is brought out as a UC, it means it has already been vetted with every single office to bring it on as UC. That is the process. This bill has always followed UC for the past decade.



Actually no. I am assuming you are referencing some statement made by him suggesting it be UCed. The history of this bill goes back to 2009 and the approach has always been Suspension in house and UC in senate given the contents and nature of the bill.

only bills that do not have broad support go through regular order given the extensive process and time commitment needed for it.

If more than 95 senators agree to a bill as UC, the senate will not want to spend the time on regular order. In this case, Sen. Durbin is the only hold as of now. The usual suspects, even those who oppose the process in general, have all let it go through.

To give you an example, former Sen.Reid suggested bringing this to regular order if there was time because only Sen. Sessions was blocking it at that time. But it never panned out due to lack of time and debt limit issue.



I have explained this above. Serious, controversial etc are all in your mind. On the hill this bill has been accepted as a UC. Any bill with such broad support will not be brought as regular order as it is a waste of time and not needed. If it was, at least a few senators would have opposed bringing this as UC and this would not have hit the floor at all.

That is also the reason in the last Congress, Rep. Yoder added it to appropriations bill, which is a must pass bill. No controversial items will be allowed to be added to must pass bills. That is how hill works.



It is your opinion that they are making this political or personal. You are entitled to it.
Unless you have worked with them over the years and have seen them handle opposition multiple times, you do not have context to establish the MO needed to see if this is personal, political etc.

I have seen them operate for a decade and they are extremely careful not to take sides or offend any group. Every single opposition has been handled with finesse and great care even when it was unreasonable or looked insurmountable. This has been demonstrated over and over again in the messaging as well to every single office and during trainings. So making this personal or political at this last push point just does not fit the pattern or the goal.

Based on what I have seen, they would not have resorted to this unless this was absolutely the only option. I again request you to see how many times in the past has this happened?

And IV is pretty public about their statements. If other dem offices were offended, which they would be if there was some hidden agenda, they would have already withdrawn support and made it public. The fact that Sen. Durbin is the only one still holding the bill with no support should be telling.



Hope I have answered your questions. I would be happy if it helped change your mind or answer any follow up questions.

In the end, this bill is not going to impact you in any way and it does not personally benefit me in any way as well.

I have only shared my experience working with IV on this and what I have learnt over the past decade. I will end by saying this bill is the last chance in the next few years unless there is a drastic flip of senate (more than 60 seats) house and presidency. If our community unites behind the bill and the org, it will help push it to the finish line. Otherwise the wait continues. The choice is with the backlogged applicants.

[eaglenow]

Eagle - you don't have to indulge me. just speak normal, with facts and to the point.

I think you really need to come down from your high horse. I too have volunteered at least 10000 hours in my career - not counting what I do here. So take it easy and rest assured you just don't know what others may have done or not in their careers and life. All we can and should do is discuss things as they are in front of us.



Alright, I tried to answer you exactly how you asked. Now you are getting personal. I am not on any high horse. I never questioned whether you volunteered or not and never mentioned anything about your volunteering or what you have or have not done in your career. From your questions, it is clear to me you don’t have experience working on the hill.

So I have been trying to answer your questions from that perspective. If you have indeed worked on the hill for a bill, please let me know and we will shift to different language so you don’t feel I am on a high horse.




Glad to learn that you agree that UC is not used for controversial bills. So that's a start.

Interesting you think that immigration issue which was the central issue (border wall) for Trump, is not a controversial issue. I disagree. Immigration remains the hot button topic perhaps the one that now comes close is china. The bill if it had such a broad support across all caucuses then it should have passed senate.



While it is true that immigration is a hit button issue, this particular bill is not. DACA has broad support as well but is not on UC, why?

On the hill everything is about trade off and compromises. In this case, it has been through the ringer and is close to being passed.




But Lee and Durbin both even after their agreement concluded that it will not pass.


Now I am truly baffled. Please point me to what you are looking at to arrive at your statement that both lee and Durbin concluded it will not pass.





So your statements are quite delusional that the bill has broad support and is not controversial. Perhaps you consider minority bipartisan support as broad support. I don't think that way. To me broad means majority.



Yep, minority bipartisan support is the reason the bill passed in the house with 365 votes. Is this the minority support you are referring to? Who is delusional here? In the senate there are 19 Republican and 16 Democrat cosponsors.






So lets come back to the questions again.

1. Why did Lindsey Graham think unanimous consent is required for such a controversial bill and senate does not have time to debate this.
- You say "Lindsey was one of persons who said so". And that may be right. But he is one of the senior most GOP leaders and chairman of the judiciary committee. So he is not just speaking for himself. So it was GOP leadership who asked for UC not dems. You also say "The bill was always supposed to be UCd". I think that's baloney. First this bill was tabled in 2019 not 2009. I am amazed you are counting all random efforts since 2009 as this bill. It is not. Second, why would a hot button topic (in case you don't like "controversial") be UCd at all - except to kill the bill? This whole line of thinking is outright stupid. I am sorry for saying so - but you are absolutely wasting my time and challenging everybody's intelligence when you make that kind of argument.



Random efforts? Refer to HR3012 from 112th congress. Since then the bill has been introduced every single congress finally resulting in HR1044 in the current congress.

I keep telling you how UC is decided and yet you refuse to see it and insist that dems did not accept it. I don’t know what to say.

For someone who doesn’t know the process on the hill and just providing opinions, you are quite confident. I do not want to waste any more of your time.

And no I am not challenging anyone’s intelligence. Just stating facts. Let’s leave it up to the folks to make their own determination. I have already mentioned that my comments are based on advocating for this bill for a decade and working closely with the org. Please feel free to mention your experience on the hill.

You really seem to believe that you are more intelligent and know better than all the the hundreds of volunteers who have spent thousands of hours, the core leadership team who are working on this day in and out on the hill and all the lobbyists and consultants and people who have worked as staffers on the hill. More power to you.




2. Has there ever been a controversial bill passed via Unanimous Consent? EVER?
You already admitted that controversial / hot topic button things don't use UC. Please confirm.


Yep, hot button/controversial bills will never be brought to the floor for UC. Nobody can trick anyone into doing it. The UC process will by itself prevent any such bill to be considered for UC, unless the senator is just trolling. They also don’t get added to must pass appropriations bills nor do they pass the house twice with more than 80% of the votes broad bipartisan support.



3. Why only Sen. Durbin is being singled out (when he is not acting in his personal capacity.)
You wrote a lot but did not answer this. Durbin is only the whip. But he and Lee both confirmed that the senate does not have majority to pass this bill. If Durbin is the only holdout that means all other Dem senators were on board and this bill could have passed by a simple senate majority. UC was not required at all.


They did not confirm the senate does not have majority to pass the bill. Where are you seeing this? Please provide reference.

Yes all other Dem senators are on board. Yes, it can pass with a simple majority. But the process for that is tedious and requires time commitment and allocation. So, If something can pass through UC, it will be considered for UC and not for regular order. If the bill is small, such as this one, then it will get added to another bill that goes through regular order, usually a must pass bill.



See here is the problem with your arguments. They are hollow and without reason and common sense. I say it again. If UC was such a problem, they could have simply tabled the bill and vote on it. They just didn't have the numbers for a simple majority. How do you expect a bill that does not have simple majority get Unanimous Consent i.e. 100 votes.


If a bill doesn’t have majority, it will never even qualify for UC. I have no idea how you concluded that the bill does not have simple majority. Please provide reference.

The core issue is you seem to have some assumptions and are basing your opinions on that.

My reference is the work of various volunteers who have worked with every single office.




4. IV's role. Has it hurt EB-I community.
I do agree this is subjective. But IV's emails are not subjective. They are very vivid and pointed. And they were not just addressed to any senator. They are addressed to the minority whip. So that is shocking to say the least.

If you disagree, I will be happy to indulge you. My only request is to please stick to these four points rationally and factually.


Exactly. Taking on minority whip is not a simple decision. And since he is still holding the bill with support from no one else, it should be telling.

[eaglenow]

Ok What next in the bill? If Sen Durbin continues to hold till this year end. He will win for sure and he may put a hold for another 6 years. So IV is going to continue for UC only option and only removal of country cap and try for another 6 years or 10 years? Why not they consider increasing the quota to 50% which may have lesser opposition. Why not try committee process?

That’s where we need the community to come together. The bill is on the verge of passing but for one senator. It almost passed twice in the past. So if the community comes together and asks the senator to lift the hold, especially the constituents of the senator, he has no choice but to remove the hold or negotiate. I can see where this is going, but don’t want to call it out.

One thing that will certainly derail the bill is if our folks get desperate and start negotiating with ourselves. The senator is not even willing to negotiate, that has to change first. For that our community needs to come together and push for the bill.

It’s time we get out of our perennial meekness and start pushing for equality.

At this point don’t undermine the efforts of others. This is the exact same crap our folks did in 2014. When we already got admin to agree to making dates current and filing early 485, some people pushed for H4EAD. Guess what, admin decided that is sufficient and backed off the making filing dates current. So stop negotiating with yourself.

Equality is the strongest value and principle of America. All we are asking is equality and equal treatment and remove discrimination based on country of birth.

[qesehmk]

I never questioned whether you volunteered or not and never mentioned anything about your volunteering or what you have or have not done in your career. From your questions, it is clear to me you don’t have experience working on the hill.

So I have been trying to answer your questions from that perspective. If you have indeed worked on the hill for a bill, please let me know and we will shift to different language so you don’t feel I am on a high horse.

Do you see how full of you are. You guys make it sound like working on hill is rocket science. It is not. You are talking BS just to avoid admitting mistakes.

[android09]

That’s where we need the community to come together. The bill is on the verge of passing but for one senator. It almost passed twice in the past. So if the community comes together and asks the senator to lift the hold, especially the constituents of the senator, he has no choice but to remove the hold or negotiate. I can see where this is going, but don’t want to call it out.

One thing that will certainly derail the bill is if our folks get desperate and start negotiating with ourselves. The senator is not even willing to negotiate, that has to change first. For that our community needs to come together and push for the bill.

It’s time we get out of our perennial meekness and start pushing for equality.

At this point don’t undermine the efforts of others. This is the exact same crap our folks did in 2014. When we already got admin to agree to making dates current and filing early 485, some people pushed for H4EAD. Guess what, admin decided that is sufficient and backed off the making filing dates current. So stop negotiating with yourself.

Equality is the strongest value and principle of America. All we are asking is equality and equal treatment and remove discrimination based on country of birth.

Keep your papers ready....Any minute now. Its a done deal. We've had dinners with folks who matter on the hill, posted pictures on facebook and twitter of members standing outside Congressional folks office room, we've sent flowers to USCIS, we've called a sitting senator a racist even though we know if the democrats win the elections, this man is going to have immense influence and we'd have to deal with him, we've stormed cities with our Mercedes, Audis and BMWs and attended rallies, we've carpet bombed the senator's office with calls, we've stood in the rain with our little kids and held posters outside his home asking him to negotiate and calling him a racist in other slogans, we've worn our suits to the congress, we are tone-deaf and expect everyone else to be as well. Everything is all set....

[qesehmk]

If a bill doesn’t have majority, it will never even qualify for UC.
I dont think there is such a process of qualification. Prove me wrong. Show me the process.
Don't tell me the only way you know this is because somebody told you.
If so , whoever you are talking to are making a fool of you.
And that precisely my point. GOP trained IV's guns on Dems and shot down the bill and shot down dems.
You better come to terms with it.

[qesehmk]

Now I am truly baffled. Please point me to what you are looking at to arrive at your statement that both lee and Durbin concluded it will not pass.

They did not confirm the senate does not have majority to pass the bill. Where are you seeing this? Please provide reference.

Really? you don't know this? He said it on the senate floor!! Watch clip 3:10

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4840492/user-clip-durbin-lee-announce-reaching-agreement-s386

and also in the news:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/us-senators-say-no-voting-on-s-386-bill-as-of-now/articleshow/72894768.cms

SMH. Is this how you guys do advocacy? And I am the rookie here.

My friend - in case you don't know this get this straight from me. I am the very person who FIRST EVER made an argument that country quota is the root cause of evil behind EB-IC backlog. I am the one who EVER talked first about making the pain universal. So I am dead serious about all these matters. Your IV masters will never tell this to you.

[qesehmk]

Eagle - there are many other silly things you said. But I will let you decide if there is anything else you would like me to explain or clarify.

To summarize:
1) You did agree that UC is not used for hot button / controversial things.
2) Your understanding of UC is completely wrong. There is no process for UC. They just announce it. Just see the transcript of the clip I provided above. They talk about UC so many times - I lost count.
3) You say this topic is broadly agreed upon and is not controversial. The proof of the pudding is in passing it - which - did not happen.
4) I have provided proof that Durbin himself says on the floor that he has agreement with Lee but they don't have votes.
5) Finally you think IV was in line in isolating and attacking Durbin and calling him racist (which he absolutely is not). IV letter is open to read by all. I just don't think such personal and vicious attack was necessary.

What else can I answer or clarify? I really think you guys should use your own site for propaganda and leave this site alone.

I am trying my best to help people have good clarity on numbers, the politics, the dynamics of it. I am not going to your site to post my thoughts - oh wait - they banned me. That's the whole reason I am here !!!!!

[eaglenow]

Do you see how full of you are. You guys make it sound like working on hill is rocket science. It is not. You are talking BS just to avoid admitting mistakes.

You are getting too emotional. I guess we are no longer being rational and sticking to facts. Politics and advocacy is not rocket science. Got it. We should tell that to DACA folks and all the other advocacy groups on the hill. I am sure they will appreciate the news.

[eaglenow]

Keep your papers ready....Any minute now. Its a done deal. We've had dinners with folks who matter on the hill, posted pictures on facebook and twitter of members standing outside Congressional folks office room, we've sent flowers to USCIS, we've called a sitting senator a racist even though we know if the democrats win the elections, this man is going to have immense influence and we'd have to deal with him, we've stormed cities with our Mercedes, Audis and BMWs and attended rallies, we've carpet bombed the senator's office with calls, we've stood in the rain with our little kids and held posters outside his home asking him to negotiate and calling him a racist in other slogans, we've worn our suits to the congress, we are tone-deaf and expect everyone else to be as well. Everything is all set....

Feel free to find an organization that works for you. Or not. Your choice. Like I said, I don’t personally benefit from the bill.

I understand your frustration but you are directing it at the wrong person. Hope you get GC in the near future.

[eaglenow]

Really? you don't know this? He said it on the senate floor!! Watch clip 3:10

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4840492/user-clip-durbin-lee-announce-reaching-agreement-s386

and also in the news:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/us-senators-say-no-voting-on-s-386-bill-as-of-now/articleshow/72894768.cms

SMH. Is this how you guys do advocacy? And I am the rookie here.

My friend - in case you don't know this get this straight from me. I am the very person who FIRST EVER made an argument that country quota is the root cause of evil behind EB-IC backlog. I am the one who EVER talked first about making the pain universal. So I am dead serious about all these matters. Your IV masters will never tell this to you.

Now you are onto personal attacks. I don’t have masters and I don’t think I am the genius who knows it all either. I am just a volunteer who advocated for a bill I believed in with an organization that I found through experience was doing credible work.

As for the last point, this is when Durbin demanded secrecy during negotiations and then wanted to bring the bill to the floor without discussing with other senators. There was a call campaign asking him not to do so and give time to Sen. lee to socialize the agreement and address concerns and get consensus. This speech was made during that time.

Listen to the full speech and you can hear Sen. Lee clearly say that they want to make sure that the original cosponsors are comfortable with the negotiated changes and get their buy-in. Because that is the UC process. He also clearly says that he believes this will pass.

[eaglenow]

Eagle - there are many other silly things you said. But I will let you decide if there is anything else you would like me to explain or clarify.

To summarize:
1) You did agree that UC is not used for hot button / controversial things.
2) Your understanding of UC is completely wrong. There is no process for UC. They just announce it. Just see the transcript of the clip I provided above. They talk about UC so many times - I lost count.
3) You say this topic is broadly agreed upon and is not controversial. The proof of the pudding is in passing it - which - did not happen.
4) I have provided proof that Durbin himself says on the floor that he has agreement with Lee but they don't have votes.
5) Finally you think IV was in line in isolating and attacking Durbin and calling him racist (which he absolutely is not). IV letter is open to read by all. I just don't think such personal and vicious attack was necessary.

What else can I answer or clarify? I really think you guys should use your own site for propaganda and leave this site alone.

I am trying my best to help people have good clarity on numbers, the politics, the dynamics of it. I am not going to your site to post my thoughts - oh wait - they banned me. That's the whole reason I am here !!!!!

This is what you got from all my explanations?

My site? I am not a core member of IV, just a volunteer. Since you think my thoughts are propaganda and this is your site and want me to leave it alone, I will stop sharing my thoughts. And I thought it was about backlogged people.

I will let others take what they will from our conversation. I know you had a bad experience with IV and it’s obvious you can never see beyond that. Just know that your uninformed opinions will lead people astray and it’s on you.

I will only request you to learn more about the process before commenting. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

[eaglenow]

I dont think there is such a process of qualification. Prove me wrong. Show me the process.
Don't tell me the only way you know this is because somebody told you.
If so , whoever you are talking to are making a fool of you.
And that precisely my point. GOP trained IV's guns on Dems and shot down the bill and shot down dems.
You better come to terms with it.

Believe what you want. I am just sharing my experience.

In UC, they follow a process called hot lining. Before it is brought to the floor, every office is intimated about the bill being brought up and asked if they have any objections. If they do not, then on the floor it is brought up and passed even with almost no members present.

If there are objections, the original sponsors of the bill are notified and they decide what to do. They will reach out to the concerned offices and discuss concerns and try to address them. Then the process is repeated until there are no objections.

Sometimes the bill sponsors will go through the floor process if they feel they can address the concerns before the UC on the floor. Sometimes they will push it out if they feel it would take time to discuss.

There are times when initially an office does not have objections and at the last minute some group reaches out and the senator holds it to request changes. This is what happened when Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Perdue raised objections. When their objections were addressed, the changes were then socialized and the process repeated.

In the current scenario, after the agreement was reached, it was socialized with others and to address their concerns a few implementation details were updated. Now Sen. Durbin is using that as an excuse to hold the bill and is not even willing to negotiate. Note that the changes did not make changes to any core of the bill, just implementation details. So either Durbin should express his concerns and work with other senators to fix them or let the bill go. He is not doing either and is simply holding the bill.

On the hill, everything is a negotiation and it will last till the last minute of passing the bill. If someone stops negotiations, they just want to kill the bill. Sen. Sessions did it in previous congresses and this time it is Durbin.

[qesehmk]

You are getting too emotional. I guess we are no longer being rational and sticking to facts. Politics and advocacy is not rocket science. Got it. We should tell that to DACA folks and all the other advocacy groups on the hill. I am sure they will appreciate the news.
Everybody knows it except you guys who make it a voodoo thing. This is not new. Some things never change.

[qesehmk]

Feel free to find an organization that works for you. Or not. Your choice. Like I said, I don’t personally benefit from the bill.

I understand your frustration but you are directing it at the wrong person. Hope you get GC in the near future.
I got mine 9 years back. I am past my citizenship application by 4 years.

[qesehmk]

Now you are onto personal attacks. I don’t have masters and I don’t think I am the genius who knows it all either. I am just a volunteer who advocated for a bill I believed in with an organization that I found through experience was doing credible work.

As for the last point, this is when Durbin demanded secrecy during negotiations and then wanted to bring the bill to the floor without discussing with other senators. There was a call campaign asking him not to do so and give time to Sen. lee to socialize the agreement and address concerns and get consensus. This speech was made during that time.

Listen to the full speech and you can hear Sen. Lee clearly say that they want to make sure that the original cosponsors are comfortable with the negotiated changes and get their buy-in. Because that is the UC process. He also clearly says that he believes this will pass.

Durbin also says at 5:55 and lee at 8:55 that this still needs to be bought in by co-sponsors and others. But the fact is that support never materialized. You again talk about UC process. I don't understand it, every bill needs backroom dealings. Every single. But no serious bill gets passed through UC. Only mundane stuff. Just look at the transcript will you. Tell me how many times you see UC there. The point is - there is your proof that they did not have majority then nor they had it later.

[qesehmk]

I will only request you to learn more about the process before commenting.
Where is the process? Give us a link.

[qesehmk]

Believe what you want. I am just sharing my experience.

In UC, they follow a process called hot lining. Before it is brought to the floor, every office is intimated about the bill being brought up and asked if they have any objections. If they do not, then on the floor it is brought up and passed even with almost no members present.

If there are objections, the original sponsors of the bill are notified and they decide what to do. They will reach out to the concerned offices and discuss concerns and try to address them. Then the process is repeated until there are no objections.

Sometimes the bill sponsors will go through the floor process if they feel they can address the concerns before the UC on the floor. Sometimes they will push it out if they feel it would take time to discuss.

There are times when initially an office does not have objections and at the last minute some group reaches out and the senator holds it to request changes. This is what happened when Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Perdue raised objections. When their objections were addressed, the changes were then socialized and the process repeated.

In the current scenario, after the agreement was reached, it was socialized with others and to address their concerns a few implementation details were updated. Now Sen. Durbin is using that as an excuse to hold the bill and is not even willing to negotiate. Note that the changes did not make changes to any core of the bill, just implementation details. So either Durbin should express his concerns and work with other senators to fix them or let the bill go. He is not doing either and is simply holding the bill.

On the hill, everything is a negotiation and it will last till the last minute of passing the bill. If someone stops negotiations, they just want to kill the bill. Sen. Sessions did it in previous congresses and this time it is Durbin.

Here is a simpler explanation found from a google search.


A majority of non-controversial bills passed by the Senate are “hotlined,” meaning they pass without an actual voice or recorded vote, but by unanimous consent, without any debate or amendments. “Holds” are placed when a Senator wants to object to a unanimous consent request or to simply review and negotiate changes to the bill.


So any mature advocacy effort would understand the purpose of UC as outlined above is to really EXPEDITE senate proceedings on trivial matter. If people have objections (which is absolutely fine in a political process) then UC can not be used. GOP leadership asked for UC on an issue where people have serious reservations. I just don't understand for the life of me why you folks don't understand that this is not a non-controversial topic. Just because congress passed it doesn't make it non-controversial. Even if Congress you had 65 congressmen against it. So if you had tried UC in congress it would stuck there too.

If Durbin has a hold that does not make him racist. He has a constituency he needs to look after. The advocacy efforts can't bypass minority whip. You just don't use UC on complex topics. Immigration is a complex hot button controversial topic.

Most importantly you don't go around calling important people racist. People who actually are not racist. Durbin for heavens sake was the very first senator in the united states who encouraged Obama to run for presidency. Calling Durbin racist is a sign of entitled mind.

[eaglenow]

Q, my final comment on this. I know you are already a citizen. I know about your issue with IV as well. My comment on working with an org was meant for someone else.

Just one example of your ignorance. In house, there is no UC, only in senate. In house a similar process is called suspension of rules and that is how the bill passed in the house. I can go into details of what is UC etc, you will never agree. You just don’t have the humility to learn as you feel you already know all this. Your hate for IV is so intense, you cannot see beyond that.

And as for the senate you make sweeping statements like there is no support for the bill, it is controversial etc, yet you offer no proof. The video you linked only states they need to socialize the changes and doesn’t say after socializing there was no support. only Durbin is holding the bill. If he let go, it would fail right? So why is he holding the bill?

You make all these statements and push your opinions as facts. Just based on your comments, it is clear you have zero experience working for anything on the hill. Yet you are very confident you know more than anyone else working closely on the bill. Like I said, you are an arm chair critic. Clearly state for everyone how many times have you advocated for any bill on the hill?

I surrender. You know more about the process, policy, strategy and approach by googling and sitting in your home than all the lobbyists, consultants, people who do this for a living and the volunteers who have worked on it every day for a decade combined. I hope every advocacy group consults with you to formulate their strategy and pass bills easily as you can make them realize this is not rocket science.

[qesehmk]

You are a sly person. You always take conversation in an irrelevant direction but never speak objectively to specific issues. My citizenship status, or issue with IV is irrelevant. What's important is - "Who put us on UC path which was impossible to begin with? How and why IV decide Durbin is the EVIL? Did they get played? Have they hurt EB-I? And what can be done to fix the damage?"

Despite me having issues with IV, I have actively encouraged people to do what they can along side IV. But they once again proved me wrong.

UC or no UC in house, it was an example that if there was UC in house even house would not pass HR1044. I never said there is no support. I said the bill doesn't enjoy majority support (in the senate). On the contrary you are saying ONLY durbin is in the way i.e. 99% people are supporting. That is a lie and I proved it. You say this topic is not controversial. That is a lie. Immigration is one of the most controversial topics since GB Bush.

It is a good thing you are surrendering because you are doing a disservice to EB-I.

This animosity with Durbin is very detrimental to EB-I and must stop and be reversed.

p.s. - I also never said I am a citizen. I said I am 4 years past my citizenship application. And you know why? Because it was painful for me to give away my Indian passport.


Q, my final comment on this. I know you are already a citizen. I know about your issue with IV as well. My comment on working with an org was meant for someone else.

Just one example of your ignorance. In house, there is no UC, only in senate. In house a similar process is called suspension of rules and that is how the bill passed in the house. I can go into details of what is UC etc, you will never agree. You just don’t have the humility to learn as you feel you already know all this. Your hate for IV is so intense, you cannot see beyond that.

And as for the senate you make sweeping statements like there is no support for the bill, it is controversial etc, yet you offer no proof. The video you linked only states they need to socialize the changes and doesn’t say after socializing there was no support. only Durbin is holding the bill. If he let go, it would fail right? So why is he holding the bill?

You make all these statements and push your opinions as facts. Just based on your comments, it is clear you have zero experience working for anything on the hill. Yet you are very confident you know more than anyone else working closely on the bill. Like I said, you are an arm chair critic. Clearly state for everyone how many times have you advocated for any bill on the hill?

I surrender. You know more about the process, policy, strategy and approach by googling and sitting in your home than all the lobbyists, consultants, people who do this for a living and the volunteers who have worked on it every day for a decade combined. I hope every advocacy group consults with you to formulate their strategy and pass bills easily as you can make them realize this is not rocket science.

[smuggymba]

Main reason for this mess and summary of this thread:

1.) Infighting
2.) I know more than you
3.) You don't know anything
4.) $$$ problems; illegal immigrants raise more sometimes.

These are the main attributes of Indians and this is cause of backlogs.

[eaglenow]

You are a sly person. You always take conversation in an irrelevant direction but never speak objectively to specific issues. My citizenship status, or issue with IV is irrelevant.


Now you are back to personal attacks. And I will respect your opinion that it is not objective. I am sure people are smart to decide for themselves. Let’s leave it at that.




What's important is - "Who put us on UC path which was impossible to begin with? How and why IV decide Durbin is the EVIL? Did they get played? Have they hurt EB-I? And what can be done to fix the damage?"



UC path was decided by both parties based on the content of the bill. No one gets played, at least not by pushing for UC. There is some parts of UC for every bill. Again please look up what is UC in the first place. It is your opinion that UC is impossible, not fact. No one expected Durbin to act as Sessions, so yes, that was a surprise.

Based on my understanding of why Durbin is being called out:
1. He has generally been against Indian immigrants and has a view that they are cheap labor, scamsters etc.
2. He was against including aging out legal Indian Indian kids to DACA so they can at least get EAD and AP.
3. He cosponsored the same bill when it included relief for Irish undocumented immigrants
4. He always purported to support this bill for a decade and never indicated any concern for the bill till the last minute, when it was just about to pass.
5. For blocking the bill, he held constituent coffee event to show opposition. Read the account of one of the attendees on medium for first hand information.
6. He blocked the bill and tried to tag on poison pills to kill the bill and introduced his own bill to put up a show. He himself acknowledged on the floor his ask will not pass, yet he wanted to add them to the bill.
7. He refused to even negotiate after the hold till he felt pressured into negotiating due to his Indian constituents starting to mobilize against him.
8. He demanded that no one else be part of negotiation and it be done in secret. Yet, his office started leaking information to gather opposition.
9. When the negotiation was complete, he insisted on bringing the bill to the floor immediately without socializing the new agreements. There was a call campaign asking him to to not do so. He relented and that is the video you linked to.
10. When the new agreement was socialized, some senators requested minor updates to implementation and are willing to negotiate with him on that.
11. Now he is refusing to engage or negotiate with others for the changes and is simply holding the bill.
12. Actively trying to get others to oppose the bill. If he had even one other senator oppose the bill, he would have let it go. So the fact that he is holding the bill still without negotiating should be telling.






Despite me having issues with IV, I have actively encouraged people to do what they can along side IV. But they once again proved me wrong.

UC or no UC in house, it was an example that if there was UC in house even house would not pass HR1044. I never said there is no support. I said the bill doesn't enjoy majority support (in the senate). On the contrary you are saying ONLY durbin is in the way i.e. 99% people are supporting. That is a lie and I proved it.


Where did you prove the bill doesn’t enjoy majority support in the senate? You linked to a video where Durbin said at this moment it cannot pass, meaning UC will not pass. That is because the new agreements had not been socialized at that point at all. In the same video, Sen. Lee said as much. That does not mean the bill did not have majority support. And both senators said they will work with their respective parties to address concerns if any after socializing the bill.

Since then it was socialized and negotiations happened with others and minor changes were made to implementation. How do you know there is no majority support for this? My proof is that volunteers have been working with every office socializing the bill and asking if the offices had any concern. None of them did. So based on the responses from offices themselves, no one is opposing it but for Durbin who is holding it and is not even willing to negotiate.

Where is your proof that majority don’t support the bill, especially the one after socializing the new updates?

If there were others, Durbin should just release the hold and the bill will fail right? Why has he not done so and is taking heat for holding the bill?

Also I am not saying there there will be no other hidden opposition that will crop up at the last minute. As of now, based on what we know from the discussions, no other office has expressed concern with the bill. We will never know till Durbin releases the hold and the bill is brought to the floor. Then the bill will either pass or we will work through any objections. That is how the process works. Just holding the bill without negotiating is just to kill the bill. There is no other justification for it. Either express concerns or release the hold, that is all we are asking.




You say this topic is not controversial. That is a lie. Immigration is one of the most controversial topics since GB Bush.


I never said immigration is not controversial. I said this bill, asking for equality in immigration is not controversial. Again, I am basing this on the work of volunteers who work with every single office and going to multiple advocacy events myself over the past decade.



It is a good thing you are surrendering because you are doing a disservice to EB-I.


Yes, I am doing a disservice by spending my money, time and effort by advocating for this on the hill for a decade.

You are doing a great service by doing nothing for this bill other than comment on what should be done and why the approach is wrong, discussing strategy without even basic understanding of how things work on the hill or having advocated for anything on the hill.

If you have, please let everyone know what you have done on the hill for any bill. Or are you just basing all your opinions on what you feel is right based on your understanding reading google or news items.




This animosity with Durbin is very detrimental to EB-I and must stop and be reversed.



There is no animosity to Durbin. From where I see, he is just being called out. His actions speak louder than words.

There is discrimination based on country of birth. Even he acknowledges that. He also acknowledges that the bill is asking for equality.

His concern is that others will have to wait to get GC increasing numbers, which he also acknowledges will not happen in the current climate.

So he is saying it is not acceptable for non Indians to wait for 2 years for early filing of 485 and getting ead and waiting for 7 to 8 years, but is is fine if Indians will never get GC in their lifetime, with no early filing, no ead and children aging out.

He is more concerned about non Indians who will come into the system 3 years from now than Indians who are already waiting for more than 5 years.

He is demanding other conditions to be met in his preferred way before Indians can be treated equally when it comes to eb immigration. Otherwise they will have to continue to suffer.

In your words what do you call this?




p.s. - I also never said I am a citizen. I said I am 4 years past my citizenship application. And you know why? Because it was painful for me to give away my Indian passport.


Good for you.

[Ramsen]

That’s where we need the community to come together. The bill is on the verge of passing but for one senator. It almost passed twice in the past. So if the community comes together and asks the senator to lift the hold, especially the constituents of the senator, he has no choice but to remove the hold or negotiate. I can see where this is going, but don’t want to call it out.

One thing that will certainly derail the bill is if our folks get desperate and start negotiating with ourselves. The senator is not even willing to negotiate, that has to change first. For that our community needs to come together and push for the bill.

It’s time we get out of our perennial meekness and start pushing for equality.

At this point don’t undermine the efforts of others. This is the exact same crap our folks did in 2014. When we already got admin to agree to making dates current and filing early 485, some people pushed for H4EAD. Guess what, admin decided that is sufficient and backed off the making filing dates current. So stop negotiating with yourself.

Equality is the strongest value and principle of America. All we are asking is equality and equal treatment and remove discrimination based on country of birth.

I agree after 15 years of work the bill is in much better shape and we cannot say the reasons of failures.
I do not think community will come together more than today. There will be divisions and non co-operation as the opinion changes person to person. There is also opposition in the same community for calling Durbin as a racist and it was not a good idea to protest in front of house. We everyone knows that it is democracy to put a hold for any senator for whatever reason. He cannot be singled out for failure of the bill as everyone know that UC is not the only option and you cannot take this to his constiuents. Apart from committee process,combining with other bill and negotiation with the senator are a few options. And negotiation is not desperation but get some thing for present people than getting best thing for all in 10 years down the road. Anyhow let us wait and see that best thing will happen in our life time(Not the GC, as all will get gc but country cap removal). I am sure most will get gc with or without country cap removal. It will take 10 to 20 years for those who has US citizen kids. Yes in case their kids become 21 years then they will process gc.

[qesehmk]

You speak too much off topic and continue to ignore basic facts.

The topic is controversial and hence the bill is. The fact they used UC is a tell tale sign of their intention to avoid a controversial topic knowing fully well there is ZERO chance this kind of bill gets through using UC.

IV got sucked into American politics and sided with GOP and attacked other party's whip and that too at a personal level.

IMHO that will hurt EB-I and this bill has zero chance under this administration.

Moreoever you guys continue to spread misinformation about UC, how it used, or that the bill already has majority support in the senate.

This is unconscionable.

I am going to ban you temporarily. And I hope when you return - you return with good arguments against my summary above with proof. And do not engage in personal attacks on me or others.

Also since you are saying you are just a volunteer, perhaps it would be helpful to have an official from IV speak here. Therefore, I am hereby inviting an official representative of IV to clarify their version of events with facts and why they felt compelled to take sides and make it personal. More importantly what they intend to do next and how people on this forum can help.


....
UC path was decided by both parties based on the content of the bill. No one gets played, at least not by pushing for UC. There is some parts of UC for every bill. Again please look up what is UC in the first place. It is your opinion that UC is impossible, not fact. No one expected Durbin to act as Sessions, so yes, that was a surprise.
....

[qesehmk]

Money is never the main problem. Inaction on part of people is.
It is hard to generalize about all Indians. Indians are neither superior or inferior to anybody. We are all part of humanity.
A section of Indian society certainly comes across entitled and that gives rise to the behavior you point out.

Main reason for this mess and summary of this thread:

1.) Infighting
2.) I know more than
3.) You don't know anything.
4.) $$$ problems; illegal immigrants raise more sometimes.

These are the main attributes of Indians and this is cause of backlogs.

[getsaby]

Fresh off the press:

https://twitter.com/immivoice/status/1285578644988010496?s=20

[gs1968]

Fresh off the press:

https://twitter.com/immivoice/status/1285578644988010496?s=20

Unless something dramatically changed I don't see the point of the whole exercise. It is probably to disclose the GOP senators that are blocking the Lee-Durbin amendment so the pressure will be off him. The Facebook post by IV sounds matter-of-fact and unenthusiastic leading me to believe that the result is a foregone conclusion.

This from US Techworkers

Scoop: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) will be bringing 3 immigration bills for UC vote after 3pm EST:
1) RELIEF Act (S386 on steroids). If it fails UC then,
2) Durbin-Lee S386 Amendment (unlimited EAD provision)
3) American Dream & Promise Act (GCs for minors in illegal status)

[qesehmk]

Unless something dramatically changed I don't see the point of the whole exercise. It is probably to disclose the GOP senators that are blocking the Lee-Durbin amendment so the pressure will be off him. The Facebook post by IV sounds matter-of-fact and unenthusiastic leading me to believe that the result is a foregone conclusion.

This from US Techworkers

Scoop: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) will be bringing 3 immigration bills for UC vote after 3pm EST:
1) RELIEF Act (S386 on steroids). If it fails UC then,
2) Durbin-Lee S386 Amendment (unlimited EAD provision)
3) American Dream & Promise Act (GCs for minors in illegal status)

Absolutely correct. They will immediately pounce on his amendments and say they are the reason this did not pass. But for the sake of hundreds of thousands if not millions lets hope this will pass.

[smuggymba]

Absolutely correct. They will immediately pounce on his amendments and say they are the reason this did not pass. But for the sake of hundreds of thousands if not millions lets hope this will pass.

I don't think it will pass; IV's tone doesn't sound optimistic.

But I'm happy that it's still in play and not entirely dead; the more debate happens on it, the more we're moving ahead. There's some hope so let's see.

[gs1968]

I don't think it will pass; IV's tone doesn't sound optimistic.

But I'm happy that it's still in play and not entirely dead; the more debate happens on it, the more we're moving ahead. There's some hope so let's see.

I agree. Also if there was an actual agreement there will be a lot more fanfare and I would expect Sens.Lee and Durbin to make a joint announcement like they did towards the end of last year. I really think that the Senate Majority leader or majority whip will object to avoid dragging other senators into the line of fire. The only concern I have with this gambit by Sen.Durbin is that he has firm belief that his agreement with Lee is the final version in his mind and is unwilling to budge. He has also successfully run out the clock so far and looks comfortably ahead for re-election in a presidential year. Also IF the democrats win the Senate he will assume chairmanship of the senate immigration subcommittee and will be able to shape legislation better to his liking

[qesehmk]

I don't think it will pass; IV's tone doesn't sound optimistic.

But I'm happy that it's still in play and not entirely dead; the more debate happens on it, the more we're moving ahead. There's some hope so let's see.

Yes. I think this will happen soon in the future (literally in a few years).

EB-I folks just need to go directly to the American people with this message. That is a more constructive way to build pressure. Ordinary Americans are generally fair people. They have previously stood with Blacks, Irish, Jews, Eastern Europeans and Homosexuals. They sure will stand with Indians. I have no doubt about it.

I

[abcx13]

I have no agenda or bias, but if you read the transcript at the link below between Durbin and Lee, it doesn't seem like Durbin is negotiating in good faith.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4893914/user-clip-lee-objects-s386-agreement-durbin-protect-children-immigrant-workers-act

[smuggymba]

I have no agenda or bias, but if you read the transcript at the link below between Durbin and Lee, it doesn't seem like Durbin is negotiating in good faith.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4893914/user-clip-lee-objects-s386-agreement-durbin-protect-children-immigrant-workers-act

I guess IV already knew it and the messaging was in line with your comment. That's why I'm actually happy IV called his racist mindset out rather than taking it lying down.

[qesehmk]

Guys are you seriously so dumb that you don't recognize what happened today? I am flabbergasted that the tape is there, the transcript is there. PLEASE view the tape in YOUR OWN interest. Tape is easier than transcript. Here is what I observed.

1. Durbin basically confirmed that the agreement he had with Lee in December was accepted by ALL democrats !!!!
2. Lee did not have his party on board and hence came back in March with conditions that were unacceptable to Durbin. Lee went back on H1B reform, he went back on early filing of 485, and he went back on protecting children !!!
3. Today Lee acknowledged this difference by saying "I accepted an agreement with Durbin in December against my better judgement".

See this is exactly what I am talking about (and @gs1968 hinted). What happened today is Durbin exposed GOP's hypocracy. Period. Just watch the tape in full.

[qesehmk]

I am speechless. Some people who are waiting for GC, you guys can't recognize self -interest. My gut feel is 100% accurate. GOP is dishonest in its dealings and will keep changing the rules of the game even after dems agree. But even then if I was the one doing advocacy, I would never call a GOP senator racist nor I will side with Dem. I will patiently keep working. That's all we can do. Wake up folks.

[smuggymba]

1. Durbin basically confirmed that the agreement he had with Lee in December was accepted by ALL democrats !!!!
2. Lee did not have his party on board and hence came back in March with conditions that were unacceptable to Durbin. Lee went back on H1B reform, he went back on early filing of 485, and he went back on protecting children !!!
3. Today Lee acknowledged this difference by saying "I accepted an agreement with Durbin in December against my better judgement".


I'm confused too now. Durbin basically agreed to the December 2019 version - Isn't that what we wanted?

[qesehmk]

My sincere request to everybody. Please watch the tape patiently in your own interest. And if you agree with my summary..
1) Please write a letter to Durbin thanking for his efforts and tell him how much you appreciated his efforts even thought they didn't come to fruition.
2) Also write a letter to Lee thanking for sponsoring this legislation and bringing ball this far. And let him know that you would really like him to honor the December agreement.

My own sense is Lee also is a good guy. But the "Trump Administration" i.e. not just the president but his advisors (like miller) are the ones who have derailed this.

[smuggymba]

My own sense is Lee also is a good guy. But the "Trump Administration" i.e. not just the president but his advisors (like miller) are the ones who have derailed this.

Sen Lee has done a lot to champion this and bring it thus far. I'm confused as to why he won't agree to his own version of bill from 6 months ago. you're right, it might have to do with pressure from up top or the upcoming EO...maybe Trump didn't want anyone to steal his thunder.

[srimurthy]

My sincere request to everybody. Please watch the tape patiently in your own interest. And if you agree with my summary..
1) Please write a letter to Durbin thanking for his efforts and tell him how much you appreciated his efforts even thought they didn't come to fruition.
2) Also write a letter to Lee thanking for sponsoring this legislation and bringing ball this far. And let him know that you would really like him to honor the December agreement.

My own sense is Lee also is a good guy. But the "Trump Administration" i.e. not just the president but his advisors (like miller) are the ones who have derailed this.

I reached out to both appreciating their work and the impact it has on us and requesting them to honor the agreement reached in December and get a closure. I would request others to do the same, there is no harm in putting some positive vibes.

[qesehmk]

Sen Lee has done a lot to champion this and bring it thus far. I'm confused as to why he won't agree to his own version of bill from 6 months ago. you're right, it might have to do with pressure from up top or the upcoming EO...maybe Trump didn't want anyone to steal his thunder.
I think Lee is in agreement. It's the white house that is not. Durbin said so and I agree with Durbin.

Durbin, in my judgement, understood the situation very early and kept silent even though he knew Lee did not have his party with him. Even after Lee came back with modifications to the December agreement, Durbin gave Lee another 4 months to find a path. Meanwhile Durbin took a lot of heat from IV and finally now that when he is convinced Lee can't go ahead, then Durbin made yesterdays move. His objective was not really to hurt Lee but more to protect his reputation because IV has really tarnished it among their supporters. In my judgement Durbin showed good restrain yesterday even when Lee showed a lot of bluster just to hide his inability to round up his party. And that's ok, we should cut Lee some slack. It is not his fault if his party is not with him.

In my eyes Durbin is a gentleman and a gentle soul who allowed Lee to express his frustration at him and did not say a word. That is good character right there. I think this partnership will be useful for EB-I and hence EB-I folks you must appreciate both leaders. We need to learn to spot friends and foes. Both these senators are our friends.

[gs1968]

This from Paul Donnelly

"At 4pm today, @SenatorDurbin will give Lee and Big Tech and Immigration Voice a chance to redeem themselves, by agreeing to protect backlogged children they threw under the outsourcing bus yesterday."

[abcx13]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/immigration-voice/durbin-lies-immigrants-die/3344425638956970/

[smuggymba]

The 50-50 rule is an amendment to S.386 - The Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act that bars H1-B dependent companies from getting more H1-B visas. We support the 50-50 rule, however one change requested by the administration was that the implementation of the 50-50 rule be delayed by 3 years.

Senator Durbin attacked Senator Lee by insinuating that somehow Senator Lee requested the change and secondly that the 3 year wait on the 50-50 rule somehow was a stumbling block in the negotiations, when in-fact this wait time was requested by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for 2 reasons:

The main reason was to make sure that the funds brought in by the 50-50 companies which pay for border security, entry-exit biometrics and other important programs are not abruptly cut off.

Give United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), immigrants & employers time to adjust to the new system.

From IV FB: Per them it's the "administration/DHS" asked for the 3 years delay given the two reasons above (Not Sen Lee himself, which confirms what Q said initially)

[gs1968]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/immigration-voice/durbin-lies-immigrants-die/3344425638956970/

Not implying that i agree with the article but there is a rebuttal if you are interested
https://medium.com/@debzi/the-falsehoods-by-mike-lee-a9c0f375e5ff

[qesehmk]

Today Durbin brought a new very simple bill that would simply protect children from aging out. This bill does not impact American workers. Does not ask for new visas. Nothing. All it does is protect children that would otherwise age out. But Sen. Lee objected to that by saying that it does not protect children when the parent dies!!!

So folks that's what we are dealing with.

All these arguments from republican side are hollow. Sen. Lee I do not think believes what he said about the plight of children with dead parent (!!!). But the reason he has to object is because if he agrees to this then his party is forced to take a position and unlike democrats they dont want that to happen at all. So what does poor Sen Lee does, he has to save his face and not piss on his party. And so he comes up with this incredible argument. Same thing is happening with his own bill. He is basically made a "Bakaraa" by his own party. His party has little to no interest in his bill. They have used this bill as a way to corner democrats and particularly Durbin. What they didn't count on was that Durbin could actually deliver.

This is very important to understand - Durbin has now opened his cards. GOP can simply agree to the December agreement and voila S386 will pass without increasing number of green cards. So Durbin is not even adamant on increasing numbers. But it is GOP who are going back after Durbin has delivered on his promise.

Anybody who does advocacy must understand the dynamics and motivations and limitations of these senators. Advocacy must focus on problem solving rather than politicization. The arguments today - particularly from Lee's side - were purely political and posturing in nature.

I also saw IV's latest attack on Durbin. I have come to the conclusion that IV is unfit to understand these things. They are being played and funnily they dont realize it with all the evidence. That is sad.

[FarAwayfromGC]

[QUOTE=qesehmk;65263]

In my eyes Durbin is a gentleman and a gentle soul who allowed Lee to express his frustration at him and did not say a word. That is good character right there.


Q,

With all due respect I disagree with your view of " In my eyes Durbin is a gentleman and a gentle soul who allowed Lee to express his frustration at him and did not say a word. That is good character right there "

It's unfortunate that people still believe he is a "Gentle Man" : In my view he is a crooked politician I would say ; "devil in an Angel's disguise ".

Democrats are enemies of Legal immigration - check out Obama's history and you will know. I have personally gone through utter harassment from USCIS officers during OBAMA regime and living peacefully after the bad days were over in 2016. Obama increased H1 Filing fees and brought-in senseless rules like employer employee relationship" which was "intention to harass" . Many of my coworkers and fellow Indians have suffered harassment at consulates and at the hand of USCIS officers in the name of "UP HOLDING THE LAW". BTW I am an Engineer and not working for body shops .

Guys "BE REAL" don't live with illussion.

QUIT believing Democrats are our friends - they were never and will not change in future.

[abcx13]

What exactly does preserving status of kids mean? They get GC when parent gets GC (which is decades away)? Until then they are on H4? And if they have to go to college, they have to apply as a foreign student who doesn't get financial aid? That seems ridiculous. And if parents have to leave in the interim, they have to leave too?

The language Lee added later doesn't seem all that problematic to me as a potential beneficiary. And Durbin wouldn't get 50-50 at all, let alone 3 years out, if he doesn't agree. So unless he is applying this pressure to get Lee to go back on that language, it seems pointless.

I think fundamentally removing country caps is the only long-term solution to this mess. Because when everyone including 'white people' from Ireland, Germany, France, etc. are waiting in line like Indians have, you will see the quotas change. And Durbin is racist, plain and simple - the video clip from his constitutent meeting proved that.

[abcx13]

I haven't read the text of the bill but I see IV has raised the same issues I was thinking about above.

https://www.facebook.com/243363639063201/posts/3346697708729763/?d=n

Again, I am no IV shill. I just want this mess to be resolved for all of us. Maybe some ppl don't like their strategy but at least they are keeping the issue alive.

[vbollu]

For Durbin what's the point of bringing bill one after another when sen Lee is requesting UC? This is his 4th or 5th bull shit bill in past 6 months none of them got worked. For illegal's Obama gave Ead, at the same time he didn't even care legals and he didn't even make current.

[abcx13]

I don't know why Lee doesn't take Durbin's protecting kids amendment, reduce the 50-50 phase in period and come up with some new language for the Do No Harm clause. Like all existing ROW applications will be processed as if country caps exist or some such.

[smuggymba]

Not implying that i agree with the article but there is a rebuttal if you are interested
https://medium.com/@debzi/the-falsehoods-by-mike-lee-a9c0f375e5ff

I read the rebuttal and from my point of view - Sen Durbin is slightly on wrong side because some transition period is required/nice-to-have. IV even said the transition period is negotiable - Body shop culture has been going on for long and will finally come to an end - so if it's lives for 300-500 more days, what's the big deal?

The reason below is related to funding and current admin won't mess with anything that takes money away from border security -
"The main reason was to make sure that the funds brought in by the 50-50 companies which pay for border security, entry-exit biometrics and other important programs are not abruptly cut off."

So Sen Durbin should negotiate and maybe they can agree on a 1.5-2 year period rather than 3 years.

>>Another problem point from the rebuttal - "However, we all know , it’s a moral hazard to allow for abuse to continue, just because the abusers need time to “resettle”.".

LOL on this one.

>>Another point - "abusive 50–50 companies will have 3 years to restructure themselves to keep getting more H-1B visas after a transition period (which was requested by DHS even though the transition period is negotiable), if it does not pass, then the abuse will continue indefinitely. Lee wants his 50–50 company buddies to keep abusing our immigration system and US workers indefinitely, or have a chance to game the system in a transition period. "

If there are ways/loopholes body shoppers will find them them in one month and will not wait 3 years. LOL. Don't underestimate body shoppers' creativity. So, they will be overcome this "transition period" somehow anyway (if possible).

>>Also introducing a brand new bill is an exercise in futility no matter how good the bill is.

[Ramsen]

Hypothatically if Durbin compromise was passed in Jan or Feb now it would have become law. So it is not just Durbin is the reason for delay. Even now why not IV pressure Lee to accept the compromise Lee and Durbin reached.

[smuggymba]

Hypothatically if Durbin compromise was passed in Jan or Feb now it would have become law. So it is not just Durbin is the reason for delay. Even now why not IV pressure Lee to accept the compromise Lee and Durbin reached.

Admin has to be on-board, in the end the pres has to sign it.

[NJMavarick]

Not implying that i agree with the article but there is a rebuttal if you are interested
https://medium.com/@debzi/the-falsehoods-by-mike-lee-a9c0f375e5ff

Sure. We need to look at the writer of this article! Look her up on Twitter and you will notice that she is one of the prime opponents of S386, spewing hatred! I will not reach much into it and will take it with a pinch of salt..

[gs1968]

Sure. We need to look at the writer of this article! Look her up on Twitter and you will notice that she is one of the prime opponents of S386, spewing hatred! I will not reach much into it and will take it with a pinch of salt..

Yes-I was aware of that. The same pinch of salt advice is applicable to both sides

[qesehmk]

In my eyes Durbin is a gentleman and a gentle soul who allowed Lee to express his frustration at him and did not say a word. That is good character right there.



Q,

With all due respect I disagree with your view of " In my eyes Durbin is a gentleman and a gentle soul who allowed Lee to express his frustration at him and did not say a word. That is good character right there "

It's unfortunate that people still believe he is a "Gentle Man" : In my view he is a crooked politician I would say ; "devil in an Angel's disguise ".

Democrats are enemies of Legal immigration - check out Obama's history and you will know. I have personally gone through utter harassment from USCIS officers during OBAMA regime and living peacefully after the bad days were over in 2016. Obama increased H1 Filing fees and brought-in senseless rules like employer employee relationship" which was "intention to harass" . Many of my coworkers and fellow Indians have suffered harassment at consulates and at the hand of USCIS officers in the name of "UP HOLDING THE LAW". BTW I am an Engineer and not working for body shops .

Guys "BE REAL" don't live with illussion.

QUIT believing Democrats are our friends - they were never and will not change in future.

My conclusion is not based in belief. My conclusion is based on what I am seeing. I will explain that in a minute. But first I just want to say that for your own benefit it is better to not make this partisan topic. Simply study recent history of immigration since 2000 and you will see that a section of GOP is totally anti-immigrants. And so the key to any immigration bill is DEMs+moderate republicans. To my knowledge there are virtually no DEMs that oppose immigration. You simply do not know history enough and are picking non-meritworthy points to say DEMs are anti-legal-immigration. That is not correct. Since 2000 DEMs have tried a lot but it was always republican congress that blocked any bill. Durbin was part of Gang of 8 along with rubio, mccain, schumer etc.

Regarding Durbin it is ample clear that he is totally amenable. He is already shown willingness to let go the so called "poison pill" of increasing quota. I am totally amazed that IV - the eternal moron brigade - doesn't blame republicans ever for not wanting to increase EB quota and yet when Durbin let go this demand and is willing to work on the rest they fail to recognize his good intentions.

Second - durbin not only had an agreement done with Lee but also was able to get his party on board with him. That is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.

Why can't we say the same about GOP side? It is because they never had ANY intention to pass S386. That is the reason first they had Sen. Lee, a lightweight senator, sponsor it. Because no serious GOP senator wants this failure in case they are not successful on pinning it on Durbin.

Durbin and Lee both knew walking in yesterday and day before yesterday what the outcome was going to be. Their moves were like chess moves. But Durbin not only outplayed Lee but that he did it in a dignified way. He exposed GOP without getting personal with Lee. The same can not be said about Lee who had a very hard time containing his frustration with his own party but he tried unsuccessfully to pin it on Durbin. His arguments were bizarre. e.g. On one had he was party to the Dec agreement where both him and Durbin had acknowledged that they have to get their parties on board. So Durbin never said Lee had his party with him. But Lee said he agreed with the agreement against his better judgement. Now that's an after the fact 20/20 when Lee failed to get his part on board. The poor guy learnt it hard way that he is made Bakara or sacrificial lamb here.

The reason I say Durbin is a gentlman, is because Durbin has been silent all along, playing these games without hurting his GOP partner Lee. He said no word that will show Lee in poor light despite the failure of Lee. Durbin's bill about children was also something that had ZERO implications on american workers. Lee has no objection to it. But he knew his party was not with him and as a junior member of GOP, he can not expose his party. So he had to concoct some BS why he has to object.

I mean, if you and IV can not see these games, seriously guys return the donations to people and stop this damn advocacy. You guys are mucking it up and hurting any chances with Biden administration by being so partisan and person with a person who actually is our friend.

I think I do know the source of IV's partisan attitude. But i am going to bite my tongue here and say that each person please take a deep breath and evaluate the situation with the framework of thought I am applying. You will likely than not come to the same conclusion as me.

[srimurthy]

My conclusion is not based in belief. My conclusion is based on what I am seeing. I will explain that in a minute. But first I just want to say that for your own benefit it is better to not make this partisan topic. Simply study recent history of immigration since 2000 and you will see that a section of GOP is totally anti-immigrants. And so the key to any immigration bill is DEMs+moderate republicans. To my knowledge there are virtually no DEMs that oppose immigration. You simply do not know history enough and are picking non-meritworthy points to say DEMs are anti-legal-immigration. That is not correct. Since 2000 DEMs have tried a lot but it was always republican congress that blocked any bill. Durbin was part of Gang of 8 along with rubio, mccain, schumer etc.

I think I do know the source of IV's partisan attitude. But i am going to bite my tongue here and say that each person please take a deep breath and evaluate the situation with the framework of thought I am applying. You will likely than not come to the same conclusion as me.

I guess few simple things will easy the pain all across:
1. Grant EAD with an approved I-140.
2. Remove country caps in Employment based category and the back logging will be distributed and this will reduce fraud.
3. Ensure min wage guidelines for EB1 too. No body expects a special skill and scholars to be in 60 or 70K pay scales

[getsaby]

1 and 3 are doable without causing a major ruckus.

[getsaby]

Q

I am curious if you were given a chance to do a major overhaul of the US immigration system, what would it be. You don't have to go in-depth, a summary would do the trick!

[vedu]

3. Ensure min wage guidelines for EB1 too. No body expects a special skill and scholars to be in 60 or 70K pay scales

Here are the National Institute of Health (NIH) guidelines for post-doc salaries. All universities in the US follow these guidelines and these folks are doing cutting edge research in health, medicine, future vaccines, etc. in medical colleges all over the country. I am not from the field...but just saying!

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends

Now, you tell me...do you want to implement point 3?

[Zenzone]

Here are the National Institute of Health (NIH) guidelines for post-doc salaries. All universities in the US follow these guidelines and these folks are doing cutting edge research in health, medicine, future vaccines, etc. in medical colleges all over the country. I am not from the field...but just saying!

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends

Now, you tell me...do you want to implement point 3?

While I hear you...this system is heavily biased against a person who grew through the ranks after doing a Masters from a solid US university and is currently in an executive position (pulling well over 300 or 400K and more). There are many of us who fall into this category not being eligible for EB1 as we never left the USA for all these years. Hows that right?? Education for EB1 should be only one of the aspect but overall employer reputation, designation and SALARY should definitely play a role if we look at this comprehensively. Also, that one year overseas requirement was written with a pretty short-sighted vision of just assuming that only MNC execuitive and Managers would need that route. It never takes into account the homegrown executives and managers as that was never a problem back then.

[vedu]

While I hear you...this system is heavily biased against a person who grew through the ranks after doing a Masters from a solid US university and is currently in an executive position (pulling well over 300 or 400K and more). There are many of us who fall into this category not being eligible for EB1 as we never left the USA for all these years. Hows that right?? Education for EB1 should be only one of the aspect but overall employer reputation, designation and SALARY should definitely play a role if we look at this comprehensively. Also, that one year overseas requirement was written with a pretty short-sighted vision of just assuming that only MNC execuitive and Managers would need that route. It never takes into account the homegrown executives and managers as that was never a problem back then.

Even after earning 300 or 400K and more vs. those people earning 50K-60K doing fundamental research in basic sciences, do you really feel the overall system (GC is a part of that) is biased against you? Also, a person earning that much salary can easily qualify for EB-5 immigrant investor program with a couple of years' salary investment. What is so unfair about it?

[qesehmk]

Q

I am curious if you were given a chance to do a major overhaul of the US immigration system, what would it be. You don't have to go in-depth, a summary would do the trick!
This can be answered in two ways:
1) Policy makers point of view (i.e. if you are part of government how would you do it).
2) Activists point of view (i.e. if I were to do advocacy).

Which one do you mean?

[qesehmk]

While I hear you...this system is heavily biased against a person who grew through the ranks after doing a Masters from a solid US university and is currently in an executive position (pulling well over 300 or 400K and more). There are many of us who fall into this category not being eligible for EB1 as we never left the USA for all these years. Hows that right?? Education for EB1 should be only one of the aspect but overall employer reputation, designation and SALARY should definitely play a role if we look at this comprehensively. Also, that one year overseas requirement was written with a pretty short-sighted vision of just assuming that only MNC execuitive and Managers would need that route. It never takes into account the homegrown executives and managers as that was never a problem back then.

Perhaps a simple solution is to divvy up EB1 to 3 not based on anything else except base salary tier. EB1 300K and above. EB2 - 200K and above and EB3 - 120K and above. I mean the tiers could be different ... but just to give an example.

[Zenzone]

Even after earning 300 or 400K and more vs. those people earning 50K-60K doing fundamental research in basic sciences, do you really feel the overall system (GC is a part of that) is biased against you? Also, a person earning that much salary can easily qualify for EB-5 immigrant investor program with a couple of years' salary investment. What is so unfair about it?

Is it a sin to be successful?! I never said a fundamental researcher shouldn't get it! Its your assumption. Also, when this topic morphed into a overall discussion about the larger system. The SYSTEM I'm talking about is just the immigration system. I'm saying a homegrown exec. should also be considered for it and be elligible. EB-5 is a personal matter of choice and its an investor program for those who chose to invest its not in lieu of employment based categories. You are comparing apples and oranges there.

[vedu]

Is it a sin to be successful?! I never said a fundamental researcher shouldn't get it! Its your assumption. Also, when this topic morphed into a overall discussion about the larger system. The SYSTEM I'm talking about is just the immigration system. I'm saying a homegrown exec. should also be considered for it and be elligible. EB-5 is a personal matter of choice and its an investor program for those who chose to invest its not in lieu of employment based categories. You are comparing apples and oranges there.

Zenzone,

I may have inadvertently misunderstood your point about EB1 international manager fraud. I agree that any type of fraud should be removed from the system and those with Merit (based on salary, etc.) should get it on a first come, first serve basis! Also, it is always good to be appreciative of the fact that no matter how flawed this immigration system is, it still made you SUCCESSFUL. And you won't deny that...would you?

[Zenzone]

Zenzone,

I may have inadvertently misunderstood your point about EB1 international manager fraud. I agree that any type of fraud should be removed from the system and those with Merit (based on salary, etc.) should get it on a first come, first serve basis! Also, it is always good to be appreciative of the fact that no matter how flawed this immigration system is, it still made you SUCCESSFUL. And you won't deny that...would you?

Again, I never complained about the larger system at all. But that's a moot point here as we talked about only the EB immigration system. I hear you on factoring the merits based on salary etc. is also an important criterion.

[Zenzone]

Perhaps a simple solution is to divvy up EB1 to 3 not based on anything else except base salary tier. EB1 300K and above. EB2 - 200K and above and EB3 - 120K and above. I mean the tiers could be different ... but just to give an example.

Selfishly I will vote a big YES for that proposal. Alongside with rewarding scholars and PhDs as the system does today.

[vedu]

Selfishly I will vote a big YES for that proposal. Alongside with rewarding scholars and PhDs as the system does today.

I will also vote a big YES for such a proposal. If you really need to hire an immigrant to do a job, then you need to pay up to show that it is a critical need that can't be fulfilled with local employees. Unfortunately, such a proposal will leave all nurses out of the game. So be it, we really can't afford to create carve outs for individual professions. That will create another mess of a system then.

[srimurthy]

I will also vote a big YES for such a proposal. If you really need to hire an immigrant to do a job, then you need to pay up to show that it is a critical need that can't be fulfilled with local employees. Unfortunately, such a proposal will leave all nurses out of the game. So be it, we really can't afford to create carve outs for individual professions. That will create another mess of a system then.

I guess we need to look at the education system, why doesn't so many people from public schools drop out and do not go into nursing instead of landing in a fast food or store jobs. If the price and turnarounds from community colleges are increased bringing it as a vocational item you may have a lot of people opting to do nursing here itself after high school.

[gc_dedo]

Is EB1 fraud still going on? Or Grassleys and Durbins are only after H1Bs?