A few weeks ago I wrote a post about what I feel has been chronic mistreatment of H-1B workers by the immigration system. This week, yet another chapter in the American Immigration Bizarro-land story has unfolded, as thousands of legal workers, following an official State Department advisory, prepared to file Green Card applications, only to be told, in some cases after they had already filed, that the USCIS would not be accepting any applications at all.

The Times explains the complicated chain of events as follows:

The episode started on June 12, when the State Department announced in a monthly bulletin that green cards would be available starting July 2 for applicants across the range of high-skilled categories. That was a signal to immigrants who have been working in this country on temporary visas that they would be able to apply to become permanent residents.

Thousands of immigrants rushed to obtain certified documents, assemble employer sponsorship papers, take medical examinations and dispatch their applications. Many canceled travel plans so they could be in the United States when their applications arrived on July 2, as the law required.

But on Monday, the State Department announced that no more green cards were available. Snared in the turnabout were well-educated, highly skilled, legal immigrants, many of them doctors and medical technicians, with long work experience in this country. All had obtained federal certification that no American workers were available for the jobs they hold. (link)

There’s more to it — the goal here was to reduce the extensive USCIS backlogs — but the reversal means the backlogs are reinstated. Now potential applicants may have to wait as many as four or five years to apply again, leaving many people in limbo. (The Times has a good interview with an Indian doctor in Illinois, who is deeply distraught about this.) As I’ve said before, the cost of an extremely slow and unpredictable immigration system comes in people’s lives: waiting 5-10 years for a Green Card without being certain of success is dispiriting at best, and soul-crushing at worst.

Incidentally, there is also an illuminating breakdown of this bizarre episode at Murthy.com. And our blog-friend Arzan Wadia had a post on this this past Monday, where he made his feelings known.

Are you one of the people who applied for a Green Card this past Monday? You may want to get in contact with a Lawyers’ Group called American Immigration Lawyers Federation (AILF). They are planning a class-action lawsuit against the USCIS over its sudden reversal, and will probably be looking for plaintiffs who meet a certain profile to join the case (see this PDF FAQ). Continue reading →

For my money, the U.S. media’s coverage of South Asia has improved a lot in recent years. I often hear complaints about the New York Times’ Somini Sengupta (and on occasion I’ve had my criticisms too), but overall the quality of South Asia coverage at the Times has been consistently high in my estimation.

Periodically, however, major American media sources seem to lose their focus a little. First up, witness today’s article on Widows at Cnn.com. How is this a “fresh” story? Why is it the lede at CNN, exactly? (For several hours on Thursday afternoon, this was the leading story on Cnn.com’s website.) While Indian widows face real problems — and we’ve talked about them at SM before — the superficial style of coverage in this particular CNN story smacks of sensationalism. There is so much happening in the world — the siege of the Red Mosque in Pakistan, and the derailment of the commuter train in London might be two examples. I’m not sure why or how this is judged “leading news.”

And then there’s the unusual New York Times story about the woman in Karnataka who’s started a blog to raise awareness of her husband’s whistle-blowing activities. By getting public attention she’s trying to avoid having his fate resemble that of other government workers engaged in fighting corruption in the past few years — two of whom were assasinated.

I do wish M. N. Vijayakumar and J. N. Jayashree well, and there is something rather smart about this approach: the best way to fight lack of information transparency is to aim for hyper-transparency (“wiki-giri”, perhaps). But a visit to the “Fighting Corruption” blog is a little less than inspiring; from my attempted navigation, it was actually a bit difficult to pin down the specific cases where Vijayakumar has attempted to make interventions. And my bigger concern is the danger that this strategy might only work in exceptional instances. It’s fine if 1 or 5 or 10 whistle-blowers are keeping blogs; people will pay attention. But what about 1000, or 10,000? Since a single blog can hardly clean up corruption single-handedly, to me this story falls under “novelty,” not so much “news.” What’s your view? Continue reading →