The last two weeks have been busy and hectic, but nothing compared to what my green card awaiting colleagues and relatives are going through.
First they were told the good news that their waiting for I485 was over and all dates are current. This set off a rush of events. To mention a few:
1. Resumes were printed
2. Monster.com was bookmarked
3. Old photo albums were searched for that "maaplai" or "ponnu" look photo
4. Matrimonial ads were placed frantically
5. Air tickets were blocked with hopes of an "imminent marriage"
6. Realtors were consulted..
just to list a few!
Then came the big letdown. Just when all paperwork was kept ready and lawyers were consulted, the announcement was practically reversed!
I have seen all those happy faces turn sad. Most of them are over it now, partly because their faith in the Immigration department is near zero! All these years of waiting, while people who cross the border illegally are going to be legalized ! What kind of message does that send ? Why punish people who wait in line for a few years to legitimately cross over for residency and reward people who cross over illegally ?
Beats me!
One of my buddies sent me this forward, which takes a Gandhigiri approach to things.
Hey There -
Were you affected and disheartened by the recent fiasco by the USCIS over priority dates? The priority dates were made current for July and were then retrogressed to a status of unavailable without accepting a single application.
One of our biggest handicaps is the lack of awareness and lack of media coverage of the problems surrounding the process of legal, skilled immigration. Most often, media is not looking for details and legalese, it is just looking for a good interesting story.
Some folks on the discussion forums at Immigration Voice came up with this brilliant idea of sending a bouquet of flowers to the Director of the USCIS on the same day. Imagine the director getting hundreds, if not thousands of bouquet on the same day. If we are able to get sufficient numbers, media will certainly get interested. This is our response, a la Gandhigiri, to USCIS's fiasco.
You may just cynically delete this email, thinking that it will not make a difference - or take a chance on it - maybe it will. If you are sending the flowers, then please take an additional minute to drop an email to legalimmi@gmail.com with subject line "Flowers Sent". It will help us keep track of the number of flowers being sent; we can alert the media only if we have a respectable number.
Please forward this email to your friends who might be interested.
Please note the following information regarding the flower delivery.
Date of delivery should be 10 July.
Select Occasion: "Sympathy"
The message: All the best for future Employment Based visa estimates. (You may use a different message but please don't be rude in your message)
Delivery location type is Business, US Citizenship and Immigration Service
Address:
Emilio T. Gonzalez
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20529
Phone number: 202-307-1565
We live in interesting times!
.
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 9:36PM