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A study finds that 13% of the visa petitions for U.S. employers to bring in skilled foreign workers are fraudulent A report released Oct. 8 by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 13% of petitions filed for H-1B visas on behalf of employers are fraudulent. Another 8% contain some sort of technical violations. The study, released to members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, marks the first time the agency, part of the Homeland Security Dept., has documented systematic problems with the controversial program. Technology companies, in particular, have come to rely on the H-1B visa program...

In 2007 Ron Klein said in a press release: “During the first 100 hours of the 100th Congress, my colleagues and I will vote on a series of aggressive measures that I hope will eventually restore the public’s trust and confidence in the way Congress does business,” in Congress I will work to ensure that lawmakers cannot accept any free gifts from Congress – not even a cup of coffee. Now, in 2008 Ron Klein is attending parties thrown by lobbyists: Ron Klein is attending a party thrown by Visa....Are the freshman lawmakers exempt from partying at these companies' expense...

Congressional newbies who feared they came to Capitol Hill too late to enjoy the famed convention parties thrown by corporate interests (a practice banned by recent ethics laws) will have a chance this afternoon to do just that. Visa and US Bank (a subsidiary of US Bancorp)--which have spent a total of $2.6 million on lobbying in the first six months of the year--are hosting a reception in the late afternoon for the freshman members of the House of Representatives. These lawmakers have also collected $19,450 in campaign contributions from the two companies' employees and PACs since they were elected....

I don't know if anyone else has seen this. I can only watch NBC, and this ad hasn't run there. Jackie being his usual goofy self.

(CNN) -- Eleven people were indicted Tuesday for allegedly stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers, federal authorities said. The indictments, which alleged that at least nine major U.S. retailers were hacked, were unsealed Tuesday in Boston, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California, prosecutors said. It is believed to be the largest hacking case that the Justice Department has ever tried to prosecute. Three of the defendants are from the United States; three are from Estonia; three are from Ukraine, two are from China and one is from Belarus. The remaining individual is known only by an alias...

Federal agents have arrested a Riverside man who they say made $5 million by charging illegal immigrants for fraudulent work visas and employment records. Alexander Sales Vista, arrested Wednesday, is accused of filing almost 1,000 fraudulent documents with the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to court documents. The scheme involved false businesses, fake pay stubs and forged documents for 555 applicants. The case is larger and more elaborate than any the U.S. attorney's office has had for some time, spokesman Thom Mrozek said. "It's been a few years since we've seen one dealing with...

West African bushmen are denied U.S. visas They'd been recruited to build a mud-hut village at a Staunton museum Thursday, Jul 03, 2008 - 12:55 AM By CARLOS SANTOS TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER • PDF: Letter STAUNTON -- Three West African bushmen recruited to build an authentic mud-hut village at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia were denied visas because they are too poor and inarticulate. In a letter to Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., Debra Heien, chief of the consular section for the U.S. in Nigeria, said one applicant "could not articulate anything about the project. . . . The...

Three members of a touring male revue dance group have been arrested on accusations they raped a 24-year-old woman at a Klamath Falls motel. Sheriff Tim Evinger of Klamath County says Sky Lakes Medical Center notified police after a motel worker took the woman to the hospital. Lodged in the Klamath County Jail are 32-year-old Christian Hulfsizer of Los Angeles, 33-year-old Radek Zahahork of Irvine, Calif. and 27-year-old Allan Abrahan Armagnac-Bernal of Azusa, Calif. All are charged with rape and sodomy. Bail for each is set at $200,000. Armagnac-Bernal, a Czech national who has overextended his visa, is also being...

New Haven (AP) -- Congressman Joe Courtney is trying to help a Chinese woman get a visa to visit her dying father in Connecticut. State Department officials say Hai Hong Liu failed to qualify for a visa because she did not demonstrate strong enough ties to China that would compel her to return. Her father was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver as he walked across Route 32 in Montville on April 14. He's at Yale-New Haven Hospital and doctors have asked the family's permission to take him off life support. But the family wants to include his daughter in...

China visa curbs criticised by foreigners Reuters - Friday, April 18 12:21 pm HONG KONG (Reuters) - Foreigners travelling to China from Hong Kong are being subjected to new visa restrictions ahead of the Beijing Olympics, which one foreign business chamber has criticised as inflexible, costly and lacking transparency. (Advertisement) Hong Kong, a gateway to China for foreign businessmen given the convenience of shuttling across the border on swiftly obtained China visas, was hit this week by tightened rules amid increased security just months before the Games begin. Citizens of 33 countries, including India, Pakistan, Iraq and Nepal, have been...

Behind the millions of daily credit card transactions is a smoothly functioning payment network -- and a rough battle over how to pay for it. Retailers say the two major credit card companies, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. refuse to negotiate over fees merchants pay on each credit card transaction, and use their market dominance to charge excessive rates. The two account for approximately 80 percent of credit cards. Last week, the two decided not to increase their rates, but the move did little to placate retail trade groups. 'Simply holding them at current levels is not a sign of...

IntroductionMention the words “illegal immigrant” and most Americans conjure up images of desperate migrants sneaking across the Mexican border. There is another side to America’s immigration problem, however, that most know very little about — those who come with valid, temporary visas and do not return home. According to a 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study,1 nearly half of the 12 million-plus illegal aliens in America arrived legally with temporary, non-immigrant visas. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that a “substantial” percentage of America’s illegal population is made up of visa overstays — their estimates range from 27 to 57...

Visa is scheduled to have its IPO later this week. The IPO could potentially be the largest in history. This market seems like terrible timing for an IPO, although for liquidity-strapped banks, the IPO could be a much-needed source of cash. The Visa IPO, along with the 2006 MasterCard IPO and the end to MasterCard and Visa's dual-exclusivity rules, which prohibited banks that issued MC/Visa cards from issuing Amex or Discover cards, is setting the stage for a major reconfiguration of the payments world in the next decade. These changes could have far-reaching effects for consumers, merchants, and banks because...

My hat's off to Rep. Chris Cannon. He introduced a bill last week called the Credit Card Fair Fee Act. It's a necessary bill, that will help merchants and small businesses by giving them the ability to negotiate with Visa and MasterCard over the fees charged whenever they process a credit card. There's a PDF version of the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, and like all legislation it's a little dry. But if you're interested in this debate, it's worth checking out. Here's the background, from the independent/family broadcaster KSBI-TV of Oklahoma: Currently, credit card interchange rates are set in...

NACS is endorsing proposed legislation that addresses credit card interchange fees. U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT) are expected to introduce the Credit Card Fair Fee Act next week. "As entrepreneurs and businessmen, we want market-based solutions to our issues. The Credit Card Fair Fee Act is the free-market solution to the battle over interchange rates," Richard Oneslager, NACS chairman, told NACS Daily. NACS issued the following Action Alert to retail members on Thursday: The most important action you can take in the short term is urging your representatives in Congress to support...

Visa's planned $16 billion initial public offering may be the ray of sunshine Wall Street has been looking for since the credit crisis began last year. On Monday, Visa, the credit card network, announced plans to become a public company in a debut that promises to be the biggest ever of a U.S. company, the biggest of a financial firm and the fourth-largest global IPO. The floated $16 billion figure is conservative. If Wall Street banks underwriting the deal buy up all the extra shares allotted in the offering, the ultimate price tag could be closer to $19 billion. Those...

Britain may abolish ancestry visa By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 7:59pm GMT 21/02/2008 Britain is proposing to sever its historic ties to tens of thousands of Commonwealth nationals who have an automatic right through descent to live and work here. The small print of this week’s Home Office green paper charting new pathways to citizenship suggests the ancestry visa might be abolished. The visa enables people aged 17 or over whose grandparents were born in the UK to come for four years and eventually apply to stay. It is used mainly by young Australians, New Zealanders and...

Immigration Moves Eyed; House Democrats Ponder an Election-Year Bill Steven T. Dennis, ROLL CALL STAFF House Democrats are crafting scaled-down immigration reform legislation despite the political minefields that surround the issue, with Hispanic Members seeking five-year visas for illegal immigrants who pay fines and pass criminal background checks. Immigration reform had been left for dead after last year's Senate train wreck, but pressures for at least stopgap immigration legislation have bubbled up within the Democratic Caucus. It's unclear if the behind-the-scenes discussions will actually result in a bill coming to the floor, but Democrats say drafts of legislation already have...

WASHINGTON -- In a major policy shift aimed at reducing a ballooning immigration backlog, the Homeland Security Department is preparing to grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of applicants before the FBI completes a required background check. Those eligible are immigrants whose fingerprints have cleared the FBI database of criminal convictions and arrests, but whose names have not yet cleared the FBI's criminal or intelligence files after six months of waiting. The immigrants who are granted permanent status, more commonly known as getting their green cards, will be expected eventually to clear the FBI's name check. If they don't,...

Countering the rancour in the West against outsourcing of jobs, the chairman of IT major Wipro [Get Quote] has said India was not stealing their jobs and its businesses were moving into developed countries, which did not have enough skilled graduates to compete in the global economy. "What is of concern is how serious a shortage of technical talent is building up in the western world. Global companies are going to where not enough young boys and girls are getting into math, science and engineering. That trend is not being reversed," Azim Premji said. Premji said that as Wipro expands...

MOTIHARI, India -- The city of Motihari shows off the worst of India. The streets are a dirty, noisy mess of people and animals, cars and rickshaws, litter, sewage and poverty. It's a heaving frontier town, in the state of Bihar, which has the distinction as India's poorest, most backward, and most lawless. Just the same, Motihari has some history. The British writer, George Orwell was born here in 1903 (his father worked for the Indian Civil Service) and this is where Mahatma Gandhi began his "satyagraha" in 1917, his resistance to British rule, better known to Indians as the...

The falling stock market, rising unemployment, skyrocketing oil prices, subprime mortgage collapse and the Michigan recession have moved to front and center in the primaries. Will the Republicans get it? Or will they just keep mouthing their tired mantras about free trade, the global economy, the world is flat, we have to be more competitive, send more students to community colleges, and teach more math and science? Will the Democrats get it, or just keep mouthing their Big Government mantras that we need more taxpayer-paid social services? The liberal New York Times calls on us to "embrace globalization," and to...

Signs with the words "U.S. citizens and permanents only" greeted students at employers' booths at a recent career fair at Duke University, where I teach. In previous years only government jobs requiring security clearances were labeled off-limits to international students. Foreign-born engineering graduates told me they were disappointed that employers like General Electric, IBM, and Carmax as well as smaller companies would not even interview them. Recruiters told me they were frustrated that they could not fill critical positions. They have few options because the visas they need to hire foreign nationals simply aren't available. This visa shortage is a...

Better late than never - even when it's seven years late. In 2000, Congress passed a law authorizing visas for illegal immigrant crime victims. Seven years later, federal immigration officials say they're finally ready to start issuing "U-visas" to certain victims who cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes. Federal immigration officials attribute the delay to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the resulting mass reorganization of government agencies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "We realize it took a long amount of time," U.S. Citizenship and...

A PALESTINIAN journalist has warned of a Muslim backlash over the failure of Australian authorities to grant him a visa in time to speak at today's Brisbane Writers Festival. Abdel Bari-Atwan, a best-selling author and among the last Western journalists to interview Osama bin Laden, was cancelled as a speaker at the festival yesterday as he waited for his visa application to be processed. Atwan, author of The Secret History of al-Qa'ida, accused the Howard Government of discrimination in delaying approval for his visa application, submitted on August 16, after giving notice to authorities of his intention to visit Australia....

The US is facing the prospect of a massive reverse brain drain with an estimated backlog of 1 million highly skilled legal immigrants in the queue for LPR (Legal Permanent Resident) status, against a total yearly allotment of just over 120,000 visas. At least 30 per cent of those in the immigration limbo are estimated to be Indians. A new report released on Wednesday, which is the third part of a study titled 'Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain - America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs', concludes that many highly skilled visa applicants waiting in the green card-queue for...

Per FR policy, hosted.ap.org is link only. STORY

Washington, D.C. - July 20, 2007 - Merchants welcomed lawmaker concern over credit card interchange practices at a hearing this week in the House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Task Force. The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) chairman and senior vice president and general counsel of the National Retail Federation Mallory Duncan told the panel that the collective setting of interchange fees by Visa and MasterCard is a violation of federal antitrust laws. MPC advocates a payment system that is transparent and open to competition. Unlike other credit card fees that show up on monthly statements, the credit card interchange fee is hidden....

American plans that could force Europeans to give two-days’ notice before flying to the US would hinder last-minute business travel, the EU’s security chief has warned. Franco Frattini wants to ensure that US moves possibly to extend visa-free travel arrangements to all 27 EU member states do not create new hurdles to transatlantic business. A scheme under consideration by US Congress proposes that the current US visa waiver programme be extended to former communist countries in central and eastern Europe, easing tensions with allies such as Poland and the Czech Republic. But new security checks would be carried out on...

Mexican Store proprietor charged with visa misuseBy Judy Harrison Friday, June 29, 2007 - Bangor Daily News BANGOR — A businesswoman considered to be a stalwart of the Hispanic community in Washington County was arrested Thursday by federal agents and charged with fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents. Doris Amanda Ayala Escalante, 39, is scheduled to appear today in U.S. District Court. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is expected to ask that she be held without bail until her case is resolved. Escalante and her husband, Juan Manuel Centeno Perez, 46, opened the Mexican Store on U.S. Route...

US AMERICANS ARE EXPENSIVE. They eat more food, use more petrol and create more greenhouse gas than the rest of us. So when they go to work they need a hefty salary. Not so Indians or Chinese, or Filipinos. Or Cubans or Iraqis come to that. You can get three or four of most of these for what you might have to pay an American. This is why tech firms are keen to ship workers into the States to get them to work for them, rather than some equally-qualified but expensive hamburger-muncher from down the road. But immigration laws pertaining...

The high-tech industry can tap big names, such as Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, to argue that the U.S. needs more foreign workers with IT skills. But opponents of the H-1B visa program have a weapon that may prove just as effective: YouTube. The Programmers Guild, a professional organization in Summit, N.J., has posted a video (see below) on YouTube LLC's Web site featuring excerpts from a series of videos that had been posted previously by Pittsburgh-based law firm Cohen & Grigsby PC. The law firm's videos were recorded May 15 during a seminar and apparently were intended to provide...

http://www.youtube.com/v/TCbFEgFajGU

Congress is moving to postpone until June 2009 requiring passports for land and sea travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean after complaints about vacation-ruining delays by the State Department in issuing them. The House passed the 17-month delay Friday after a key Senate committee approved it a day earlier. The State Department has been flooded with applications since new rules went into effect in January requiring passports for air travelers returning from the same destinations. The resulting backlog has caused delays of up to three months for passports and ruined or delayed the travel plans of thousands of...

Wal-Mart plans to launch a payments card aimed at the estimated 80 million U.S. residents who do not have access to a bank account. Called the Wal-Mart MoneyCard, the prepaid product would be launched with GE Money, the retailer's financial partner, and branded a Visa card, Wal-Mart officials said. An official announcement of the pilot programme could come as soon as this month. The venture represents a significant expansion of Wal-Mart's financial services offered to mostly low-income customers, which include low-cost check-cashing and money-transfer services. It also follows the decision this year to abandon a bid to win a state...

Interview of Robert Sanchez by Kurt HydeAmericans have regularly been forced by their employers to train the foreigners who would be taking over their jobs. Fox News reported on a particularly tragic example of job displacement that took place in 2003: “Kevin Flanagan, a computer programmer with Bank of America, was fired from his job after being forced to train his replacement, an Indian worker who was taking over Flanagan’s job as part of Bank of America’s effort to replace its American workforce with foreign labor. Flanagan walked outside into his office parking lot and shot himself to death.” The...

Evan Prothro left College Station before dawn Wednesday morning with a suitcase, a diamond ring and a mission. In a few days, the 22--year-old Texas A&M engineering graduate planned to take his college sweetheart, Julie, on an evening stroll along a Costa Rican beach set ablaze by dozens of candles. As wind whipped her hair, he would ask her to be his wife. If she accepted, they would join family and friends secretly waiting to celebrate. Only one thing could foil his perfect plan: his failure to obtain a U.S. passport. For five weeks, government call center operators had promised...

Britons could lose the privilege of visiting the U.S. without a visa because of fears over the terrorist threat from within the British Pakistani community. U.S. security officials are deeply concerned at the ease with which young Britons who have trained in Pakistani terror camps can enter America under the visa-waiver programme. Their concerns were heightened this week when five men, most of whom were Britons of Pakistani descent, were jailed for life for terrorism offences. Omar Khyam, jailed for his part in the fertiliser bomb plot, could easily have entered America after training in Pakistan

US pushes for visa control on Pakistani Britons By Alex Spillius in Washington and Philip Johnston Last Updated: 2:05am BST 03/05/2007 Travel restrictions could be imposed by America on 800,000 British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, it emerged yesterday. The move has been prompted by fears that British Muslim men were behind several major bomb plots. On Monday, five men - four with Pakistani backgrounds - were convicted of plotting to attack a shopping centre, a nightclub and other targets with home-made fertiliser bombs. Last summer, MI5 foiled an alleged plot for suicide attacks on transatlantic...

JOHN Howard doesn't know a lot about American rapper Snoop Dogg, but he knows enough to back the decision to refuse him an entry visa to Australia this weekend. Speaking on Melbourne radio station 3AW yesterday, the Prime Minister said the reasons for banning Snoop Dogg from Australia were sound. The singer and actor was due to perform and present an award at tomorrow's MTV Music Video Awards in Sydney, but was refused a visa this week, following a string of convictions for firearms and drug offences in the US. On those grounds, Snoop Dogg failed the character test that...

The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted. Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing. Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - T.J. Rodgers, chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor Corp., had a simple solution to the hassles of getting visas for foreign engineers he needed to run his $1 billion business. "When I hire an Indian PhD today, I hire him in Bangalore, not San Jose. Now I can hire all I want and not have to worry about the vagaries of government decrees," Rodgers said. "They've made it less tenable to do business here, so we do business elsewhere," Rodgers told Reuters in an interview. News this week that the U.S. immigration service hit its annual quota...

/begin my translation German Breeder, "N. Korean Might Have Eaten Rabbits" The German Rabbit Breeder (Karl) Szmolinski, who sold 12 dog-sized giant rabbits to N. Korea in order to help alleviate N. Korea's food shortage, indicated that he would no longer supply the rabbits to N. Korea, according to Internet edition of 'Foreign Policy', a magazine specialized in foreign affairs. According to the publication, quoting German magazine Spiegel, Szmolinski made the decision, because he suspect that the rabbits he sent to N. Korea last year were not being raised but turned into food for N. Korean high officials. He originally...

U.S. will give visa to Iranian president The U.S. will approve Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's request for a visa so he can visit the U.N. as the Security Council moves to impose additional sanctions against his country for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that the United States has approved a U.S. visa for Ahmadinejad previously and will do so again, consistent with its obligations as host country for the United Nations. Ahmadinejad has been a vociferous defender of his nation's nuclear efforts and a critic of the U.S. On Thursday, the five...

US private-sector bodies will on Tuesday criticise the Bush administration for persisting with strict visa policies that they say are damaging the country’s reputation around the world and harming US business interests. The group, which includes bodies representing US universities, business exporters, student associations and think-tanks, will urge the White House and Capitol Hill to make rapid changes to the US visa regime. These would include steps to expand the number of countries that benefit from the US visa waiver programme and ending the requirement that all visa applicants to the US must submit to a personal interview at US...

Many of the European Union's current policies on the Balkans, and its visa policy in particular, are devastatingly detrimental. Its policies hinder the region's economic development and much praised and expected international integration, and, perhaps worst of all, restricts the region's political freedom. It is easy to say, "But it's only visas." In reality though, visa restrictions have proven to have far-reaching negative economic consequences. The ultimate quantitative impact is not easy to calculate, but it is huge.

The following is from an email from Gabrielle Goldwater: Home   I   Donate to ACT   I   Subscribe to ACT   I  Join ACT Today   I   Petitions   I   Contact Congress Visa Waiver Program Action Alert, ACT today A message from Michael Cutler, member of ACT Board of Advisors. Please read this important article and the action alert that follows. We need your help.     I was interviewed a couple of days ago by a reporter from the Saint Petersburg Times about the Visa Waiver Program.  I have attached a copy of the article below.    As you might expect, I remain absolutely opposed to this program that in my...

THE ISSUE Domestic security officials have given up on plans to develop a facial or fingerprint recognition system to determine who is leaving the United States. THE 9/11 Commission concluded more than two years ago that a biometric entry-exit system of identifying possible terrorists at U.S. borders would be "a major and expensive challenge" but one that "is an essential investment in our national security." Federal security officials have now abandoned the exit monitoring part of the system at land borders, calling it prohibitively expensive -- a decision of twisted priorities. Some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had remained...

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on strategic, operational, and technological challenges facing the US-VISIT program. It states that federal officials have concluded that, for various reasons, a biometric US-VISIT exit capability cannot now be implemented without incurring a major impact on land ports-of-entry facilities. The system recorded 61 million aliens entering the country and only 4 million departing. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are embedded on visitors departure forms, but in a recent test, monitoring devices correctly identified only 14% of exiting vehicles with such tags. Billions of dollars have been expended and more will be needed...

TALLINN, Estonia -- President Bush said yesterday he will push Congress for a "loosening" of requirements for foreigners to visit the United States without a visa, pitting him against those who have called for the program instead to be tightened or even scrapped altogether after September 11. The Visa Waiver Program allows visitors with valid passports from 27 approved countries to enter the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. That makes tourism and business travel easier by eliminating the need for a visa, though such travelers can avoid a security screening. After meeting with Estonian President...