Guest

I would recommend that every American immediately write to their
representative AND Senator. A H.R. bill must then be passed by the
Senate to become law. The Senate can also revise the bill before
processing it. The links to the committees are also on www.house.gov
as are your representatives. Go to www.senate.gov and write to your
Senator and alert them to this.

There are MAJOR problems with the way this bill currently stands. For
example: you get your K1. Come to America and get married. Bill
becomes law. You can't do AOS because of the bill. K1 expires. Now
what?!?!?!?

This is a very poor attempt to cloud the real intent per the reason of
backlog. Many of the visa described here have never been and
currently are not problem visas for the most part.

While some parts of this bill may be real, the majority of it doesn't
make true sense.

Bill Catz

Rob

"Trinity" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > Sec. 3. Temporary suspension of visa waiver program.
    > The admission of aliens to the United States under section 217 of the
    > Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1187) is suspended.

hmmm I'm not sure how suspending VWP is going to help them achieve the
stated goal of reducing the workload. Looks far more likely it's going to
simply stop international travel from VWP countries.

Khadija

There have been a few mentions/questions about how much the US will loose if something this petty and short-sighted is allowed to ever see the light of day in Congress. Here's an article I read yesterday which highlights just what will be lost if we continue down this misguided path.

If the link below doesn't work, go to www.foreignaffairs.org and click on "Table of Contents" for the current issue. The title of the article is, "America Slams the Door on it's Foot: Washington's Destructive New Visa Policies".

Patty Khadijah

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200305...-policies.html

vazagothic

Oooops,
I've spotted a small change in the bill's description:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...8:HR02235:@@@X

5/22/2003:
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
6/25/2003:
Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims.


Not good, not good at all

Noorah101

Hmmmm - "........and for other purposes." :-(

Scout

"I don't know how long a bill typically stays within a committee prior to reaching the next stage, but I'd be curious to know if someone else does"


A bill's length in any committee may vary. They are also known to be killed by these committees. Let's pray someone kills it quickly.

Cheers,

Leslie

Mrtravel

vazagothic wrote:
    > Oooops,
    > I've spotted a small change in the bill's description:
    > http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...8:HR02235:@@@X
    >
    > 5/22/2003:
    > Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
    > 6/25/2003:
    > Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and
    > Claims.
    >
    >
    > Not good, not good at all
    >

Why is it not good? This is normal. It will die in the Subcommittee.

Jim Battista

Scout wrote in
news:[email protected]:

    >
    > "I don't know how long a bill typically stays within a committee
    > prior to reaching the next stage, but I'd be curious to know if
    > someone else does"
    >
    >
    > A bill's length in any committee may vary. They are also known to be
    > killed by these committees. Let's pray someone kills it quickly.

Committees don't kill bills by actively killing them, though. They
just don't take any action on the bills, which die a natural death
later.

If you don't see the committee scheduling hearings and such on the
bill, it's probably dead.

--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

goya0002

So, what are you guys saying that this bill is for real and they are trying to stop visas from being issued?

Sona had told me of something like this that she had heard on the news in India....but I just didn't believe her. I just saw this post and thought that she might have been talking about the same thing.

Rohit

Mrtravel

goya0002 wrote:
    >
    > So, what are you guys saying that this bill is for real and they are
    > trying to stop visas from being issued?

It is a new bill from a very very junior legislature.
It will die in the subcommittee.

    >
    > Sona had told me of something like this that she had heard on the news
    > in India....but I just didn't believe her. I just saw this post and
    > thought that she might have been talking about the same thing.

Why wouldn't you believe her? Only a small portion of bills introduced
in Congress stand a chance of passing. Immigrants are a very large
constituency. A Congress that passed the Life Act a couple of years ago
isn't about to make this 180 degree turn.

Dekka's Angel

I saw that ambiguity too, but I don't think it is a loophole. A few months ago before the bill was introduced it was floating around as a proposal on the sites of some of the more rabid anti-immigration organizations - and at that time the specifically K-1 *was* included as a target. The argument that I saw made was that the K-1 was abused through fraud by those trying to get here from certain countries where getting other types of non-immigrant visas (i.e. visitors visas) is virtually impossible because of the (real or perceived) high abscondment rate.

Even though this idea clearly has been around for a time, this bill makes no specific mention of the K visas -- and I do not believe that's an accident. I'm fairly sure that the K- visa applications are the only type of immigration petition filed entirely by United States Citizens. Elimination/suspension of the K-visa is the only thing about this bill that is *guaranteed* to piss off folks who have neither xenophobia or racism working against their political voices and the hell they would likely raise if they are stopped from bringing their fiances here (especially given how long the I-130 is taking to process).

I think, however, the ambiguous nature of the K-class visa is what continues to keep it within the ambit of this bill. K's would be suspended as every other nonimmigrant visa would be, but not because anyone actively had to debate it on the floor and justify it publicly to angry if not enraged USC's. It is clear that, at least for the moment, the K- visa is a non-immigrant visa. It therefore faces suspension under this bill if it becomes law, because it is not specifically exempted. Except it would just slip under the radar, unnoticed. As opposed to the other provisions where at least if the bill lives that long there will be a healthy and no doubt fierce public debate.


I disagree. This bill is too omnibus and has too many doomsday provisions for permanently ending certain types of unpopular immigration types if some very fuzzy targets aren't met. I believe the bill is being brought and pushed by those who were already opposed to what they perceive as "too much immigration" long before 9/11-- except they are using 9/11 and its administrative aftermath to hang their arguments on, knowing it's one of the few arguments that causes people to stop thinking here in the US and bow down before the government. Since after all, people are still knee-jerk afraid.

nathan barley

You know for a fact that a bill as wide ranging and impacting as this is going to die in the grass without anyone realizing. It's too extreme, and tantamount to closing the borders.
Limiting some truly non-essential visas for a short while could be a good step though, to let BCIS play catch-up with their backlogs, etc.

Shawn Johnson

How would stopping the incoming visa prevent a backlog? It will
only create one--just with another visa category. They need to
address the real problems--lack of staff and inefficient processes.
The proposed bill does nothing for towards that goal. And we wonder
why we have an inefficient government!

SJ

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 00:08:08 +0000, nathan barley
wrote:

    >You know for a fact that a bill as wide ranging and impacting as this is
    >going to die in the grass without anyone realizing. It's too extreme,
    >and tantamount to closing the borders.
    >Limiting some truly non-essential visas for a short while could be a
    >good step though, to let BCIS play catch-up with their backlogs, etc.

Mrtravel

Shawn Johnson wrote:
    > How would stopping the incoming visa prevent a backlog? It will
    > only create one--just with another visa category. They need to
    > address the real problems--lack of staff and inefficient processes.
    > The proposed bill does nothing for towards that goal. And we wonder
    > why we have an inefficient government!

Agreed. This is kind of what they did by creating the K-3.
It's an additional burden on the resources of BCIS. What they should
have done was make it faster to process the I-130, not add another visa
category.