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Q: Can I bring my parents to the US with me if I have a Green Card?

A: Aliens cannot bring their elderly parents with them to the US neither can they sponsor them unless the aliens become US citizens. An alien can become a US citizen 5 years after they have the green cards or three years after they get their green cards if they got their green cards through marriage to a US citizen. However, elderly parents are able to obtain a 6 month tourist visa to spend quality time with their US-based alien family.

Texas Governor Rich Perry has criticized the US government for failing to pass an immigration bill that would have legalized millions of illegal immigrants in the US.

Perry made the criticisms during a conference in Mexico City which was being held to promote business between Mexico and Texas. 150 Texas executives joined Perry at the conference.

The Texas governor is in favor of legalizing foreign workers if they are law abiding tax payers, which would allow a "free flow of individuals between these countries who want to work, who want to be an asset to our country and to Mexico."

Perry says, "I don’t think this is that difficult an issue if Congress would have the maturity to sit down and really discuss it and cut out all the mean rhetoric. We need those individuals to continue to grow our economy. The vast, vast majority of those individuals want to come and work and take care of their families."

To read more about this story, click here. 

160 people were arrested by 300 ICE agents in an immigration raid on a poultry processing plant in Ohio.

The raid on the Koch Food plant follows a two-year investigation by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who seized documents at the plant and at Koch Foods Inc.’s Chicago area headquarters.

Fairfield plant official Monte Lobb insists that he is trying to work with federal authorities, and has fired many employees after discovering they were working with false documentation.

Lobb says, "The government won’t work with me. I’m against illegals. I’m not going to do anything to break the law, but people get false papers."

According to a special agent in charge of ICE enforcement for Ohio and Michigan Brian Moskowitz, the illegal immigrants are believed to be from Africa, Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Spokesman Marc Raimondi has announced that in most cases, deportation proceedings will begin immediately.

 

A settlement has been reached between the US government and attorneys who were suing the government over the wrongful detention of immigrant children.

According to the lawsuit, the illegal immigrant children were being held in prison-like conditions with their families at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, a former Texas prison, which violated a former agreement in which children would only be housed in nonsecure, licensed programs such as shelters or foster homes.

The agreement between the attorneys and the government was announced on Monday (August 27), with terms including a full-time pediatrician being added to the facility and the elimination of a counting system that required families to be in their cells for 12 hours a day. Privacy curtains would also be added to the toilets.

The new deal also means that families who have a chance to contest their deportation would not be placed in Hutto, and families who were in expedited removal proceedings would have their case reviewed every 30 days for possible transfer or release. 

To read more about this story, click here. 

A new deal between the US and Australian governments means that young Australians may be able to spend a year working in the US before going back to college in Australia.

Thousands of students in Europe and Australia take what is known as a "gap year" between high school and college, to travel and work before embarking on their university careers.

The new visa deal is expected to be announced following talks between US President George Bush and Prime Minister John Howard at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting in Sydney in 10 days.

A senior Bush Administration official says, "I don’t know what you call it when people take a year off in Australia, bubgt the idea is these young people would take temporary jobs in the US before they went to college. We’ve been exploring the idea in the lead-up to the visit and we will have something to say about it in Sydney."

According to data from the NSW and ACT University Admissions Centre, an increasing number of students are taking a gap year. Last year 9.75 per cent of students deferred entry to college for a year, compared to 8.82 per cent in 2004. The majority of students who take a gap year travel to Britain, Europe or Japan.

Australian student visas now allow US college students to do some incidental work and travel on an Australian student visa.

According to a research study carried out by Duke University, Harvard University, and New York University, the US is facing a reverse-brain drain situation resulting from over a million skilled foreigners competing for a mere 120,000 US work visas a year.

The report, titled, ‘Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain’ is released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (EMKF) and is the third in a series of studies highlighting immigrant contribution to the global US economy.

Wertheim fellow with the Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University Vivek Wadhwa, says, "The United States benefits from having foreign-born innovators create their ideas in this country. Their departures would be detrimental to U.S. economic well-being. And, when foreigners come to the United States, collaborate with Americans in developing and patenting new ideas, and employ those ideas in business in ways they could not readily do in their home countries…the world benefits."

According to the report, the number of foreigners in the employment-based immigration categories and their family members who are waiting for legal permanent residence in the United States was estimated at 1,055,084 in 2006. There are an estimated 126,421 residents abroad also waiting for employment-based legal residence in the US, making the worldwide figure 1,181,505.

Researchers also found that one in four engineering and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005 were started by foreigners that immigrated to the United States. These companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue during 2006. Indians founded the most companies, followed by the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Japan).

The company founders were mostly highly educated in science, technology, math and engineering-related field, with 96 percent holding at least a bachelor’s degree and 75 percent holding master’s or PhD degrees.

Meanwhile foreign nationals resident were inventors or co-inventors in 25.6 per cent of international patent applications filed in the US in 2006, and increase of 7.6 percent from applications filed in 1998. Foreign nationals also made up 41 per cent of the patents filed by the US government in 2006.

Vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation Robert Litan says, "Given that the U.S. comparative advantage in the global economy is in creating knowledge and applying it to business, it behoves the country to consider how we might adjust policies to reduce the immigration backlog, encourage innovative foreign minds to remain in the country, and entice new innovators to come," said Robert Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation.

British pop singer Lily Allen has publically expressed her anger at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for denying her a work visa, a situation which resulted in the cancellation of her US tour.

The young star was questioned by US immigration officials over an incident last year (06) in London when she was arrested for assaulting a photographer.

Allen was performing at the V Festival (August 18-19) in Chelmsford, England when she took the opportunity to speak out about the visa denial.

Allen said, "I’ve been banned from America. That’s nice. Oh well, that means I can’t go back there. Good. Obviously I’m really sad I can’t do my US tour. The shame is on you, the US Immigration Service."

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has issued a notice reminding all immigrants from El Salvador that their registration period for temporary protected status has opened.

Here is the press release in full:

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced the publication of a Federal Register notice extending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for El Salvador until March 9, 2009. There are approximately 234,000 nationals of El Salvador (or aliens having no nationality who last habitually resided in El Salvador) who may be eligible to re-register their Employment Authorization Documents (EADs). Under this extension, nationals of El Salvador who have already been granted TPS are eligible to live and work in the United States for an additional 18 months. The extension of the TPS designation of El Salvador is effective on September 10, 2007, and will remain in effect until March 9, 2009. Nationals of El Salvador who have been granted TPS previously must re-register for the 18-month extension during the 60-day re-registration period, which begins August 21, 2007 and ends October 22, 2007.

Additionally, in the Federal Register notice DHS has extended the validity of the current EADs for eligible Salvadoran TPS beneficiaries for six months until March 9, 2008. This applies to EADs issued to Salvadorans bearing the notation “A-12” or “C-19” on the card under “Category” and with (1) an expiration date of July 5, 2006, or September 9, 2006 on the face of the card and a September 2007 DHS-issued extension sticker on the back, or (2) an expiration date of September 30, 2007 on the face of the card. The six-month extension will allow sufficient time for eligible TPS beneficiaries to re-register and receive a new EAD without any lapse in employment authorization. This year, all applicants whose TPS re-registration is approved and who request EADs will receive new cards, no stickers will be issued.

New filing fees for all USCIS benefits, including the TPS re-registration program for nationals of El Salvador, became effective on July 30, 2007. To re-register for TPS under the extension, a TPS beneficiary must submit an Application for Temporary Protected Status (Form I-821) without the filing fee, an Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) with the filing fee or a fee waiver request, and a $80 biometrics services fee or fee waiver request for each applicant age 14 and older as well as re-registrants younger than age 14 who are requesting an EAD. If the applicant is only seeking to re-register for TPS and not seeking an extension of employment authorization, there is no filing fee for the Form I-765, but the applicant must still file the Form I-765 for the TPS extension. All applicants seeking an extension of employment authorization documentation until March 9, 2009 must submit a $340 filing fee with Form I-765.

More information is available from the USCIS National Customer Service Center toll-free number, 800-375-5283. TPS forms are available from the toll-free USCIS Forms line, 800-870-3676, or from the USCIS Web site: www.uscis.gov.

Musicians who wish to perform in the US are facing huge delays in visa processing, often resulting in cancelled concert tours and performances.

Any musician who wishes to perform in the US must travel to the country on an O Visa, for those of extraordinary ability. Unfortunately, the backlog of visa applications the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are dealing with means that many foreign performers are still waiting for their visas. 

Acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma testified on Capitol Hill last year about the "agonizing" delays for foreign musicians, an issue that German violinist Erik Schumann also had to deal with when he was forced to cancel a July engagement in the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Vail, Colorado.

Italian pianist Cristina Barbuti missed a performance in May (06) at the Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y as a result of visa hold ups, and the Hallé Orchestra from Manchester, England, ended up canceling a US tour because of how much extra it would have cost to obtain 100 separate work visas for every one in the orchestra.

The security concerns surrounded the lag with visas can be highlighted by past visa infractions, including Congolese musician "Papa Wemba", who smuggled hundreds of illegal immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Europe. Papa Wemba would charge the immigrants up to $4,500 for documents stating that they belonged to his band.  He was eventually arrested in France and jailed in 2003.

Click here to read more about the O Visa. 

British actors who wish to perform in the US should take heart at the high number of foreign actors being featured in this fall’s TV lineup.

Eight of the new shows feature a British lead, including Michelle Ryan in "Bionic Woman", Damian Lewis in "Life" and Lena Headey stars in "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

For actors who wish to work in the US, an O Visa is needed - essentially a performers visa. British actors such as Hugh Laurie have opened the doors for actors who want to work in US TV.

"Bionic Woman" executive producer David Eick says, "It has become kind of all of the rage in the last couple of years. Everyone is looking for new faces. Everyone is looking for people they haven’t seen. It was like that old Hollywood story where you’re finding someone who no one knows. You’re making a discovery, and it really felt like that from the very beginning. And even though Michelle’s well-known in the U.K., we didn’t know her here."

To read more about this story, click here.

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