Many of you commented or left news tips about the plan to give flowers to USCIS director Emilio Gonzalez, as a form of peaceful protest against the ridiculously unfair green card debacle. Approximately two hundred bouquets were sent. WaPo covers Gandhigiri:
They did it because that’s what Gandhi would have done.
Yesterday, their bouquets of purple roses, pink lilies and yellow daisies, which cost about $40 each and which were sent from all over the country, piled up on the immigration office’s loading dock at 20 Massachusetts Ave. NW, addressed to Gonzalez and stacked in columns taller than people.
The agency forwarded them to soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“We know the reason behind it and understand the symbolism. We donated them in the same spirit in which they were provided to us,” said an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lawsuit over the matter filed by an advocacy group.
Background, for any who missed it:
Green card applicants were given hope on June 12, when the State Department posted a bulletin offering H1B visa holders who had been stuck in a bureaucratic logjam an opportunity to take that last step needed to apply for permanent residency.
Thousands of engineers, doctors and other educated foreigners began a mad scramble to file their applications before the July 2 deadline.
Vacations were canceled, and lawyers were called in. Elderly parents in far-flung corners of the world stood in line for hours to get copies of birth certificates and immunization records.
Then, on the day of the deadline, the State Department retracted the bulletin. The USCIS, which processes the applications, said it had already met its 140,000-person annual quota for employee-sponsored applicants.
The most infuriating aspect of it all– people who are here illegally are now standing in the same virtual line for a limited and precious commodity. I can totally understand the pain; you do the right thing, follow the rules and then someone cuts in front of you– and you’re S.O.L. It happened when I tried to buy Pixies tickets a few years ago and that stung. I can’t imagine the anguish over this, which is 100x more important.
“Only someone with the saddest mind can do this,” said Ashish Mundada, 31, an information technology consultant who works in New York City. Mundada had persuaded his wife to cancel a trip back to India for a sister’s wedding to take advantage of what seemed like a brief window of opportunity. Mundada, like many other protesters, said he did not want any favors, just that his application be fairly considered.
Such beautiful kindness and grace:
They do not hold hard feelings against Gonzalez. “I’d like to thank him for the job that he does. I know it’s a thankless job,” Tekkedil said. “I just hope that he could understand our plight as well.”
Such sadness and anxiety:
Their uncertain status makes them fearful of notice. Anand Sharma, 35, a chip design engineer from Longmont, Colo., said she drives well under the speed limit on highways. “We are so scared. We just want to stay here.”
But they are weary of how their lives have been frozen in time. They must retain the same job title and income they had when they began the application process, which can last for eight years.
I don’t mind if the flowers achieve the goal, but I hope something does. This isn’t right.
The flowers got the issue some attention, hope it continues to catch some more attention at the national level.
And Oh! please send some flowers to Lou Dobbs also.
My roommate’s girlfiend (ok, whether she’s his “girlfriend” yet is a topic for another thread 🙂 is an immigration lawyer. She was saying that Gonzo apparently sent the flowers to Walter Reed. Great! Now we’re enabling him to look good too! 🙂 And she was also saying that the belief is that this was probably deliberately done by State to make the USCIS look bad.
As for the snafu itself, apparently USCIS has been sitting on these limbo applications that were submitted during the frenzy, many of which have original documents associated with them. Hopefully some decision will be reached on them by September when the window for the next application opens.
So, who is the first desi going to be arrested after giving him a jadoo ki jhappi? Or maybe you think jadoo means broom? That’s fine by me too.
“They must retain the same job title and income they had when they began the application process, which can last for eight years.”
OMG. I had no idea that the job title and income must remain constant … this is so unfair! I’m not even out of grad school yet, and have a while before I get to the green card stage, but just the thought of the bleak years to come is so incredibly depressing.
Thank you ANNA for your post.
While the USCIS/DOS vias bulletin fiasco is a perfect example of the lack of communication between two big federal govt agencies, the underlying problem dates back to years. All the immigrant visa numbers for any given fiscal year (oct-sep) cannot be carried forward to the next year. USCIS/DOL has wasted approximately 220,000 such visa numbers and created these huge backlogs. The visa numbers were supposed to go wasted if there were no one waiting in line, not if people were waiting in line. Congress needs to intervene and allow for the recapture of visa numbers from previous years (it has done in the past) and allow the numbers to be carried forward for one year as it will give some leeway to agencies like USCIS/DOL/DOS.
Please no!! Have some pity on the flowers shall we?
Maybe we can send Michael Moore over, he can surely give Dobbs a jaadoo ki jhappi.
Sounds pretty ridiculous.
Not correct. The job functions have to be similar area (your responsibilities though can increase). Salary can be any amount not less than the prevailing minimum wage in that area.
Guys … ghandigiri gave independence after fasting for so many years (50 years… mostly). i think we are not permitted that many years to stay here and fight by doing this kind of activities on H1.
phool bhejo ….. biwi marega (as she did not those for any occasion). Doing these activities and concentrate else were ….. project not completed… Boss gand marega ….
Ajar green card time pe nahin tho ….. hamara gand podega…..
sala gand tho Atlantic ocean banjeyaga……
True, but in most cases, the pevailing wages (based on DoL wage libraries) are much lower than the real market rate. So paying somebody prevailing wage is a piece of cake for the employer. The biggest problem is that employers know that these employees are dependent on them for the sponsorship, and thus take advantage of the situation by denying them salary raises. They may get more responsibility, but those are not accompanied by better pay. The green card process in this country is employment sponsored – professionals cannot sponsor themselves.
hmmm…brown people fighting against a white government using people with green hands as intermediaries…hmm….
But it doesn’t happen in practical life. The employer knows that you are not going anywhere as long as your green card is not done (or at least you are at the fag end of the process with EAD for atleast 6 months). So they don’t have to increase the wages to remain an attractive employer in a good economy when there are so many options. Also its improbable (not impossible) to break into management with H1b as they like some stability with their management , whereas technical resources are replaceable.
This story really touched my heart, I’m so moved that they sent flowers as a means to protest. It’s nice to see Gandhian philosophy at work in the U.S.
Thanks for sharing Anna!
13 “But it doesn’t happen in practical life. The employer knows that you are not going anywhere as long as your green card is not done”
This is total BS. Please don’t spread misinformation about GC based on hearsay. I actually quit the firm that applied for my GC years before I got my GC. Firm A pays for all legal costs (some $8000) towards GC. Once application is filed, you can quit A. I did. No harm done. You can do whatever afterwards – go to India, be jobless in USA, have a ball, vacation, whatever. Once your GC application is approved, at that point ie. right before the actual GC-interview, you must be employed in some firm B in similar area of expertise. They enforce that by asking for & making xerox of your latest paystub from B. Nobody gives fuck about A. The loser here is A. A hoped you will stick around, that’s why A paid legal for your GC. But hey, A also thinks it has you in a bind, so they don’t bother to hike your wages. So you turn around & fuck A. In my case, I fucked both A and B. I joined B just to get that fucking paystub, and quit 1 MINUTE after getting GC. Honest to God. I called B’s boss & said, look dear, I got my GC so fuck you, I quit. He was a pal, told me he knew I would always do that. I don’t recommend fucking B ( unless its run by your friend who won’t rat on you ) but you must certainly fuck A if they are dicking with your wages.
All talk of fing aside (Tambram, I missed you on the threads!), there is additional trouble that might accrue from changing jobs, although it varies from person to person. I’ve had people who got laid off from “A”, were employed later by “B”, and were called for in-person interviews as a result. Of course, there were other people who never found a “B” to f, and were sitting at home when the green card showed up.
Tambaram,
To get into the specifics of what you are talking, people need to have two things to move from employer to employer and still retain their priority date
a) approved I 140 and I 485 pending with USCIS for more than 180 days b) approved I 140 and then move to a different employer who can offer a job with same description
It is easy for people in situation (a) and not in (b) because of AC21. For people in (b), they have to find a job that it is of similar description. May be you got hired by your pal to do so. Not every one gets a chance like you. I dont know how long before you have done this, but the truth is EB2/EB3 for India have been retrogressed from the past 2/3 years. There were cases in the past in big corporates where people were denied raises because that would be in violation with the LCA and stuff. Don’t generalize based on your situation and every one does not have the nerves to take a chance as simple mistakes can put them back at the end of the serpentine GC queues.
And now that everyone’s had their post-coitus cigarette do you think company A will want to sponsor someone else’s GC again anytime soon? Oh well, you got yours what does it matter?
Green Card injustice? F**** the US and go back to India. Why would you want to live in the US? It’s time to be arrogant and say we’re better and smarter than the white guys. We don’t need to immigrate.
Not all companies do sponsor all/some of the GC related expenses. The INS regulations require employers to pay the H1B fee but not the GC fee. It depends on the relation ship of the employer and employee. Too many f’isms. Probably employer C is acting up now 🙂
Tambram, both your corporate life and your home life seem far more exciting than us mere mortals.
Don’t hate the playa, hate the game! 🙂
I wonder how much of this is actually Gandhian philosophy and how much is element of a dumbass movie that had it’s elements but would never win a quality cinematic award.
Sure there are elements of non violence here and also turning the other cheek but Gandhi was wiser than that, his political methods did not just stop there, there was a lot more to it. His whole campaign was based on civil disobedience where you make the other party realize that they are indeed dependent to some extent on you by not playing to their whims and fancies. Here, if these GC hopefuls all went on something akin to a strike and did it in large numbers, now that would work. Sending flowers is a good for newsworthiness but I doubt it has any more use than that.
Thanks for saying this! Gonzo is no Boman Irani, and Secretary of State Condi Rice is certainly no Vidya Balan. Although Dan Quayle would’ve made a great Circuit.
Correction on the typos, got a little too elementary –
I wonder how much of this is actually Gandhian philosophy and how much is the influence of a dumbass movie that had it’s moments but would never win a quality cinematic award.
I’m all for paying tribute to Gandhi and peaceful protests, but honestly. We might as well offer to do USCIS’ taxes and send them homemade brownies as well. WTF?
Who knows, some proud Indian citizen in Bangalore might already be doing them?
Pun intended? Maybe brownie cheesecakes?
I could never hate a southie ; )
17 – Don’t generalize based on your situation and every one does not have the nerves
Sir, I am being very specific, no generalization at all. I did it. I had the nerves so I did it. If you have nerves you also do it. If no nerves then don’t. But the parent post said “it doesn’t happen in real life”, so I called BS because I actually did it so I know it can very well be done.
15 Rahul “there were other people who never found a “B” to f***, and were sitting at home when the green card showed up”.
Dai Rahul I was that exact person la. I was sitting at home & got the approval notice. btw your green card itself doesn’t show up. You get an approval notice in mail, it gives you enough time ( atleast 2 weeks ) to present yourself before immig officer to claim your gc. In that 2 weeks, if you are a fob with the usual connections, you can move mountains. I called a pal running his chota calif startup, asked him to put me on his payroll retrogressively 3 months so no suspicion aroused by immig, “paid” my wages for those 3 months to him, he then “paid” them back to me via legal paystub, which I then took to the interview. I was in and out of the interview in less than 5 minutes. I thought I will meet with well-dressed immig officer, so I actually rented one tuxedo. My immig turned out to be an obese black woman with double chin. She was dressed quite shabbily and honestly at that moment I thought she was a minimum wage person. She was sitting behind desk full of papers exactly like a Govt of India office. I walk in, she takes out my folder, looks at me, matches my face with photo in folder, gives me GC, says “Welcome to USA”. I said ok. I could have been more verbose but I was actually quite shocked at the brevity and ridiculousness of the whole exercise. I thought she will do formal interview or atleast ask me something about myself, what do I do etc. But no. She gives card, says welcome to USA. So I also said ok & then left with my card. Immediately I quit B & that was that.
Shhhh!! Dobbs may be listening, his ears are built into the fabric of space time itself, for gods sake.
Even when he’s out and about building a fence from sea to shining sea? I hope I get into a situation (room) with the Wolf so I fulfil my lifetime ambition of going, “Who let the Dobbs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof!“
What does this dumb and sappy move have to do with Gandhi? Gandhi struck hard at the economic arteries of the British Raj. He was a total pain in the ass, hated by conservatives, lampooned in the right wing press. His actions cost mill workers in England their jobs, among other things. He wasn’t a silly, sentimental, purposeless creature as this flower-gesture would imply. If they want to make a real point, why don’t these H1B visa dudes conduct a fast unto the death at the Lincoln Memorial or something? Now that might be real gandhigiri.
Their employers will fire them, their H1Bs will become invalid, and they will have to leave the country within 30 days.
They wont fire them if the whole campaign gains lot of support and momentum. Companies would also want you to be happy and would help you out in a scenario like this.
LMAO at Who let the Dobbs out.
I sometimes seriously wonder WTF do some of me DBD bros get so desperate about to live here that they take all kinds of shite for it. Ok, I guess some have valid reasons to need to be there but a lot of the others can be just as comfortable and happy in the desh. I mean, they should put things in perspective, if living here is too much hassle get the heck back to India. Things are pretty awesome there. Ok, you have a cushy job here and all that jazz and if things are not so bad, do your thing. But when it becomes such a pain that your friggin life revolves around how to stick around one more day, I think it’s just not worth it.
Ardy,
For a lot of people this is their first brush with real independence and a lot of people invest upwards of five years in this process, to give everything up after working hard for it is not really an option. I am sure many people go back on their own accord but forced out of the country is not the same thing is it?
Ardy:
What about hundreds of ppl like me..who have our undergraduate and graduate degrees from here. Lived here LEGALLY from anywhere from 8 years to 15 years on a number of different visa categories. Have kids who are US citizens..have suburban homes and weber grillS too.
SHOULD WE GO BACK TOO?
Brown – I meant why be so desperate for a GC in the first place. Why even have the attitude ‘I have to settle down here’. Before coming here, people were fine in India and once we go back, we’ll be fine again – if anything things have got so much better.I am not sure what you meant by independence. I agree that women do have more freedom here and I can appreciate their desire to settle here. But I see a lot of men not ok with the idea of returning too.
maybe they are in a career that pays far more in the US than in india….
it’s all about the greenbacks, yo. it’s even more “comfortable and happy” in the desh when you’ve been in the US for a while, thanks to the exchange rate. Summer in Nantucket, winter in Munnar.
In all seriousness though, many people say that find it “hard to adjust” to a typical Indian workplace, as offices are not that “professional.” I haven’t worked in India, except for an internship, so I don’t feel qualified to argue either way. Some are also scared about going back and setting up a home in India all over again (Suketu Mehta describes this in Maximum City: getting your kids into school, begging the municipality to give you water and electricity connections etc). While I can imagine this initial phase is a bit of an ordeal, most things are fairly easily accomplished by greasing palms, left, right, and center (I am not endorsing/condoning this, of course, merely observing it). People probably take all this into consideration when they weigh that against the perpetual stress of waiting for a green card.
my dad doesnt want to go back, because he left india due to being morally opposed to greasing palms…
By independence I meant independence for both men and women. The attraction for guys is that a lot of them live at home with their parents in India and coming to America and experiencing life on their own with no parental influence is a motivation, the degree varies for people but in my personal experience a lot of guys enjoy it as much as the girls. I am not disputing the desparation bit, I came here 6 years back and my work visa gets over in 2010, I don’t think I will be applying for my GC as for me personally it is not worth the wait, I am happy to go back but am here till 2010 for the extra money.
That is a very common misconception. If you think in terms of PPP or quality of life, people actually get paid more there. This is definitely true for engineers and MBAs, and some higher degrees. Not lawyers and doctors. A single income family can live a lot more comfortably there than here.
Another reason given is usually the quality of work is better here but again, that was true in the past. With top rung management consultants doing a lot of strategy and finance work there and lot of high end engineering (definitely for EE. CS and some other fields which make the bulk of DBD engineers here anyways), that too is not true.
What does this have to do with anything???
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention all the people here who work in fields that are probably not lucrative/respectable/under-funded in India (say you work in very specific sort of lab, or your life-goal is to translate Gramsci into English :)). Lots of individuals may (rightly) be willing to tolerate lot of strain to preserve their professional ambition.
im not sure if people are thinking entirely of PPP. i think a lot of people start by saying. i can save a lot of dough in the US. they multiply their savings by 50 mentally, and feel really happey. then years become decades, then they feel at home here. become the T+1 immigrant. the guy that says he will go back “next year” for like 40 years straight.
Portmanteau – I think you have a good point. My own concern so far has been the atrocious work culture I see my friends work in, it is BAD!! Regarding public services, I guess you are right that people are probably wary of going back and hacing to deal with that (though if you have the green bucks or use the RTI Act, you can get away with a lot less hassle).
Brown – the independence of guys thing could be true but could easily be fixed if one just gets a job in a different city. I guess my family was always cool in most things and so I did not think of that aspect.
Try guaranteed supply of water and energy for the middle class.
Puliogre,
You can never be sure of why the person is not able to go back for 40 years, probably becuase he or she has kids who are born and raised here and uprooting them will not be sensible and many other such factors. I don’t think it is right to cast judgments till you know the whole story.
Ardy,
I understand what you are saying, I haven’t been living at home since I was 21 so that was not a pull for me either. You will be surprised to know how many guys are in a situation where this is their first brush with independence.
43 Neale, my bad, she was a hot lily-white lady with flaming blond tresses in a teeny miniskirt, cumpleat Heidi Klum clone, and we fucked right there on that table on top of all those green green cards. Happy now ? My fellow DBDs, if you have gotten your green cards in the past year and you noticed some white stains on the green, that was probably our doing so pliss to forgive. Dai Neale, I’m trying to relate my GC incident as accurately as possible. She was black, she was obese, she had two chins, she was shabbily dressed. I remember it very vividly so I wrote it. If you have a problem take it up with her. immig officers probably meet 100 people everyday, you expect they will appoint somebody groomed and dressed a lot more professional in that highly public position. she just didn’t look the part.
28 Sir, I am being very specific, no generalization at all. I did it. I had the nerves so I did it. If you have nerves you also do it. If no nerves then don’t. But the parent post said “it doesn’t happen in real life”, so I called BS because I actually did it so I know it can very well be done.
Thanks for the clarification with regards to being specific and not generalizing. As I said, not all people have similar conducive situations like you and the nerve to do it comes later. Some people do not want to take risks and as far as I am concerned, its my situation and not any thing else, like you thought. May be your statement should have been ” If people have the nerves they will do it “