Question for admin/moderator about our efforts

[darsh678]

Admin/Moderator

I found this article posted which says that our efforts of last week rush for phone calls were noted and we had a good amount of sucess in it. Thats some encouraging words for all the members of this portal.
This are the exact words used
"An orchestrated effort on the pro-immigration side managed to flood Congressional offices with phone calls, indeed Sen. Sessions's phone lines were reportedly jammed for much of the evening. This effort was largely the result of immigrant tech workers on www.immigrationvoice.org, and was not coordinated in any way with the organized lobbying effort by the technology industry. Given the near-success of each of these efforts, one wonders whether a coordinated effort may have succeeded in turning the tide. "

However it mentions that our efforts were not coordinated with organized lobbying. I thought we have a consulting firm for lobbying..
Please make clear about it..

Thanks.

P.S. source for the article. http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/#comment

[logiclife]

QGA is not the only firm working on this issue. there are other firms hired by Tech industry, Competeamerica.org, Microsoft etc who were also working on this issue.

That website is referring to those other lobbyists when they say "Organized lobbying efforts".

QGA is still working on IV issues and lobbying for us but grassroots activities like helping us with webfaxes and making phone calls is really something we do on our own as its really not a big deal to organize phone campaigns and we dont need QGA to help us organize a webfax campaign, phone campaign etc. We get help from them crafting the message and language occassionally, but the rest of organizing is done by IV itself.

[Ramba]

I wonder how "Congress Acted On J1, P, H1C" issues during lame duck season, however it failed to address EB retro which is more hot issue. Is it due to lack of our stetergy?

ILW reported that "to recapture tens of thousands of permanent EB numbers for nurses". Is it mean that there were no relief for other immigrants in that proposa by Sen. Cornyn ?

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by darsh678

Admin/Moderator

I found this article posted which says that our efforts of last week rush for phone calls were noted and we had a good amount of sucess in it. Thats some encouraging words for all the members of this portal.
This are the exact words used
"An orchestrated effort on the pro-immigration side managed to flood Congressional offices with phone calls, indeed Sen. Sessions's phone lines were reportedly jammed for much of the evening. This effort was largely the result of immigrant tech workers on www.immigrationvoice.org, and was not coordinated in any way with the organized lobbying effort by the technology industry. Given the near-success of each of these efforts, one wonders whether a coordinated effort may have succeeded in turning the tide. "

However it mentions that our efforts were not coordinated with organized lobbying. I thought we have a consulting firm for lobbying..
Please make clear about it..

Thanks.

P.S. source for the article. http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/#comment

This is what they say:
"This effort was largely the result of immigrant tech workers on www.immigrationvoice.org, and was not coordinated in any way with the organized lobbying effort by the technology industry. Given the near-success of each of these efforts, one wonders whether a coordinated effort may have succeeded in turning the tide. "


I think they mean we should have coordinated our efforts (the relentless calling that all of us who logged in here did)with that of the tech lobby. Not sure if we could have done that.

[jonty_11]

If we go back and check the 120 odd pages of that thread the day we all lost at least one finger each dialing Sessions' office, I am sure many of us posted that the Operator (Robert) was at one point very tired, at times rude and disinterested .....it does make me wonder if doing that was a good thing at all and whether he would even convey the messages to people above him after a point.

Can the IV Core confirm that instructions on the forum were actually from the Core members?

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by jonty_11

If we go back and check the 120 odd pages of that thread the day we all lost at least one finger each dialing Sessions' office, I am sure many of us posted that the Operator (Robert) was at one point very tired, at times rude and disinterested .....it does make me wonder if doing that was a good thing at all and whether he would even convey the messages to people above him after a point.

Yeah, it all came to nothing. And the tech lobby does not even rely on common people like us calling lawmakers' offices.

But we must find some other way to work around the problem. If the tech lobby gets its H1B increase without an increase in EB, things may become worse for us because substitute labor is still around.

The instructions to call Sessions were indeed from Pappu. He has already confirmed that.

[alterego]

Originally Posted by qplearn

Yeah, it all came to nothing. And the tech lobby does not even rely on common people like us calling lawmakers' offices.

But we must find some other way to work around the problem. If the tech lobby gets its H1B increase without an increase in EB, things may become worse for us because substitute labor is still around.

The instructions to call Sessions were from indeed from Pappu, rest assured. He has already confirmed that.

Core members, I am not sure if you guys have tried to approach the tech lobby directly. I think that ILW is indirectly suggesting that we work together to build synergies, we provide the grass roots and they do the heavy lifting on the lobbying side in a coordinated manner. Last year during s1932 committee, it was widely reported tha the Tech lobby had left town and we were mostly involved in a rearguard effort, we did better this time, but perhaps could coordinate even better.

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by janakp

This is a site of Lawyers and they see business here for them on this site. This is the reason lawyers visit our site. I think lately we have posted some anti-lawyer posts on the forum and thus they are trying to criticize us. These people try to show they hae inside information and then people will visit their site. For all we know it may have been their strategy and they are also hand in glove with anti immigrants like number usa. Amnesty to illegals mean a big business boom for lawyers. Lets not forget it.

Actually, it was not their strategy (and there was no conspiracy , although I had thought of the same thing the first time). Pappu has confirmed somewhere that there was a similar message from him as well.

Point is can we put a better show in some way the next time around ? Joining hands with the tech lobby, as alterego suggests, looks like a great idea to me, but I am not sure of the logistics issues. Perhaps pappu can enlighten us.

[pappu]

IV communicates with other people and organizations as well. During the last week too we were communicating with them. We cannot make each and every detail public. But you got the message...

[neelu]

A statement in the ILW comment, "Sessions's phone lines were reportedly jammed for much of the evening" - I think, makes us sound like a bunch of rogues.

I know that we were only trying to make our voice heard (and express support for the bill). But in the process, are we just adding "noise"?

Hope we did not adversely affect our cause!

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by pappu

IV communicates with other people and organizations to work on our cause. During the last week too we were communicating with them. We cannot make each and every detail public. But you got the message...

Good to know that. But then that article on ilw has to be full of BS.

[jonty_11]

Originally Posted by neelu

A statement in the ILW comment, "Sessions's phone lines were reportedly jammed for much of the evening" - I think, makes us sound like a bunch of rogues.

I know that we were only trying to make our voice heard (and express support for the bill). But in the process, are we just adding "noise"?

Hope we did not adversely affect our cause!

Yes, I have the same question, DID IT ADVERSELY AFFECT EB CAUSE.??
We may be very apprehensive teh next time we see a similar situation arise, there were about 500 of us logged in here andmany more that were calling..
did that cause us more harm than good? Pappu , u may not have an answer to that , but what are your thoughts?

Also, for a similar situation next time, it would be great if a Admin level person could post those intructions and then close those threads.

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by jonty_11

Yes, I have the same question, DID IT ADVERSELY AFFECT EB CAUSE.??
We may be very apprehensive teh next time we see a similar situation arise, there were about 500 of us logged in here andmany more that were calling..
did that cause us more harm than good? Pappu , u may not have an answer to that , but what are your thoughts?

Also, for a similar situation next time, it would be great if a Admin level person could post those intructions and then close those threads.

Admin level people were not around that day (Friday). I am sure you remember that. But there was a message from pappu confirming that there was indeed a call from the core to call Sessions. This should answer your question. I am too lazy to search, but if you do, you will find a post from the core on Friday late in the evening confirming this.

[jonty_11]

Originally Posted by qplearn

Admin level people were not around that day (Friday). I am sure you remember that. But there was a message from pappu confirming that there was indeed a call from the core to call Sessions. This should answer your question. I am too lazy to search, but if you do, you will find a post from the core on Friday late in the evening confirming this.

Main Question was - Does IV Core think it worked in our favor or against us?

[qplearn]

Originally Posted by jonty_11

Main Question was - Does IV Core think it worked in our favor or against us?

Well, time has told us that it did not help. Whether it hurt or did some insignificant help is anybody's guess at this point.

But if that article on ILW is full of BS, we should have reasons to doubt their calls in the future. So I agree with you to some extent.