Marjeta

Just thought I'd add this from the government website:

Countries With October 1, 2003 MRP (Machine Readable Passport) Date:
Andorra, Brunei, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Slovenia did not request a postponement of the machine-readable passport effective date, because all or virtually all of their citizens already have machine-readable passports.

Countries With October 26, 2004 MRP Date:
Travelers from countries granted the postponement can continue to travel, as they have in the past, without a machine-readable passport until October 26, 2004. These countries are:
Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Belgium, which is also a visa waiver country, was not eligible to receive this extension. Belgian nationals who wish to travel under the visa waiver program have been required to present a machine-readable passport since May 15, 2003.

Steffi

Yahoo News posted this USA Today article so I thought I would add it to this post:


Soon, new rules for foreigners
Wed Oct 29, 7:08 AM ET
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

Millions of foreign visitors to the United States, already under strict scrutiny since the 2001 terrorist attacks, soon will have to be fingerprinted and photographed to get through the nation's airports and seaports.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans for a high-tech system that will help track the 24 million foreigners who enter the country with work, student or travel visas each year.

Congress ordered the system after the Sept. 11 attacks, when officials learned that two of the 19 hijackers had violated the terms of their visas. The program's goal is to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country and to register foreigners who are allowed in. It also requires foreigners to check out when they leave so officials can look for people who stay after their visas expire.

The program replaces a controversial measure that required people in the United States from 25 mostly Muslim countries to register with the government.

Asa Hutchinson, head of border security at the department, called it a "dramatic step forward" in tightening security.

But airport managers and travel industry officials say they're concerned that the program will cause delays and discourage tourism. Civil libertarians worry that the information collected won't stay private.

The first part of the new entry-exit system will be launched at 115 airports and 14 major seaports on Jan. 5. Border agents will use a digital camera on a desktop tripod and an electronic fingerprint machine not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes to collect biometric information. The data will be compared with lists of known and suspected terrorists and other lawbreakers. Within seconds, the agent's computer will indicate whether there was a "hit."

Foreigners from 27 countries deemed low-risk will not have to be photographed or fingerprinted. But they will have biometric information put in chips in their passports by late 2004.

The exit part of the new system will require visitors to go to a self-service kiosk, swipe their passports and provide their fingerprints. The kiosks will operate at only about 30 airports in January. Officials said the technology for that part of the program is still being developed.

The most difficult part of the program setting up the system at border crossings must be done by 2005. It will be complicated and expensive because there are no lanes or booths for agents to check people on their way out of the country. Studies show that adding an exit system could add hours of waiting time.

Congress, concerned about how the program was being managed, cut its funding this year. President Bush (news - web sites) requested $480 million for 2004; Congress approved $330 million.

Rick Webster of the Travel Industry Association said his group supports the idea of registering foreign visitors. But he expressed concern that there may not be "enough equipment, personnel and training to support expeditious processing."

If people face three or four-hour waits at airports, he said, "it only adds another disincentive for people to come here."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...today/11927440

rogerpenycate

With regard to "exporting jobs" I came across this recently when my computer went down.
I phoned Hewlett Packard and the guy who answered the phone was from Texas.
The following day I phoned back and the girl who answered was
IN Delhi.
It seems that when you dial their help desk you get routed to the first available operator, which ever country they happen to be in.
I'd hate to have Hewlett Packards phone bill !!

Steffi

It must still come out cheaper than hiring in the US though....why else would they do it, right?

goldrush

I agree with a lot of comments on this thread.

I am originally from India, but now I am a naturalized citizen of the U.S. I wish the IT jobs would not go to India and elsewhere. Its hard to survive. I have friends & relatives who work for companies like Motorola and 3M and they are seriously fearing lay-offs next year. They already laid-off so many ppl.

Motorola recently spun-off their semiconductors sector. One of their biggest project - Optimization project - will now be undertaken by India. That sucks, we are as smart or smarter than Indians.

I have job security, but relatively lower pay, because I work in an academic environment.

I have one interesting analogy about outsourcing:

I could have married here in the U.S. ... with Indian Americans or any other race. I tried like hell, trust me. But, I couldn't find anyone with whom I felt that my marriage would be happy and secured. So, I HAD TO OUTSOURCE TO INDIA.

Not that there aren't great girls/employees in America, but I had to go to India because of compatibility/cost issues, respectively.

janousek

All these companies are trying to do here is make/save a litle bit of money. If employees in U.S. weren't so expensive on their budget, there would be no need of outsourcing of jobs.
If I were the business owner or top executive of such a corporation I'd do the the same. The currency value, wage system plays a high role in outsourcing of jobs.
Almost 80% of the goods you I see in market now a days are Made in China and similar product but Made in USA was almost double the price - probably they spent less in importing goods from abroad than paying high wage, benefits to a native citizen. Some burden is on US resident/citizen to bring these jobs back.

janousek

The point is a foreigner (I don't wanna name countires) would do, what an American wouldn't @ same pay rate regardless of Alien's location country 'X' or the U.S.

supernav

>If employees in U.S. weren't so expensive on their budget,
>there ould be no need of outsourcing of jobs.

It has nothing to do with them being "expensive".

Indians don't have $80,000 college bills for their 4 years of education for their degree. Most indian programmers go through 4 month crash courses and start writing VB code right away with no credit card bills to pay. And of course "pad" their resumes when applying for US visas (oh don't even try to argue this fact).

Indians don't have $400,000 house mortgages.

Indians don't have 35% income tax and 8% state tax.

Most indians don't have health care.

Most indians don't pay $1.87 for gas, and spend 1 hour+ each day commuting.

Most indians don't have to buy $35,000 cars and $120 ins payment for their vehicles.

People in these countries live in tiny villages, food is cheap, utility bills are cheap, education is cheap and have 10% the monthly cost of living Americans have.

If you threw those same Indians into middle of Missouri -- trust me -- they woudln't be able to survive on $3/day.

Americans can work for the same wage. We just have to put all Americans into the local YMCA and feed them bread and water everyday.

-= nav =-

janousek

If they start writing VB codes after 4 months of crash course and pad their resume, what good is company's HR Dept then?

If companies think 4 month old programmer is good enough and do not bother to check their credentials, well doeasn't matter if they come here in US or the job is outsourced to them, right?

And personally I have seen corporations playing playing between the H and L visa category to bring them here, even now when the market is slow. Any immigration expert will tell you that.

Hey I didn't know that writing VB codes in 4 months was so easy and helpful to obtain U.S. Visa. What the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi is up to? I thought they were suppose to verify the validity of the information provided.

As for $80,000 college fee, well the cost of education at a reputed Indian tech/business school is in same 'ratio' (currency and geographical earnings wise) as here in U.S.

$400,000 house - Try the real estate prices in Mumbai and New Delhi and imagine buying such a piece of property when you earn in their currecy.

Car prices - I did little bit of research, the cheapest car in India costs between $13,000 - $15,000 in India that too with an 800 cc engine. So car prices are almosrt same there as here in US. In fact keeping the currecy and earrnings between two countries in mind, it is harder to own a vehicle in India than in US.

goldrush

1st of all, I totally agree with supernav. I am originally from India, but now a naturalized citizen of the U.S. I still have lots of friends and family back in India. What supernav said is absolutely correct.

1 of my friend works for Motorola. He got his M.S. from Michigan State Univ. This guy is genuine in terms of his credentials and smarts. But, he told me that Indians have provided fake degrees from private computer coaching institutions in India and gotten admitted at MSU. After a while, the profs started smelling something fishy, so they asked my friend to go over a list of colleges/private computer classes that the profs provided to him. The point was to separate well-known universities in India from mom & pop computer coaching classes.

There is an IBM facility right near where I live ... although, I don't work for IBM. I know so many H-1 and L visas monkeys who have openly admitted to me that they wrote completely false info on their resume, it was beyond even "stretching the truth". 1 guy had B.Com degree from India (that is Bachelors in Commerce, which is a shitty degree). But, he calls himself an Engineer, did some 3 month computer courses and got an H-1 visa to come to the U.S. by applying at the IBM international services branch in India.

My feeling is that companies sometimes know that ppl are lying, but they don't care as long as they do their work and they do it cheap. But, sometimes the companies are in the dark. We all know how "smart and efficient" human resources personnel in America is.

As far as consulates checking their credentials, they are so bombarded with visas in Delhi and Mumbai, that its like being in a war zone. Just look at the # of interviews scheduled in those 2 consulates for the month of Nov. That list is very large, and thats only immigrant and potentially immigrant visas, not student or work visas or visitor visas.

Too much population in India, not enough opportunities. That sucks for Americans like us.

Reagan once said, if a country can't protect its border, it won't be an independent country for too long.

Steffi

Regarding the degree thing....my husband is an excellent graphic designer and has been working part time for a web development company since 3 years and is going to school full time. As a matter of fact he's so good that he got a full time worker with a degree fired who couldn't do her job (feel bad for her, but he did the same thing in 2 weeks that took her 4 months!). Yet even though he's so good at what he does he probably get's 1/4 of what he would get if he had his degree already.
I don't know how true it is about the Indians taking 4 month crash courses (I'll just have to take your word for it), but I just wanted to emphasize the fact that without a degree in the US you will more than likely not get paid as much as you would with a degree in certain situations. In such a case it would certainly be a bit unfair for American's, who have to work hard and pay a lot of money to get their degree, to just get pushed aside for cheaper laborors. I understand that America is a country with a lot of opportunities for people, but hearing that many use false credidentials and what not is a bit of a shame and makes me feel sorry for those people in America that can't get a job because of it.

goldrush

Indians know about this, so when they apply for jobs here in the U.S. or in India (to either work in India or get an H-1), they also present false degrees and transcripts. You can fake them really well and cheap in India. Most universities in India don't "mail their official transcripts" to a company. The candidate hands them to the employer ... how convenient, yeah, right.

As I mentioned in my previous post, they present fake degrees to get admission in graduate programs in American schools.

This used to bug me a lot and thats why I rarely talk to Indians these days.

Steffi

That's really sort of upsetting. Makes you feel cheated. Makes you also feel like an idiot for spending all this money and all these years on getting that piece of paper, huh.

blenky16

Ok, this is ridiculous, where do you get your numbers? Show me some sort of factual proof to these INSANE arguements that ALL or even most Indians fake their transcripts, etc.

No offence, but I have worked with MANY Indians, and they are EXTREMELY bright!! Many are doctors, engineers, computer science majors, and NONE of the ones I have worked with in this industry could have simply taken a "4 month crash course" in programming. They are doing programming that I coudn't even do, and I have a degree!!

Your stats on how much your house (mortgage), car, college bills all cost you must be grossly inflated. Try living in reality with what you do for a living, most North Americans live WAY outside their means, buying houses they can't afford, cars that are a waste of money, and spending money irrationally. It's the "American Dream". Reality is, you are being beat out of jobs by others who CAN do the work, and are willing to do it for less. It's called a free economy. Suck it up and deal with it. Why do you live in a $400,000 house? Why are you paying $30+ grand on a car? There is absolutely no need for that, don't blame someone for being Indian, when it is your own damn fault you need to make that kinda cash to pay your bills!

I am sorry, that was borderline blatant racism if I have EVER heard it.

Cheers,
Sean

janousek

I agree with both goldrush and Steffi on obtaining fake documents and getting your way.

Anyone under these circumstances will feel cheated. I didn't mean to offend anyone on this NG. I was trying to compare the costs in terms of currency difference. I lived in India on a 3 months project. I visited villages and few big cities during my stay. Trust me it's equally hard to make living there as it is here.
In my opinion, many people in tiny villages can't even afford the visa and airline ticket cost, leave alone education. I recall the gas prices when I was there we payed an average of $2.2/gallon in 2001. A pair of Nike shoes costed me about $40 there. Yes i converted the figures to US $ here. Imagine if your earnings are less than a $1000/month, making a living there isn't easy.

I recall an Indian student explained me visa procedure he was following to go to Australia for his masters. Australina High Commission in New Delhi has a 'pre-visa screening' procedure, which takes about 3-6 weeks to complete. After a student is accepted in Aussie school, they go to high commission with relavanet documents to get their 'pre-visa screening'. During 3-6 weeks time period, they check the validity of applicants' documents. If applicant do not pass the pre- visa screening the visa is denied. They charge a fee for pre-visa. According to this student, Aussie officials visited his home and talked to neighbors to check the validity. They probably visited the University, he graduated from too (I can't say for sure).

U.S. officials may adopt/develop similar procedure if they are likely to doubt the credentials. It certainly will increase the work load on Embassies but it will definitely screen people from trying to get in the country by wrong means.

Finally I would say again, it's the responsibilty of Embassy and companies HR dedpt. to verify the candidates credentials. Thats what DOL certification or H/F visa petition (whatever they call it ) is for, ain't it?