celebrity tattoo car

well. won't you need the receipt when you travel..i thought one was required to carry the receipt when traveling internationally.


I'm going to ask my employer/lawyer for the receipt as I have to go out of country in the second week of October. But you never know, these guys don't care about your life.. They might still not give it to you... (Yeah, everyone knows I-485 is OUR application and they do not have a legal right to hold our receipt notices, but we are at their mercy for atleast 180 days)

Hey gc28262,

I am in the same boat as you. I applied for both EAD & AP last year to Texas Service Center. I have gotten my EAD but not AP. The following is my online status for AP:
Application Type: I131, APPLICATION FOR USCIS TRAVEL DOCUMENT

Current Status: Approval notice sent.

On August 13, 2008, we mailed you a notice that we have approved this I131 APPLICATION FOR USCIS TRAVEL DOCUMENT. Please follow any instructions on the notice. If you move before you receive the notice, call customer service.


I called many times and was able to open up a service request. They sent me a letter saying the same thing that I can see online. Everyone told me to re-apply or send I-824 (Application for action on approved petition with the fees $340, costs more than the AP application itself).

Could you please post the address where you have mailed. I would like to try the same to see if my luck changes any.

Thanks

Srini

Here is the complete instruction with address:


Fill out I-131 Application ( Or use the copy of the original application )
attach two photos

Mention the receipt no on the top of the form
Also mention REPLACEMENT : no Fees included
Add a covering letter explaining the situation

Post it to the following address

USCIS Texas Service Center
Attn: SIIO Rhonda Hill Johnson
4141 St Augustine Rd
Dallas, TX, 75227

On lower left corner of the envelope mention the following:
do Not open in the mail room, No fees are attached

well if u dont have receipt hance no EAD/AP, you are at their mercy forever.


not forever !!!!!!

What if I change employer after 180 days and sign a new G-28 either removing that lawyer or signing for a new lawyer?

If they could keep us at their mercy FOREVER, what is AC21 for ?

The new host is actually Steves brother :) They kind of look alike as well.

But yeah, you are right.... Steve was much better. My sister used to work at a day care center where one of her kids was like a 2nd cousin to that guy or something like that. She said Steve was forced to wear the long sleeve shirt because his arms are covered with tattoos. Just more useless facts.

I and a bunch of friends want to join the state chapter for Alabama, but I could not find the details. I also searched in the State chapter page:
ImmigrationVoice.org - Immigration Voice State Chapters (http://immigrationvoice.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=52)

Could someone provide the details?

Thank you

I am really shocked on looking at this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21immigrant.html?hp

An Agent, a Green Card, and a Demand for Sex

Article Tools Sponsored By
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: March 21, 2008

No problems so far, the immigration agent told the American citizen and his 22-year-old Colombian wife at her green card interview in December. After he stapled one of their wedding photos to her application for legal permanent residency, he had just one more question: What was her cellphone number?
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Uli Seit for The New York Times

Isaac R. Baichu, 46, an adjudicator for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, was arrested after he met with a green card applicant at the Flagship Restaurant, a diner in Queens. He is charged with coercing oral sex from her.
Audio A Secret Recording
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Uli Seit for The New York Times

The Flagship Restaurant, where Mr. Baichu met with a green card applicant.

The calls from the agent started three days later. He hinted, she said, at his power to derail her life and deport her relatives, alluding to a brush she had with the law before her marriage. He summoned her to a private meeting. And at noon on Dec. 21, in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, he named his price � not realizing that she was recording everything on the cellphone in her purse.

�I want sex,� he said on the recording. �One or two times. That�s all. You get your green card. You won�t have to see me anymore.�

She reluctantly agreed to a future meeting. But when she tried to leave his car, he demanded oral sex �now,� to �know that you�re serious.� And despite her protests, she said, he got his way.

The 16-minute recording, which the woman first took to The New York Times and then to the Queens district attorney, suggests the vast power of low-level immigration law enforcers, and a growing desperation on the part of immigrants seeking legal status. The aftermath, which included the arrest of an immigration agent last week, underscores the difficulty and danger of making a complaint, even in the rare case when abuse of power may have been caught on tape.

No one knows how widespread sexual blackmail is, but the case echoes other instances of sexual coercion that have surfaced in recent years, including agents criminally charged in Atlanta, Miami and Santa Ana, Calif. And it raises broader questions about the system�s vulnerability to corruption at a time when millions of noncitizens live in a kind of legal no-man�s land, increasingly fearful of seeking the law�s protection.

The agent arrested last week, Isaac R. Baichu, 46, himself an immigrant from Guyana, handled some 8,000 green card applications during his three years as an adjudicator in the Garden City, N.Y., office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the federal Department of Homeland Security. He pleaded not guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges of coercing the young woman to perform oral sex, and of promising to help her secure immigration papers in exchange for further sexual favors. If convicted, he will face up to seven years in prison.

His agency has suspended him with pay, and the inspector general of Homeland Security is reviewing his other cases, a spokesman said Wednesday. Prosecutors, who say they recorded a meeting between Mr. Baichu and the woman on March 11 at which he made similar demands for sex, urge any other victims to come forward.

Money, not sex, is the more common currency of corruption in immigration, but according to Congressional testimony in 2006 by Michael Maxwell, former director of the agency�s internal investigations, more than 3,000 backlogged complaints of employee misconduct had gone uninvestigated for lack of staff, including 528 involving criminal allegations.

The agency says it has tripled its investigative staff since then, and counts only 165 serious complaints pending. But it stopped posting an e-mail address and phone number for such complaints last year, said Jan Lane, chief of security and integrity, because it lacks the staff to cull the thousands of mostly irrelevant messages that resulted. Immigrants, she advised, should report wrongdoing to any law enforcement agency they trust.

The young woman in Queens, whose name is being withheld because the authorities consider her the victim of a sex crime, did not even tell her husband what had happened. Two weeks after the meeting in the car, finding no way to make a confidential complaint to the immigration agency and afraid to go to the police, she and two older female relatives took the recording to The Times.

Reasons to Worry

A slim, shy woman who looks like a teenager, she said she had spent recent months baby-sitting for relatives in Queens, crying over the deaths of her two brothers back in Cali, Colombia, and longing for the right stamp in her passport � one that would let her return to the United States if she visited her family.

She came to the United States on a tourist visa in 2004 and overstayed. When she married an American citizen a year ago, the law allowed her to apply to �adjust� her illegal status. But unless her green card application was approved, she could not visit her parents or her brothers� graves and then legally re-enter the United States. And if her application was denied, she would face deportation.

She had another reason to be fearful, and not only for herself. About 15 months ago, she said, an acquaintance hired her and two female relatives in New York to carry $12,000 in cash to the bank. The three women, all living in the country illegally, were arrested on the street by customs officers apparently acting on a tip in a money-laundering investigation. After determining that the women had no useful information, the officers released them.

But the closed investigation file had showed up in the computer when she applied for a green card, Mr. Baichu told her in December; until he obtained the file and dealt with it, her application would not be approved. If she defied him, she feared, he could summon immigration enforcement agents to take her relatives to detention.

So instead of calling the police, she turned on the video recorder in her cellphone, put the phone in her purse and walked to meet the agent. Two family members said they watched anxiously from their parked car as she disappeared behind the tinted windows of his red Lexus.

�We were worried that the guy would take off, take her away and do something to her,� the woman�s widowed sister-in-law said in Spanish.

As the recorder captured the agent�s words and a lilting Guyanese accent, he laid out his terms in an easy, almost paternal style. He would not ask too much, he said: sex �once or twice,� visits to his home in the Bronx, perhaps a link to other Colombians who needed his help with their immigration problems.

In shaky English, the woman expressed reluctance, and questioned how she could be sure he would keep his word.

�If I do it, it�s like very hard for me, because I have my husband, and I really fall in love with him,� she said.

The agent insisted that she had to trust him. �I wouldn�t ask you to do something for me if I can�t do something for you, right?� he said, and reasoned, �Nobody going to help you for nothing,� noting that she had no money.

He described himself as the single father of a 10-year-old daughter, telling her, �I need love, too,� and predicting, �You will get to like me because I�m a nice guy.�

Repeatedly, she responded �O.K.,� without conviction. At one point he thanked her for showing up, saying, �I know you feel very scared.�

Finally, she tried to leave. �Let me go because I tell my husband I come home,� she said.

His reply, the recording shows, was a blunt demand for oral sex.

�Right now? No!� she protested. �No, no, right now I can�t.�

He insisted, cajoled, even empathized. �I came from a different country, too,� he said. �I got my green card just like you.�

Then, she said, he grabbed her. During the speechless minute that follows on the recording, she said she yielded to his demand out of fear that he would use his authority against her.

How Much Corruption?

The charges against Mr. Baichu, who became a United States citizen in 1991 and earns roughly $50,000 a year, appear to be part of a larger pattern, according to government records and interviews.

Mr. Maxwell, the immigration agency�s former chief investigator, told Congress in 2006 that internal corruption was �rampant,� and that employees faced constant temptations to commit crime.

�It is only a small step from granting a discretionary waiver of an eligibility rule to asking for a favor or taking a bribe in exchange for granting that waiver,� he contended. �Once an employee learns he can get away with low-level corruption and still advance up the ranks, he or she becomes more brazen.�

�Despite our best efforts there are always people ready to use their position for personal gain or personal pleasure,� said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services. �Our responsibility is to ferret them out.�

When the Queens woman came to The Times with her recording on Jan. 3, she was afraid of retaliation from the agent, and uncertain about making a criminal complaint, though she had an appointment the next day at the Queens district attorney�s office.



Mr. Baichu was arrested as he emerged from the diner and headed to his car, wearing much gold and diamond jewelry, prosecutors said. Later released on $15,000 bail, Mr. Baichu referred calls for comment to his lawyer, Sally Attia, who said he did not have authority to grant or deny green card petitions without his supervisor�s approval.

HELLO ! Emilio Gonzalez, USCIS Director is Cuban American. Its probably his parting gift for "his people".
Cuban Americans are very strong Republican vote block. See new TV serial "Cane" on CBS to get a sneak peak into the community.

I am just curious, Are you worried about your salary going down or filing AC-21.
There are always risks involved. Its your choice what you want to do. I will request you to understand how the system works, so that when folks around here suggest you something, you can evaluate the choices based on your knowledge also.

If you think you can find a good job, then i will say keep on looking for it. Meanwhile stick with your company and see if things improve. In the end its your personal choice, as you are the one who needs to set your priorities. Also, if you can let us know your PD, then i am sure people can suggest you in a much better way.

Also, i will really appreciate if you can update your information for the tracker.

Also, please be patient and lets not use abusive language, as it is not going to help anyone.

Thanks a lot.

GO IV GO. TOGETHER WE CAN.

Immigration Voice is healthy and kicking. No flowers Please. Contribute instead !

I personally know some individuals who read IV and never registered/contributed. Please encourage those bystanders around you to be part of this movement.

I have received RFE for my spouse, I have not received the details yet, but need to clarify the following(i am in touch with my attorney also).

We applied for her H1 in 2007 April, it got approved on September 2007.

We also applied 485 in July 2007 so she did not join the H1b Company on September 2007.

We applied COS to H4 on February 2008 but she started working on EAD from March 2008 onwards, she is still working on EAD.

Her H4 approved on November 2008(but i was no more in H1).

I think my wife's status is AOS from July 2007 onwards is that correct? Or is this a problem?

Hello,

I have an unfortunate situation. My parents names are misspelled in the Birth certificate compared to the Passport parents name page. Do we need to submit the parents names page of the passport when we submit our documents for 485 ?? Please let me know if this will be a problem and if there is a work around for this ??

Also if I have a Birth certificate (with my actual full name - dated in 2007 though), do I need to submit the affidavits ??


Thanks
It would be better to get affidavits from your parents ,if u submit without affidavits u might get a RFE and this might delaying your process.

I would suggest if you could get the perm process started ASAP. Now a days it is getting approved quite fast, you may be good. You may also want to ask your manager if you could work remotely from outside US for couple of months. As per my understanding, if say you are short of 4 months between your PD and H1 expiry date you can do one of the following
1. Shift to some other status like H4
2. Move out of country for 4 months. Your employer will need to get H1 extension and you new stamping.

But as soon as labor gets approved, you will need to file for I140 and your will be good for 3 more year.

This is just from my understanding. I am in similar boat. Going out of US for 6 weeks starting from July.

Assuming that his Labor does not get approved before his I-94 expiry:
1. Moving to H4 can only help him to stay in US but staying on H4 for few months and then trying to get H1 extension beyond 6 yrs is not possible....this is my understanding
2. Moving out of US is the only option in case of labor still pending.

I finally got my receipts today for my wife and me.

I got only my receipt number for I-765 on sep 18th and rest of it today.

I called the USCIS and the IO said all the receipts are there today.

Thanks for all the valuble information.

I too missed the chance ( formy wife and son) and waiting for the next chance and not sure when it is going to happen.

-sundar

Situation - During the month of July, I filed my 485 when all categories were current. Got my receipt too. Missed wife's application because her papers were not ready. Now priority dates have retrogressed again.

Saving grace - Our H1/H4 are in order with many long years left on them.

Question - Can I file my wife 485 now as a dependent, even though "my" PD is not current yet. The core point is that, does the concept of PD applies to the dependent 485 applications too?

Friends,

I don't create new threads without doing homework, so please bear with me here. After going through existing threads on this issue, I thought we need a dedicated thread for (only) H1-B stamping process (only) in Canada. The aim of this thread is to cover the following topics

1) nvars.com appointments for H1-B visa
2) Canada visitor visa application process & docs
3) Land or Air travel - issues & procedures
4) Entry into Canada & Return Entry into US experiences
5) Interview with Visa Officers
6) PIMS issues at consulates in Canada
7) 221(g) & Delays
8) AP (vs) H1-B Dilemma.

Here is another similar thread but covers H1, H4 at consulates all over the world (mostly Mexico, India, Canada).
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4192

Let us start sending Thank you flowers to IV core memebers such as Logic life, pappu ( i know only these two people) Please add to the list if you know anybody belong to Core team.
--
We recently used flowers as a sign of protest. My suggestion is not to send flowers to either IV core or congresswoman Zoe Lofgren or anyone else. That might send a mixed message although the intentions are good.

Instead of flowers, I recommend a funding drive. That would help the core IV to have more resources at their disposal to push for the next step, which is long term solution for visa retrogression.

I received FP notice today towards I485, not sure what for :confused:

If you have received a FP notice it has the 485 receipt# on it and this is enough to check the case status online.Dont worry if you still dont receive the physical 485 RN atleast you are able to check its status.

HTH,
webm

:confused:I am going to call the USCIS customer service and ask them what should my next steps be... Will keep you guys posted!

What happened between April 2002 and June 2003 when you returned to the US with an H-1 visa? Did you remain in the US? Did you continue working in the US? When did you leave the US to apply for the visa? What information did you provide to the US Consul regarding your time in the US?

Yes they keep the originals and send it back with your passport, atleast they did in my case. I went to consulate in N. Delhi
My wife went for H4 visa stamping in New Delhi embassy ...