Just this month the INS retrogressed visas for EB-3 employment based categories.....wow...you get done with one backlog and move to another....I need somebody to hit me coz I can't humanly believe this is happening in the Number "One" country in the world. If the Number "One" country in the world has a system like this, what about the systems in the Number "Two" and "Three"?!!!!

Anyways, I wanna hear from the people who have abandoned the whole process of immigration and moved on with their lives either by going back home or immigrating somewhere else...

Share with me your experience....hopefully that would bring comfort to the unfortunate ones who are caught in this brutal cycle of bureaucracy...

Thank you.

After a few years of waiting you get used to it but if something as trivial as red tape puts you off living in the US then you might as well give up now.

Well there is a wait and there is a wait....I came to the US back in 1991 on a student visa...then in 1998 transferred to H-1B. In 2002, I got an approved Labor cert then I got laid off. I got another job, applied for Labor cert again and the application has been pending for 2 years since 9/2003. Today, you hear backlog reduction centers are moving and get some hope that the process is nearing the finishline, then the next day you hear that the change of status I-485 visas have been retrogressed for EB-3, and it's back to square one....and you tell me this is trivial....this is BS....God damn whoever is in charge of this f-cked up system for ruining the hopes and lives of so many people who just want to have a life...God damn them, indeed...

Are you kidding me? do you even know the meaning of red tape? Try to
get anything done in any of the ex-british colonies (or Britain for
that matter). The rules are completely flexible and selectively used at
the whim of applying person. To top it all off, there is no courtesy
and certainly no compassion. I have dealt with IRS, INS (now BCIS) and
even NYPD and they have always been extremely nice, by the book and
respectful even in the most difficult circumstances (except for one
instance of abuse that was ironically metted out by a border agent that
himself was clearly a recent immigrant). The thing that separates
America from rest of the world is a sense of fairplay and underlying
compassion that compulsively makes Americans root for the weak.

You might ask, how does delaying EB3 equal rooting for the weak and
helpless, well the primary aim for immigration in America is to bring
families together and to help people who are persecuted start a new
life. By taking focus away from what is essentially an economic class
of immigration and putting it on families regardless of their economic
clout, the policy clearly shows compassion valuing families over
economic migrants despite high tax revenue and economic growth driven
by job creation and higher than average consumer spending.

Similarly a lot of us resent the legalization of undocumented workers
during 2001 ahead of us, the hard working highly skilled immigration
hopefuls who complied with every immigration law by the book and yet it
was those who broke the law that got rewarded. Though if you think
about it, that in itself was another act of compassion. You and I with
our Masters degrees in mechanical engineering, bio-informatics and
computer science can still stay in this country without the sword of
potential deportation hanging on our heads, granted its not as
convenient as it would be as a citizen or even permanent resident, but
its still an existence thousands of times better than that of an
undocumented worker with a life woven around America, who has kids with
no knowledge of how china or pakistan or mexico works and yet has to
live in despair of being discovered and deported at any time. I am not
saying what this person did was right, what I *am* saying is that by
legalizing this person's status, the compassionate American immigration
system has improved many more lives than being absurdist and rigid,
again without discriminating against weak or poor (in fact favouring
them).

My friend, this is what makes America unique and worth living in. If it
was another European country, they would be just as dull, rigid and
inhuman. I moved to UK a few years ago thinking europe was more closely
aligned with my ideas of justice and equality (universal healthcare,
welfare net and so on), but I have since discovered such a system is
not compassionate in the least, it only breeds laziness - when it
actually comes to justice and fairness, europe falls by the way side by
its uneven handedness, rigid and inconsistent rules. For instance I
find it quite appalling that they have the nerve to tell america to
contribute to poverty that they helped create in the first place by way
of colonialism, farming subsidies, protectionism etc.

I will admit there might be some issues that some of us may not like,
but in the end, America is one of the fastest self correcting places on
this planet, cases in point include WW2, civil rights movement and
several court decisions separating religion and state. It all works out
in the end.

Speechless...till I saw your name. Then it all made sense.

    > (snip) I moved to UK a few years ago thinking europe (snip)

Hold on, right there. The UK is in Europe?

Fog in Channel
Europe isolated!

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 20:35:56 +0000, zico
<member5925@british_expats.com> wrote:

    >Just this month the INS retrogressed visas for EB-3 employment based
    >categories.....wow...you get done with one backlog and move to
    >another....I need somebody to hit me coz I can't humanly believe this is
    >happening in the Number "One" country in the world. If the Number "One"
    >country in the world has a system like this, what about the systems in
    >the Number "Two" and "Three"?!!!!

Maybe one of those countries would be more to your liking. Perhaps you
should immigrate to one of them.

    >Anyways, I wanna hear from the people who have abandoned the whole
    >process of immigration and moved on with their lives either by going
    >back home or immigrating somewhere else...

If you did so yourself you might meet people with whom you can share
your experiences and complaints.
    >Share with me your experience....hopefully that would bring comfort to
    >the unfortunate ones who are caught in this brutal cycle of
    >bureaucracy...
    >Thank you.

Get lost...

There is no need for unhelpful comments. This bloke is clearly
distressed, no point in giving him the benefit of your sympathy now is
there?

When I say Europe, perhaps I don't mean that in the nationalistic or
even political sense.

What I am referring to is an entity that is markedly different than
America which as a country is founded and run on the principles of
equality, liberty and justice. In this country you get what you
deserve. The difference between America and most of the europe is that
here, you get rewarded for your hard work whereas in europe you get
punished for it (55% tax for self employed top bracket earners is what
I call punishment). This is so discouraging infact that I personally
had to pack up my business and go back to work for someone else at 50%
of what I used to make as a contractor and guess what? My take home is
roughly the same! This is what I call discouraging ambition and
limiting prosperity.

America may have been founded on such lofty principles but she certainly hasn't managed to hold on to them. Please show where her equality, liberty and justice is superior to that of Europe, because I'm damned if I see it.

US tax is pretty much at the same level as Europe. When I add up the tax bill here (and I count them all: federal, state, county, city and even the bloody HOA taxing me on income, property, transportation, purchases, etc.), I would say they were roughly comparable if you take into account the often included or very subsidised extras (e.g. health insurance, higher education) available in most European countries. You need to take the whole picture, and in the US it is a very big picture with too many layers.

    >Just this month the INS retrogressed visas for EB-3 employment based
    >categories.....wow...you get done with one backlog and move to
    >another....I need somebody to hit me coz I can't humanly believe this is
    >happening in the Number "One" country in the world.

Some of us are planning to meet our lawmakers etc and raise our voices
against this. It is ridiculous that even though there is almost a years
supply of "unused" visas (as per USCIS ombudsman), there is
retrogression. If some visas are "unused" it is apparent that there
were delays in previous years - so why should the current applicants be
at the receiving end? It is also strange that now they are saying that
there are cases as far back as '98 - so why were there approvals last
year for '03 / '04 cases? If you want to really do something about
this, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/techworkers/

fatbrit wrote:
    > America may have been founded on such lofty principles but she
    > certainly hasn't managed to hold on to them. Please show where her
    > equality, liberty and justice is superior to that of Europe, because
    > I'm damned if I see it.

Two words mate: Asylum seekers. The number of refugees taken in by
America is higher than europe but the prevailing attitudes towards this
downtroden group of people from general european populations as well as
institutions is quite disgusting and downright in-human. Regardless of
validity in claims of persecution, United States not only has a more
humane system in this regards, you will find it terribly difficult to
find many educated people who oppose the concept of providing asylum to
anyone who needs it. This is in sharp constrast to my experience in UK,
France and Germany.

You don't judge a country by how well it treats the entitled classes.
You gauge its performance by how the underbelly of society fares and
copes. The thing with America, the beauty if you will is its ability to
learn from its mistakes and do it quickly. A lot of people who wanted
to brandish America with a negative stroke saw institutionalized racism
at federal and local level in the aftermath of Katrina when in reality
it was just a forgotten bunch of people who I think share some blame
for their misfortunes (not hurricane related but their general
misfortune). The second hurricane proves my point by resulting in no
loss of life and limb.

Immigrants and minorities are just such perfect examples to illustrate
the day and night difference between Amrica and Europe that I am going
to stick to that for my last example as well but this time I am going
to focus on legal immigrants, here goes: When I was in America, I found
that my being brown (or muslim) played no part in my ability to land
great opportunities (even though I needed a work permit there). It
would usually take half an hour on phone for me to impress hiring
manager and one face to face meeting later I would be hired at usally 3
digit hourly rates. This went on until 2003, the only companies I have
worked for or contracted for are American, I have not even received a
solicitation from a single British firm except a bank, which decided to
withdraw the position after 4 successful rounds of day long interviews
where I impressed from lowest to highest echelons of technologists so
much that by 2nd day they admitted that they had learnt more in our
hours of interviews by way of my explanations of their questions than
their entire careers.

To take the other side of the same coin I have a friend who was born in
America but left the country as a child with her mother. 20 years later
she is married to some guy back home. Last year she came back to
America alongwith her husband, both of them sport a strong accent
having never lived in America, but they do have degrees in their
respective fields (something related to account I think). Within a few
weeks of landing here, the husband was working for a bank on a six
figure salary in an executive position and she was a federal auditor
for IRS. Go figure! Another friend of mine who was born and raised in
scotland had an degree in administration but could never dream of a
proper job here in Britain (England or Scotland), she moved to america
a couple years ago after marrying some dude and got a very nice job
working for FDA (Food and Drugs Agency) almost immediately.

Over here, in England, you have masses of educated youth who are not
given any opportunities in public or private sector because of
prevailing attitudes towards minorities. I am not talking about crap
jobs, I am talking about the sort of jobs where you would usually
expect a private school educated neat and clean gentleman in a suit
with a rather sharp haircut. Those jobs are beyond the reach for anyone
who wasn't lucky enough to have been raised in the money already and
having the right background. The problem is compounded by the fact that
ethnic minorities that do have the financial clout to get their kids
into these positions of power, have too much money riding on the backs
on family businesses that they consider it a waste of time. This kind
of class segregation is hard to find in America except for blacks and
first generation undocumented hispanics (two groups that I believe
share partial blame for their miseries).

    > US tax is pretty much at the same level as Europe. When I add up the
    > tax bill here (and I count them all: federal, state, county, city and
    > even the bloody HOA taxing me on income, property, transportation,
    > purchases, etc.), I would say they were roughly comparable if you take
    > into account the often included or very subsidised extras (e.g. health
    > insurance, higher education) available in most European countries. You
    > need to take the whole picture, and in the US it is a very big picture
    > with too many layers.

A guy making 70K in america with a wife and two or three kids, the tax
is nearly negligible if not zero. If this same person also has a
mortgage, his can make probably close to 125K or more without paying
too much taxes. In UK, you pay top bracket in your 30K range.

But that's just the begining. In America, a guy like me (indpendent
contractor for example) can deduct his car lease, his computer, tools,
audio-visual equipment, books, food, travel and even part of his home
used for work from his taxes - In UK, you wish. Self employment tax
stands at 18% compared to 7% in US, and nothing is deductable except
train ticket to work. Please let's give credit where its due.

Hi Voltron,

Somehow think you’re talking about another America. Yep, the lifestyle here is probably richer in terms of material goods, but that comes at the price of no holidays, long working weeks and a short lifespan. Quality is missing.

America’s ability to respond to anything has retreated in the last couple of years. This does not seem like the country that led the world or put a man on the moon anymore but rather is stuck in a time capsule. The politics say it all: retreat into your shell, reject new thought and the rest of the world, and burn the books! Coming to America from Eastern Europe where I lived for many years from just after the fall of the wall to just before EU integration, it was amazing how backwards many things here (to name a few: cell phones, banking systems, education, red tape, but – above all – a readiness to embrace and try new ideas) were well behind the country I had left. America may well, as you say, be able to change but if so it is certainly waiting until the last minute to do it.

It’s so long since I lived in the UK that I have no practical experience of issues of race over there these days. Can’t say I understand it very well over here in the US. What is different is the old boy network and class system. Here it equates only to money unlike Blighty. There’s definitely nepotism and cronyism though, even if the angle is slightly different. One only has to look at our great leader to work that one out.

On the tax front, I agree that you can get some great tax breaks. There is no comparison between what, for example, you can do with a private pension and the nanny strings attached to a UK one. But the US code is tens of thousands of pages long and so bloody complicated that nobody understands it. Basically, this means it wastes hundreds of thousands of man hours adding it up and collecting it. Not very efficient!

I disagree with your comparisons on the tax front. You have to take the whole equation. Let’s take your US 70k/year family of 4 and compare them with a similar UK family. The price you will pay for healthcare over here will be at least $6k-$8k (employee and employer contributions assuming nobody is really ill!). On 70k, that’s 10% for starters! In the UK, you've already paid for it in your income tax. Similarly, college costs here are through the roof, not so bad in the UK where costs are subsidized to a greater extent than in the US by taxes. Petrol is certainly taxed less, but as engines are twice as thirsty and you do the twice the mileage to get anywhere, that saving is soon ruled out. Need to do a side by side comparison to get the full picture. But whichever country is the winner, I'm sure the gap won't be particularly wide.