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A Swedish town with a large concentration of Iraqi immigrants played host on Thursday to a unique fair designed to provide information about the United States to prospective job seekers. Speaking to a packed audience of foreign immigrants, schoolchildren and journalists, Wood explained the drive behind the fair: "When I visited Södertälje back in April, I was impressed by the economic situation and the amount of refugees the town has taken in. “I was subsequently challenged by Lago to provide 1,000 new green cards. Obviously I couldn't achieve that, but I got his point." As a joint effort between the...

More than half of new California immigrants who are permanent legal residents lived in the state illegally before getting green cards, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California. The study suggests that the conventional notion of a legal immigrant as a brand-new arrival who has waited in a home country to get a green card is not the norm. "The idea (is) you sit at home, you wait, you get the green card," said research fellow Laura Hill. "That's certainly an experience for immigrants, but it's not the most common." Of green card holders...

Frustration over green-card flip-flop

Immigration lawyers raised unusually irate protests yesterday after the State Department and the immigration service abruptly withdrew tens of thousands of job-based visas they had offered last month to foreign professionals hoping to become permanent residents in the United States. The outcry was provoked by a terse announcement on Monday in which the State Department said it would not grant any more visas for the 2007 fiscal year to foreigners applying to become permanent residents based on their job skills. That notice reversed one the department had issued on June 13 announcing a two-month window starting July 2 for aspiring,...

NEW YORK -- A man accused of cheating Hispanic immigrants out of $280,000 by posing as a federal agent and promising them green cards and other documents he never delivered was sentenced Monday to three to six years in prison. John Nevarez, 55, of Manhattan, was sentenced after state Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin refused to let him withdraw his prior guilty plea. Last month, Nevarez pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny for the immigration fraud. Nevarez, who worked out of an East Harlem basement, used a fake badge and identification to convince immigrants he was a federal agent who...

Officials crack down on phony marriages By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 20, 4:12 PM ET When a woman recently asked for a copy of her marriage license, the court clerk in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County had to break some unpleasant news: Her husband was listed as the groom in eight marriages in the county. The husband was later arrested in September on suspicion of bigamy, just days after another man was charged in the same county with similar offenses. Two weeks later, a woman from nearby Decatur was charged with marrying six men in less than two...

Foreign engineers have been vital to the construction of California's complex and mammoth highway system, but they're being pushed out of jobs with the state Department of Transportation because of a conflict between state hiring rules and federal immigration laws. Dozens of foreign engineers during the last decade have left Caltrans because their temporary work visas were going to expire, according to the union that represents Caltrans engineers. Ninety-eight Caltrans employees – 75 of them engineers – are currently on H-1B work visas that last six years at a maximum. These engineers will be forced to leave Caltrans unless the...

A congressional panel is calling for an investigation and hearing into reports that applicants for green cards, work visas and other immigration documents were not properly screened against the U.S. terrorist watch list. Employees at the National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Mo., said they did not know that a simple key stroke would have allowed them to fully check the background of applicants against the terrorist database, according to the report first published by the Daily Bulletin this past week. That report was based on federal documents obtained by the newspaper and interviews with employees at the Missouri center....

Slipping through the cracks Officials: Immigration screeners not utilizing watch lists An estimated 75 percent of applicants for immigrant benefits - green cards, work visas, and a host of other documents - at a major federal processing center were not screened through the U.S. terrorism watch list over the past four years, this newspaper has learned. The error - on nearly 3 million applications dating to 2002 - was confirmed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers at the National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Mo., near Kansas City. The center is one of several facilities across the country...

Former Federal Reserve boss Alan Greenspan yesterday labeled Medicare the largest looming problem facing the US and said it was "very dangerous" to the nation's economic health. Speaking at a gathering of real estate executives ......the venerable banker knocked oil estimates and declared the housing boom "over", hedge funds will go belly up and declared immigrants with Ph.D.s in science or math should automatically get green cards. He also said the biggest problems facing the U.S. were "political," advising that Medicare costs by 2025 would cause an "unstable equilibrium" of debt, interest rates and deficits........a "highly unstable situation" and a...

Reflections on culture, politics, and religion from an evangelical worldview. April 13, 2006 Greenbacks and Green Cards:The IRS’s Role in Abetting Illegal Immigration While giving a speech earlier this week, Nevada Senator Harry Reid outlined his view on illegal immigration: “What we need is a path to legalization, no amnesty, but make sure people have the ability to change their status if they do certain things, learn English, stay out of trouble, pay taxes, get a job.” Getting a job, learning English, and staying out of trouble are accomplishments available to any undocumented immigrant. But how can they pay...

Invasion(Illegal Immigration) from Mexico? Invade--vt...2. To encroach or intrude upon, violate. ... 4. To enter and spread harm through. [The American Heritage Dictionary] Unbelievable acts have taken place throughout several cities in the United States. Most noteworthy are the illegal demonstrations by illegally resident aliens in Los Angeles. Not only have folks who have been in this country not been worried about getting caught and deported, but they have brazenly and publicly displayed their anger toward any attempt to identify and remove them. And why not? Just yesterday, the INS apologized to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)...

See for example this thread first. Ben Nelson wants to build a wall Mexican illegals to stallIndia did it first But that's not the worst Chuck Hagel don't want it at ALL!

NASHUA MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO SELLING COUNTERFEIT IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS NASHUA, NH-Matthew J. Etre, acting special agent-in-charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Attorney Tom Colantuono announced that Aderci Dasilva, 35, pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in Concord to selling counterfeit identification documents. Dasilva, who lived in Nashua, pleaded guilty to eight counts of selling counterfeit resident alien cards, also known as “green cards,” and counterfeit social security cards. ICE agents arrested Dasilva and a second individual, Gilmar Miranda on July 28, 2005. In the course of an undercover investigation conducted with ICE agents,...

Why blacks should stay in Africa. by Constant Sabang in "Le Quotidien Mutations" Africans dreaming of a better life shouldn’t look to America, said Constant Sabang in Yaounde’s Le Quotidien Mutations. Every year when the U.S. visa lottery comes around, thousands of Africans, among them many Cameroonians, apply for a chance to “become a nephew of Uncle Sam.” A few of them even win one of the coveted green cards allotted to African countries. But what do they find when they leave Cameroon? They have given up their national identity, not to mention their passports, to become second-class citizens. For...

Applying for citizenship, a green card or a work permit now costs more. Fees for naturalization, permanent residence, employment authorization documents and all immigration benefits increased last week -- on the average about $10 more than prior rates. The reason: inflation, according to immigration authorities. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that fees for about 36 different immigration applications and petitions went up, but applicants unable to pay the higher fees can request a waiver. Exemptions will be granted, however, on a case-by-case basis. According to a new fee schedule, an application for naturalization now costs $330 instead of $320,...

"The extremists have taken over so many of our mosques, one mosque at a time. They have driven out those who disagree with their ideology." Those are the words of Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed, a respected faculty member at a university not far from Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Mohamed is a proud and brave man, but he is also quite concerned that this interview will cause him to be marked as an apostate. At the onset of this interview, he made it clear that he fears retaliation in response to the information he is providing, especially possible during the trip to Cairo...

More than 1,000 applications and $500,000 in cash seized by investigators in raid of the suspects' homes. SANTA ANA – The largest green-card fraud ring in Orange County was broken Thursday with the arrest of three suspects and the seizure of more than 1,000 work application records, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The case has the potential to affect several thousand immigrants with green-card applications pending, officials said. The scam involved providing false documents showing green-card applicants were married to fictitious U.S. citizens – a representation that, if true, entitled them to temporary documents allowing them to work in the...

Some details of the changes in immigration policy proposed by President Bush, according to senior administration officials who spoke with reporters Tuesday:--The new ``temporary worker program'' would allow either one of the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants already in the United States or someone abroad to apply for the right to work legally in the country for a three-year term that could be renewed. The White House is not saying how long the term could be extended or how many times it could be renewed.--An applicant for the program already in the United States must pay an unspecified registration fee...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - They did it for money, not love.Six women who were paid $1,000 a pop to marry 43 immigrants and help them get ``green cards'' have been charged with lying to obtain marriage licenses, officials said on Wednesday.``They are nothing more than career brides,'' said Victor Robles, the city clerk tasked with issuing and tracking marriage licenses who uncovered the scam about two years ago.The so-called green card is actually a coveted resident alien identification card that allows immigrants to live and work in the United States and eventually to apply for U.S. citizenship. Marriage to a...

The House Select Committee on Homeland Security on Friday approved its bill to create the new homeland-security Cabinet department, which will be considered by the full House this week.The problem many NRO readers may first notice is that the bill leaves the people responsible for issuing visas within the State Department. But there is an equally important mistake that isn't likely to get the same attention.The bill accepts the recommendation of the Judiciary Committee, expressed in a vote earlier this month, to keep the immigration services functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service within the Justice Department, while the...

Those in attendance: Dutchy, firebrand, Exit 109, paulie, Oschisms, America Love It or ......And John Brock, head of Tri-State Immigration Moratorium (thank you, rmlew), who helped us hand out flyers and gave us some great advice.Photos will be posted later so you can see us and abner's great signs.We got an amazingly positive reaction, from those who didn't just walk by in a daze. People who are even a bit informed about this issue agree with us completely. The Public Library tried to drown us with a phony sprinkler show, then when we moved they went away. We gave away...