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An al Qaida-linked suspect who allegedly tried to blow up a transatlantic plane is studying at a UK university, it has been reported. The Nigerian is accused of trying to detonate a powdery substance on a plane from Amsterdam as it prepared to land at Detroit with 278 people on board. US sources said he was subdued by passengers and has since claimed to have been acting for al Qaida. He has been named by ABC News as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, an engineering student at University College London, with the broadcaster citing US government documents. The suspect, who has...

Without mentioning H-1B, Obama's says top foreign students should be welcomed in U.S. At the White House jobs summit yesterday, President Barack Obama warned against closing the door on foreign students, calling them one of the country's "greatest competitive advantages." Obama didn't mention H-1B visa specifically or cite any of the pending visa legislation in Congress on this matter, but in referring to foreign students as the "best and the brightest," Obama used a phrase widely repeated by H-1B supporters in defense of the visa, and by opponents as well, but with sarcasm. Over the last two months, H-1B visa...

Quote: NO VISA REQUIREMENT FOR TRAVEL FROM TURKEY TO JORDAN I'm pretty sure the brothers think they can use this to their advantage... Posted on 06 December 2009 @ 13:17

After months of lackluster response, US authorities have witnessed a sudden increase in demand for H-1B work visa, which is popular among Indian professionals, though the applications received so far are still over 6,000 short of the Congress-mandated cap of 65,000. Latest figures released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) show an increase in the number of people applying for H-1B visas in the last two months. As a result of which, till November 27, the USCIS had received about 58,900 H-1B petitions. This is still over 6,000 short of the Congressionally-mandated cap of 65,000 H-1B visas in...

Thanks to a special emailer for pointing to this article: “He” Josy Joseph / DNASunday, November 8, 2009 2:38 IST SNIPPET: “New Delhi: The two terror suspects arrested in the US for plotting to strike targets in Denmark and India spent significant time in Mumbai before the 26/11 attacks, authoritative sources have told DNA. While one of them operated a visa agency in Mumbai for almost two years until the latter part of 2008, the other suspect spent 10 days in the city just days before the terror strike last November.” SNIPPET: “According to available information, David Coleman Headley, the...

Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage Testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration Dr. Norman Matloff Department of Computer Science University of California at Davis Davis, CA 95616 (530) 752-1953 matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu ©1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Presented April 21, 1998; updated September 10, 2002 Contents 1  Executive Summary and Frequently Asked Questions     1.1  Summary: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)         1.1.1  List of FAQs About the H-1B Program         1.1.2  List of FAQs About the Claims of a High-Tech Labor Shortage         1.1.3  List of FAQs About Difficulties Faced by Older Tech Workers         1.1.4  Answers to the FAQs2 ...

(Please also see email to a Sacramento employer who is running a PERM ad to demonstrate that "no Americans are available" to sponsor an H-1b worker for a green card.) For years the Programmers Guild has been calling for some basic reforms to the H-1b program. Now the harm of the H-1b program is hitting home. In May 2009, Kim's daughter Stephanie graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with dual STEM degrees. (U.S. News ranks USC Engineering school 7th in the nation.) Stephanie completed both degrees in only four years and worked at summer internships. She has incurred...

The Obama Administration has decided to block travel by the people of Honduras to the United States to punish their country for its Supreme Court’s refusal to back the return to power of Honduras’s ex-president and would-be dictator, Manuel Zelaya, who is backed by left-wing Latin American dictators like Castro and Chavez. The Obama Administration is now blocking the issuance of nearly all visas, meaning that a Honduran grandma who wants to visit her grandkids in the United States can’t...............

Free or FAIR Immigration? by: Anthony Kang, August 28, 2009 A new study published by the Cato Institute asserts that current U.S. immigration laws and policies run counter to the economic wellness of U.S. households and advocates legalization of illegal immigrants through visa-taxing in order to maximize immigration’s benefit. The methodology utilized in the study consists of seven different simulations, measuring six factors, and forecasts the respective long-run economic effects on the welfare of U.S. households by the year 2019. The six different effects included in each simulation include: a) direct effect: the change in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP)...

KEVIN Rudd has decreed his government will never "get a permit slip from another country" before deciding who should receive a visa to enter Australia, as the Coalition made contradictory statements about whether it agreed a visit by Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer should have been allowed. In a statement reminiscent of John Howard's "I will determine who comes to this country" pledge on asylum seekers, Mr Rudd said yesterday: "The government I lead is one where Australia makes decisions on who it issues visas to or not. The Liberal Party is now saying that when it comes to Australia's visa...

The government has imposed new restrictions on visitors to the Palestinian Authority, stamping their passports with a visa that bars them from entering Israel. The new "Palestinian Authority Only" visa is the latest in a growing raft of measures imposed by Israel to restrict the movement of visitors to Palestinian-controlled areas. The government says it needs to make sure that people who pose a security risk are not free to wander around Israel. Critics say the new regulations are a violation of international law and the Oslo Accords. Betty Najjab, an American from Centreville, Virginia, who married a Palestinian from...

The U.S. government said Tuesday it has revoked the diplomatic visas of four Honduran officials, stepping up pressure on coup-installed leaders who insist they can resist international demands to restore the ousted president. The U.S. State Department did not name the four, but a Honduran official said they included the Supreme Court magistrate who ordered the arrest of ousted President Manuel Zelda and the president of Honduras' Congress.

Well, surely this will settle finally once and for all that Barack Hussein Obama was really, actually and factually born in the United States and, therefore, is fully qualified according to the U.S. Constitution to be the president that he has been since he took the oath of office on Jan. 20 and a second time shortly after, just to make sure. Not! In yet another quite possibly futile attempt to silence the zombie birther controversy that won't die,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A vocal group of conspiracy theorists known as "birthers" are riling the White House with their persistent claim that Barack Obama is not an American citizen and therefore ineligible to be president. The claim that the United States' first African-American president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, first emerged during his presidential campaign, but it has garnered more media attention in the summer "silly season," a traditionally slow news period when many Americans are on vacation. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs looked exasperated at his briefing on Monday when a reporter asked him, "Is there anything you...

Editors Note: In December ‘08 a retired CIA officer commissioned an investigator to look into the Barack Obama birth certificate and eligibility issue. On July 21, 2009 westernjournalism.com obtained a copy of the investigator’s report. Here is an unedited version of the report. The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii I think that I now understand the legal background to the question of where Obama was born. Let’s begin with the statement that Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008. The television and print media...

Researching the Obama birth certificate conspiracy has yielded many theories and wild speculations. Despite the likelihood that most of them are without merit, the one haunting theme i: what is Obama hiding? The forged birth certificate that appeared on Obama’s campaign site has spawned new curiosities, theories and demands to know where in the world is Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Is it in Kenya, Hawaii, Chicago, and Indonesia? We believe the Certification of Live Birth is authentic, but that is not that part where it gets tricky with parsing of words and comparing apples to oranges. The document provided by...

For the last week the OCCE (Orange County Conservative Examiner) has plowed through many of the complaints and reports on Obama’s birth certificate. Like many Americans we felt that despite the partisanship of our leaders that no Democrat or Republican would let someone run for the highest office in the land that was unconstitutionally unqualified. There is a reason they’re called vital records. However, to the OCCE does surprise and chagrin we found merit to the claim and disappointment that the POTUS has thumbed his nose at Americans want reassurance. Despite the zealots that are involve there are points that...

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States states, "No person except a natural born citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of the President." If this is the law of the land, why is President Barack Obama hiding all references to much of his past, and why has he never produced his birth certificate? In fact, a study from the United States Justice Foundation has released information showing that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds with 11 law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of...

Last week the State Department announced the lucky winners in this year’s Visa Lottery, who will be arriving in communities near you by September, 2010. Fourteen percent of the winners (13,988 people) hail from countries of special interest in the war on terror. Here are the top twelve winning countries: 1. Nigeria 6,006 2. Bangladesh 6,001 3. Ukraine 5,499 4. Ethiopia 5,200 5. Kenya 4,619 6. Egypt 4,201 7. Uzbekistan 4,059 8. Sierra Leone 3,898 9. Cameroon 3,719 10. Morocco 3,124 11. Turkey 2,826 12. Iran 2,773 Approximately one-half of these winners will pursue their application to completion and eventually...

"Be sure, the truth will find you out." Interesting phrase, isn't it? Not "you will find the truth ..." Not even the biblical promise, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free," in the Gospel of John, 8:32...................... He has paid his team of lawyers almost a million dollars to produce a Certification of Live Birth, a "short form" document, a print-out of information that has been entered – at some point in time, by someone – into a computer database. This is not a birth certificate. The state of Hawaii does not accept a Certification...

A controversial suit brought by a U.S. Army reservist has been joined by a retired Army two-star general and an active reserve Air Force lieutenant colonel. Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook filed the suit July 8 in federal court here asking for conscientious objector status and a preliminary injunction based upon his belief that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. But before the issue got to court, Cook’s orders to deploy to Afghanistan were revoked. Lt. Col. Maria Quon, U.S. Army Public Affairs...

The attorney representing an Army major fighting deployment to Afghanistan because he believes Barack Obama is not legally his commander-in-chief is declaring victory after the Soldier's orders were revoked yesterday. California lawyer Orly Taitz says any service member may now refuse any order by questioning Obama's legitimacy. "Do you know what this means?" Taitz asked in a telephone interview with Military.com Tuesday, about an hour after hearing from Maj. Stefan Cook, the officer fighting his deployment to Afghanistan. "It means the Obama administration has blinked. They have no cards to play with. The moment I filed a lawsuit, they didn't...

Urban Dictionary defines a 'birther' as "A person who believes that Barack Obama has controversy and/or fraud surrounding his birth…" At last count, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed in 17 different states questioning Barack Obama's status as an American citizen and his right to prop his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office. One of those lawsuits will now get the chance to see the light of day. Dr. Orly Taitz, attorney for Alan Keyes in Keyes vs. Obama, announced late this evening that a judge has ruled in favor of Mr Keyes' request for a...

One of the hottest topics in Washington these days is the debate over where the next major terrorist strike will come from. One avenue of attack cited on several occasions by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has concerns regarding the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). For example, last February the Washington Post reported, "[a]t a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mueller said that the bureau is expanding its focus beyond al-Qaeda and into splinter groups, radicals who try to enter the country through the visa waiver program and 'home-grown terrorists.' The universe of crime and terrorism...

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/art-bell-s-wife-denied-u-s-visa Art Bell's Wife Denied U.S. Visa June 06, 2009 Art Bell's Wife Denied U.S. Visa Airyn Bell, wife of radio talk show legend Art Bell, has been denied a U.S. Visa. Read about their incredible struggle against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). [Click the image on the left for proof the USCIS received the necessary documents from the Bells.] Please also help Art plead his wife's case. Contact the President and his staff at whitehouse.gov. Here's the letter Art Bell wrote to Senator Harry Reid on behalf of his wife Airyn Bell: My name is Arthur W....

Playwrights everywhere nurture the same dream: to see a live performance of their work. So when Out North decided to stage a production of his full-length historical drama "The Black Cockerel," Waisu Ademola Bello was elated. Elation became consternation when, a few weeks before the show's opening, he was arrested for having overstayed his visa and sent to a detention center in Tacoma to face possible deportation. Now out on bond, he reflected Thursday on how he got in such a situation and described a convoluted, troubled path stretching from Africa to Alaska. Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, Jan. 31, 1973,...

'Approved' college sells diplomas to help foreign students stay in UK Andrew Norfolk Visa curbs still being flouted | Route to riches | Comment: Ed Husain A college accredited by a government-approved body as a “high-quality institution” has been selling diplomas to enable foreign students to extend their stay in Britain. An investigation by The Times has revealed that the Pakistani-run college has 1,200 international students on its rolls, despite claiming to have only 150. King’s College of Management, in Manchester, has offered places to a further 1,575 foreigners. It kept a hidden list of 207 people who were sold...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Al-Marri entered his guilty plea at a hearing this afternoon before Judge Michael M. Mihm in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. In so doing, al-Marri admitted that he agreed with others to provide material support or resources to al-Qaeda in the form of personnel, including himself, to work under al-Qaeda’s...

A ''hire American'' provision added to the stimulus bill is forcing investment banks to rescind job offers made to highly qualified immigrant workers. Alice Su, an M.B.A. student in Wharton Business School's class of 2009 and a resident of Hong Kong, turned down job offers and interviews because she'd been offered a coveted spot with the technology group at investment bank Merrill Lynch. But because of an amendment added to the stimulus legislation last month by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., Merrill rescinded its employment offer.

It's protectionism, say Indian critics, that Congress has banned companies receiving bailout money from hiring foreigners on H-1B visas With the economies in the U.S. and India both struggling and with unemployment rising,the outsourcing of American jobs to Indian workers has become an even more explosive issue. That's leading business leaders,politicians,and ordinary citizens in both countries to focus on a controversial visa program,the H-1B, that allows a limited number of foreigners to work at U.S. companies for up to six years. Critics have long claimed the program allows high-paying software-writing and engineering jobs at companies and state governments to go...

Can you stimulate the economy by shutting out foreign workers? Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley think so. And for all his anti-protectionist rhetoric, President Obama has shown surprisingly little interest in stopping them. The stimulus bill the president signed into law restricts the use of bank bailout funds (money banks get from the Financial Stability Plan, formerly known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program) to hire skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. This slap at open labor markets is downplayed as a dramatic but toothless gesture in favor of "Hire American," nice companion to the "Buy American"...

U.S. announces arrests in several states alleging visa fraud Federal agents on Thursday said they arrested 11 people in six states in a crackdown on H-1B visa fraud and unsealed documents that detail how the visa process was used to undercut the salaries of U.S. workers. Federal authorities allege that in some cases, H-1B workers were paid the prevailing wages of low-cost regions and not necessarily the higher salaries paid in the locations where they worked. By doing this, the companies were "displacing qualified American workers and violating prevailing wage laws," said federal authorities in a statement announcing the indictments.

CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US Barack Obama has been warned by the CIA that British Islamist extremists are the greatest threat to US homeland security. By Tim Shipman in Washington 07 Feb 2009. The CIA has told President Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US American spy chiefs have told the President that the CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain. They believe that a British-born Pakistani extremist entering the US...

Hundreds wait for hours to buy S.F. ID card Hundreds of people stood in line for hours at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to be among the first in the nation to receive municipal identification cards (regardless of their immigration status.) The cards, also available in New Haven, Conn., and being considered in other cities, have sparked fury among advocates of stricter immigration laws. They argue cities have no business declaring people residents if they are not in the country legally. But San Francisco officials and recipients of the cards hailed the new program as a way to connect...

The loss of a job could mean an unscheduled trip home for those in the country on work visas or seeking green cards. For foreign professionals in the United States, the rising unemployment rate is especially daunting. Laid-off foreign workers are scrambling for temporary visas and seeking advice from immigration attorneys about how long they can legally stay in the country while hunting for jobs. Even some foreigners here on visas or work permits are switching employers, fearing that an unstable job during a recession could lead to a one-way ticket home or end their chance of getting a green...

Farm worker advocates and opponents of illegal immigration are blasting one of President George W. Bush's "midnight regulations" that will make it easier for agricultural employers to hire foreign workers. They say the changes undermine worker protections, exploit immigrants and set wage levels so low that domestic workers cannot compete with foreign workers for jobs. The regulation,which makes changes in the U.S. Labor Department's H-2A Temporary Agriculture Worker Program, allows agricultural employers to hire temporary foreign workers if not enough domestic workers are able or willing to fill farm jobs. The changes also promise to reduce paperwork and make processing...

(CNSNews.com) – A little-known State Department program has allowed about 3,400 immigrants to come to the U.S. in 2008 from the four nations that a currently listed by the State Department as “state sponsors of terror” – Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan. According to a State Department report on the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, 691visas were granted to immigrants from Cuba, 1,435 to immigrants from Iran, 1,147 to immigrants from Sudan and 94 to immigrants from Syria. The program, mandated by Congress and administered by the State Department, consists of a lottery for applicants from countries with “low rates of...

Target credit -card holders are falling behind on their payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies within the retailer's $8.8 billion credit-card portfolio surging by more than 60 percent in the past year. The worsening trend could force Target to limit its exposure to future losses by further tightening the credit terms to qualify for its Visa card. And that could mean a further deceleration of sales at Target, which is struggling to attract shoppers amid soft consumer spending, analysts warned. Target already has tightened its credit underwriting this year as the economy has deteriorated. The Minneapolis-based discount retailer reported...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/India_asks_US_for_more_work_visas/articleshow/3837505.cms The Indian government has asked the US to increase the number of work visas (H1-B and L1) and ensure that there be no legislation to prevent companies from applying for such visas.

Farmers would have an easier and cheaper time securing foreign guest workers under pending Bush administration rules. The controversial changes to the so-called H-2A guest-worker program could cut wages and speed worker recruitment. They also would relax requirements for providing foreign workers with housing and transportation. "The Department of Labor is going to weaken oversight and enforcement," Bruce Goldstein, the executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, charged Wednesday. A Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday night that the final rules would be made public Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18, which means they'd take effect two...

The upcoming meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and his onetime rival Sen. John McCain was set in motion during a phone call over the weekend between Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend. In an interview Friday, Graham said that Obama requested the meeting during a 20-minute phone call that the South Carolina senator described as a "pleasant" discussion about how they could work together effectively. "We just talked about the desire to find something meaningful to work on," Graham said. "He was very nice to me, said that he considered me a serious, reform-minded senator that he...

An FBI informant helped agents uncover a visa fraud and gun smuggling scheme run by two Annandale men, one of whom told the informant he could sell him a missile that “can reach the Pentagon,” according to a sworn statement unsealed Monday. The investigation started when the informant met with Amjad Hamed, a Jordanian native and legal U.S. resident since 1978, in Hamed’s Annandale home in April 2006, the affidavit said. Hamed reportedly asked the informant to obtain visas for six associates who wanted to immigrate to the U.S. from Jordan and the West Bank. Hamed reportedly told the informant...

Bush keeps Poland off visa list Nicholas Kralev Friday, October 17, 2008 President Bush angered staunch ally Poland Friday by excluding it from a group of newcomers to a program that allows citizens of certain countries to visit the United States without entry visas. At a Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Bush announced rescinding visa requirements for six other former communist countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- as well as South Korea, effective in about a month. "For years, the leaders of these nations have explained to me how frustrating it is for their citizens...

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...