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The Director's Office: Alejandro Mayorkas Receives Award from Immigrant Rights Group, Hosts Chicago Community Leaders Forum on Immigration
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On Thursday, June 2, 2011, Director Alejandro Mayorkas of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services traveled to Chicago to receive an award from one of Illinois ’ most prominent immigrant advocacy groups and to host a White House-sponsored business leaders’ forum on immigration reform.
In the evening of June 2, The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) hosted more than 300 people at its 25th anniversary celebration. ICIRR is a state-wide coalition of 138 organizations dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society. Director Mayorkas was honored with ICIRR’s Golden Door Award for his leadership of USCIS in its efforts to ensure that United States citizenship remains a valued and accessible benefit to all who are eligible. ICIRR singled out the Obama Administration’s decision in 2010 to keep the naturalization fee flat despite required cost-based increases in other immigration benefit categories. This was ICIRR’s inauguration of its Golden Door Award.
Earlier in the day, as part of the Obama Administration’s initiative to elevate the debate around immigration reform, Director Mayorkas joinedChicago area business leaders to discuss the need and advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. The roundtable discussion drew leaders from all sectors of the community, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Restaurant Association, and representatives from financial services, building development, non-profits, and the clergy. The roundtable’s participants shared with Director Mayorkas the need for comprehensive immigration reform, ideas for further engagement and mobilization, and the Chicago community’s plans to promote the needed reforms.
Earlier in the day, as part of the Obama Administration’s initiative to elevate the debate around immigration reform, Director Mayorkas joined
This is the first installment of “The Director’s Office” - a new series of posts from Director Mayorkas that will appear regularly on this blog.
Comments (17)
Today I got a Striking idea which might have heard by your team already.
As you lot of people are working on H1b or L1A or B1 visas. They all need a way ascertain if they are been exploited or not. For examples , You can put out a simple flow by taking the information & passing.
Name , company name , working city , Current salary , LCA Salary(optional) , I-94 Number(Optional), W2(Years) etc . Make a simple algorithm to calculate any issues. Issue a clean chit or present him/her a application to submit with more information right away. The case is opened and tracked.
This automated way would open lot of ways for people to reach out USCIS easily and also put the employer under the radar to treat the employees better and fair as promised when filed the LCA.
Please help educated and skilled spouses on dependent visas by granting them a temporary work permit to work for at least some hours in the week to keep themselves active and busy rather than deteriorate, idling away their talent and skills.
We are suffering for long time . I understand you have certain system to follow and some quota . But we are all humans and waiting and going through hardship from 2002 . and where as people in other categories they already citizens .
Laws and regulations are is made for people and not people !!!!
All humans are same pain and feelings. its not fair to give some people preference on basis of country,qualification and application type.
Please do something and move the dates and clear some applications. It will boost economy.
Thanks
Singh
Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers with advanced (Masters) degrees in their professions should be placed in a special EB category. For example, present EB system does not show any difference between a software business analyst with masters degree in electrical engineering and a chemical engineer with advanced degree in chemical engineering. We should also understand that the industry needs and qualified personal available are very different in both industries.
DOL and USCIS should work together and bring a solution for this issue. It will be great if these EB categories are made based on the profession and/or specific industry requirements. By doing so you will protect every industry and help it to meet its labor requirements.
Thanks
It seems that you have no clue about the political system in the US.
Neither DOL nor USCIS can change the categories.
The categories are in the law. In this country, only Congress can change laws.
Please educate yourself before posting things... You can buy a copy of the US Constitution in every book store...
Thank you.
Your post only shows that your own self-interest has clouded your judgment, and that you rely on rumors.
First, porting to EB2 is not happening much. The CIS numbers show that.
Second, your statement about fraud is basically libel. Do you have actual evidence that fraud is happening in porting in a large scale (you claim that everybody porting is committing fraud, which is ludicrous.) Your self-interest doesn't allow you to libel a whole group of people, just because they do something you don't like.
Third, people who originally filed in EB3 and worked for a long time while their EB3 applications are pending, are of course eligible to find a job that requires EB2, and apply through that, if they fulfill the EB2 requirements. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In summary, don't let your self-interest get the better of you. In particular, if you have a Masters degree, you should have received enough education to know better.
Thank you.
We are a family here from El Salvador and fortunately we have been granted TPS allowing us to work and live in this great country. As you know the economy is not the greatest, my parents both work extremely hard, my father as a painter and my mother as a machine operator and both my brother and I are High School Students.
We live a humble lifestyle, we have a two bedroom apartment; my parents in their bedroom, being the girl I have my own bedroom and my brother sleeps on the couch in the living room. My parents share one car in which they use to drop us off at school and for both to get to work. We feel blessed to have good health, food on the table, a roof over our head and status to live and work here freely however we do not have the financial means to deal with Attorneys.
Thankfully an Attorney was able to get us our TPS status however it was an extremely expensive process one in which my parents are still making monthly payments to. With that said every time a renewal of our status is necessary we no longer use this Attorney due to his unfeasible fee of $1,000.00 per person. He is a great Attorney who has done us well but his fees are simply beyond our reach.
Therefore we now use a non-attorney for the renewal of our TPS, we have been using this office for the past 3 renewals and they have been great most importantly they only charge us $100.00 per person. With the Attorney we would have paid $4,000.00 in total where as with this office we only pay $400.00 total.
How do you justify this? Isn’t this abuse? Wouldn’t you say this is as bad as fraud?
We need more offices such as these and we are thankful we found this office. They are reliable, easily reached, honest and affordable. Fundamentals that most Attorneys lack.
When you can provide the nation with Attorneys that will charge us minimal fees such as this office then only can you justify this movement.
When you can provide the nation with Attorneys that are personally accessible to us without charging us for every visit, every phone call or every INS request then only can you justify this movement.
When you can assure the nation that Attorneys do not commit fraud onto immigrants then only can you justify this movement.
When you can be honest with yourself then only will you realize this movement is not justified!
A 17-year old Salvadorian National