A Note from the Editors:

245(i) Is Not Amnesty

An Employer Information Bulletin on Section 245(i) which was recently made available by the BCIS appears in this week's Immigrant's Weekly. We quote the following paragraph from this bulletin headlined "Confusion of LIFE provisions with "Amnesty"" in its entirety.
Many persons mistakenly believe that 245(i) constitute amnesty, i.e. forgiveness of unlawful presence or breaches of status. On the contrary, unlawful presence continues to accrue until application for adjustment of status is filed (which stops accrual of unlawful presence). Section 245(i) does not protect an alien from deportation. That is, an alien who continues to work without authorization may remain eligible to adjust status if and when permanent residence is approved and an immigrant visa is available, but may be removed from the US if discovered in the meantime. Furthermore, a US employer who files Form ETA-750 or Form I-140, naming an unauthorized alien as beneficiary, will be subject to sanctions if discovered to be knowingly employing that alien prior to eligibility for adjustment (when alien can obtain an EAD). Once application for adjustment is made, the alien becomes eligible for work authorization. It may take months or years, however, from the time that the qualifying 245(i) application for labor certification or petition is filed, for the alien to become eligible to file for adjustment.

We welcome readers to share their opinion and ideas with us by writing to weeklyeditor@ilw.com.

Articles

The Hidden History Of Immigration: Part 3 of 3
Martin Ford examines the assimilation of the three largest European immigrant groups, Germans, Irish, and Italians, and argues that, in terms of language, religion, and group identity, today's immigrants may be adapting faster than their predecessors.

BCIS Employer Information Bulletin On Adjustment Of Status Under 245(i)- LIFE Act
The Office of Business Liaison of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services of the DHS released an employer information bulletin on adjustment of status under Section 245(i) - LIFE Act.

Citizenship: A Fundamental American Value
Eduardo Aguirre writes "I remember becoming a US Citizen like it was yesterday. In fact, more than thirty years have passed since that profound, life-changing event."

Secretary Powell Says Omnibus Immigration Reform Would Be Very Very Difficult
During an interview with Mexico's Televisa, Secretary Powell responded to the possibility of an immigration agreement with Mexico and said, "To get a large overarching, comprehensive, omnibus immigration law now would be very, very difficult."

Aguilar Is Appointed Chief Of Office Of Citizenship
BCIS Director Eduardo Aguirre announced that Alfonso Aguilar has been appointed Chief of the Office of Citizenship.

DOS Issues Proposed Regulations On Intercountry Adoptions
The Department of State issued proposed regulations to implement the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Convention) and the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (the IAA), including rules to implement the records preservation requirements.

The Story of The Whole Act
Pravinchandra Patel, Esq. tells the story of how the much amended INA became available in book form.

BCIS Guidance Memo On Sunset Of Additional $1,000 H-1B Filing Fee
William Yates, Acting Associate Director for Operations of the BCIS issued a memorandum to BCIS service center directors, regional directors, and office of international affairs on the sunset of additional $1,000 filing fee and the return to 65,000 H-1B cap.

White House And DHS Jointly Announce New Terrorist Screening Centers
The Office of the Press Secretary of the White House issued a Presidential directive on the integration and use of screening information to protect against terrorism. For the fact sheet on the Terrorist Screening Center issued by the Office of the Press Secretary of the DHS, see here.

Passage to India: IT Offshoring and How America Can Respond
Gary Endelman writes "Not only our productive muscle, but our very ability to dominate the information age, seems to be under serious question for the first time. How can America respond?"

H-1B Practice In The Twilight Zone
Cyrus D. Mehta writes "Unless Congress acts by September 30, 2003, many provisions of the H-1B visa program will sunset on October 1, 2003."

Senate Hearing Testimony On Importance Of H-1Bs To American Economy
The Senate Committee of the Judiciary held a hearing on H1-Bs and received testimony from the following: Mr. Patrick Duffy, Human Resources Attorney Intel Corporation; Ms. Elizabeth Dickson, Director of Immigration Services , Ingersoll-Rand Company; Mr. Stephen Yale-Loehr, Cornell Law School and AILA. Sen. Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Leahy (D-VT) provided member statements.

What is an Affidavit of Support?
Read a detailed response from the BCIS on what is an affidavit of support.

ILW Highlights

Current Issues In Immigration For Nurses, PTs/OTs/MTs, Pharmacists, Dentists, And Other Healthcare Professionals

ILW.COM is pleased to announce a new 3-part telephonic seminar series on immigration for nurses and other health professionals. This seminar series is organized in cooperation with CGFNS (Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools). The speakers for this seminar series include distinguished practitioners, healthcare industry professionals and others (many speakers will be announced shortly). The deadline to register is Friday, September 26th. For more info, including detailed curriculum, speaker bios, and registration information, please see: http://www.ilw.com/seminars/september2003.shtm. For the fax version, please see: http://www.ilw.com/seminars/september2003.pdf

Letters to Editors

To write to Editors, send emails to weeklyeditor@ilw.com.

Dear Editor:
Employment based immigration benefited the US more than other forms of immigration but it is poorly managed. I applied labor certification in 1999 and I just got approval from the Labor Department; 4 years. I can not think of anything else that is totally out of my control and that requires this long period of waiting. I think the United Nations and human rights groups should define the maximum waiting time in a civilized society. Labor certification cannot help US workers because companies can fire the foreign workers but not necessary to hire identified qualified US workers. Companies can hire another foreign worker on H1 or L1 status or they can outsource the work overseas. US workers should stop blaming foreign workers take their jobs, instead they should blame themselves and the culture of the country. What can help US workers is to have the good work ethics and a right set of value such as fairness. If you do not play fair, you could win a couple of games but eventually you will lose. What can help this country is to change the culture - take a longer view of life, do not be so money driven, do not be so superfacial, live your own lives and not to watch reality shows on TV. If the US wants to keep no1 status in the world, they'd better well manage the employment based immigration. Otherwise, the capital will flow out of the country and go to countries like India, Mexico, or China.

Name Not Provided

Dear Editor:
A law breaker is a law breaker. Why should I be forced to support the people of the world? Those who turn their backs on this problem are usually the rich who are making money from illegal immigration. They do not have to worry about them living in their gated commuinity. Take a look at the areas in this country where most of them live.

Name Not Provided

Dear Editor:
I am here asking God for that amnesty to happen and to the laws reviewed. Some chance should be given to some people. Keep me informed and thank you Immigrant's Weekly for the great work.

Iza Donaldson

Dear Editor:
Your Editor's comments impressed me with its concise and realistic summary of the problem and the anticipated solution. Let me get my prejudices out on the table first: I am a deeply committed sympathizer who cares about people, regardless of where they come from. I care especially about the suffering of people who try to immigrate to America, for when they start out on that process, they are faced with mounting obstacles and highly unjust and immoral treatment by a government agency which makes clear its nasty view of "others" by making their journey toward becoming an American citizen as horrible as they possibly can. I know because I met a Filipina over the internet and brought her and married her over two years ago, under a fiancee visa. I have had to interact with the INS much more than I would have ever thought necessary, and spent many months of time, either trying to figure out the arcane processes, or standing in line or sitting waiting. I know about the black hole that is the Texas Service Center. With that said, let me comment on your well-written editorial. Rep. Tancredo (R-CO) and other like-minded anti-immigrationists, would beg to disagree with ILW.COM's prophesy. And strongly so. To them, this is a clear case of the law being broken and there are ways, if you believe them, to make sure these people are picked up and deported, all of them. Tancredo invited the public to go along with him to the borders to see for themselves how porous they are. He said he goes frequently. Some of the diabolical tricks they wish to cause Congress to use in going after these scum....One: Never, ever raise the hope of amnesty, for that has only served to open wide the faucet as potential immigrants rush to get here "just in time." Two: Come down hard on states like California, who permit undocumented aliens to get driver's licenses. Suggestions like "Withhold all federal highway money" and worse. To them, the driver's license is the de facto "national ID card" so eagerly awaited by our animal farm government officials, and no way in hell should we be giving them driver's licenses. Three: No immigrant should be permitted to enter America illegally, and to grant them amnesty, no matter how long they may have been her, no matter how good a person they may be, no matter whether they have been paying American taxes, no matter whether American businessmen (the wealth supporting the Republicans) are using them as "slave" labor or not, no matter anything, these guys want to throw the book at them, and I guess they would probably want the law changed to "hang" illegals if they had their way. There was more of the same kind of stuff, fascist rhetoric like I can imagine has been heard in the halls of our congress many times over the lifespan of our country. I can ignore their ignorance, but I can't ignore the seeming haughtiness they displayed at their press conference. They actually seemed to be in control, and to be certain that what you are today predicting will not happen while they are the "dogs in the junkyard." I don't know how, barring death sentences, these guys will be able to do what they so much want to do (stop immigration) but the nasty ways they are considering of "hurting" them bothers me intensely. Taking away all possible rights to drive, in a country where a car is the only way to exist, to me is inhumane beyond all belief. The same mentality is doing the same thing for other reasons, to actual citizens, so it isn't something new, and that even bothers me more. Using them to run all of our lawn mowers and cut up all our cows and pigs at the absolutely lowest wages and at the absolutely worst working conditions is the other (unseen) side of this issue, and again, I am outraged to even think of what is really going on. These 8 to 10 million undocumented people are being treated as cruelly as you would treat a piece of junk furniture, or your trash, and it bothers the hell out of me. The book "My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy," by Wen Ho Lee brought it all "home" to me because all my life I have been in the technical/scientific career path, and was well aware of the facts. I knew that Chinese, Indian and other immigrant populations comprised the majority of our graduate student populations, and I knew that they normally stayed here in America to pursue technical jobs after graduating. Our best research laboratories and high-tech companies, not to speak of our governmental R&D institutions are full of immigrants that have done so well they are the backbone of our high-tech economy. When this poor Chinese immigrant was put in jail without any way to speak to anyone, and was treated with total disrespect, based on trumped up charges and (well, you know the routine, it happens all the time.) The point here is that this book describes in intimate detail the harrowing experience that an immigrant of good standing in our community underwent. His was, in my humble opinion, having lived the life he did, an accurate and truthful account of mistreatment that every American should read if the collective conscience is ever to be able to wake up to the way we are treating good, decent people. I don't even know why I sat down to write Immigrant's Weekly, but felt so compelled after reading what you said, juxtaposed upon what I had just seen yesterday. So, I guess maybe I have a question. My question is "why is there so much of a disconnect between your reasoned and optimistic statements, and the hatefulness and confidence expressed by those goons at the press conference yesterday?" Is our country that far gone?

William M. Cowhig III
Charlotte, North Carolina

Immigrant Life

How To File US Taxes

What is a federal tax return?

A federal tax return is a form taxpayers must file, under penalty of law.

Why is a tax return important?

It is the law that every taxpayer must complete and submit a tax return to the IRS. In the USA, estimated taxes are withheld from a taxpayer's pay check. Tax returns provide documentation and proof that a taxpayer has paid the correct amount of taxes. If your return shows that you have overpaid your taxes over the year, you will receive a refund from the U.S. government. If your return shows that you have underpaid, you must send payment with your return by the deadline date. If your tax return does not correspond to your true earnings and entitled deductions, you will be penalized.

To learn more, see here.

Have a story that you'd like to share with us? Send your story as an immigrant to weeklyeditor@ilw.com.

This week's chat schedule

ILW.COM announces that as of May 2nd, all chats will be held at 7:00 pm Eastern Time.

When	Attorney
Monday, Sep 22 7:00 pm Eastern Time	Karen Meade, Esq.
Wednesday, Sep 24 7:00 pm Eastern Time	David Cook, Esq.
Friday, Sep 26 7:00 pm Eastern Time	Fariba Faiz, Esq.

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