Our priority now should be...

[xeixas]

... to obtain exact I-485 application numbers from USCIS. We need to demand that they make public how many cases are in the queue for each different country and what is the expected waiting time for each EB category. The request is fair and does not require new legislation.

We need to know, based on the existing legislation, how many years would it take for each of us to get a green card. It makes a big difference if we wait 3 or 10 more years, and it is only fair that we have that information so that we can make decisions in our lives.

[kshitijnt]

I am proposing we wait and time the "calculator" campaign to send small inexpensive calculators to USCIS when they come out with numbers for visa wastage.

[hopefulgc]

You are on the money my friend.
This should takes precedence over everything else.

Originally Posted by xeixas

... to obtain exact I-485 application numbers from USCIS. We need to demand that they make public how many cases are in the queue for each different country and what is the expected waiting time for each EB category. The request is fair and does not require new legislation.

We need to know, based on the existing legislation, how many years would it take for each of us to get a green card. It makes a big difference if we wait 3 or 10 more years, and it is only fair that we have that information so that we can make decisions in our lives.

[optimystic]

I have mentioned the same thing in couple of other threads...

I reiterate --- We need a immediate, thorough, persistent, high profile effort from IV community to get just two things

ONE
----
The numbers of pending I-485 cases in all categories (and possibly year wise break down of numbers). Whether using FOI act or requesting via Ombudsman or file lawsuit or whatever it takes

TWO
-----
Requesting USCIS to make public just two bits of information every month. The range of PDs (the oldest and the latest PD) in each category (EB1, EB2, EB3 etc) among the approved cases in a given month.


The first one is the single most important piece of information that can do miracles potentially...... The second one would be icing on the cake...

Why should IV community make this top priority
- We are not asking USCIS/DOS/Congress to change any laws. Which means

- We don't have to lobby hard
- We don't have to spend lots of money
- We don't have to suffer thru the indignation of our cause(5882) being prioritzed lower than some *Horse* S*&% in congressional discussions
- Less scope of this cause/drive being caught in political red tape

- The information we are asking is already available to them and its not too hard to compile..since all data is computerized

- They can't claim they don't have these numbers, since this is the most basic (among other info) info they would have to provide to DOS to set PDs etc...

- The law (FOI) is already in place and on our side. And the process is straight forward as well.

- By having this data made public, would automatically

- Drive transparency and accountability
- Pressure USCIS to work efficiently and FAIRLY.
- Prevent wastage of Visa numbers
- Expose the plight of Legal immigrants to every one.

[optimystic]

Originally Posted by optimystic

I have mentioned the same thing in couple of other threads...

I reiterate --- We need a immediate, thorough, persistent, high profile effort from IV community to get just two things

ONE
----
The numbers of pending I-485 cases in all categories (and possibly year wise break down of numbers). Whether using FOI act or requesting via Ombudsman or file lawsuit or whatever it takes

TWO
-----
Requesting USCIS to make public just two bits of information every month. The range of PDs (the oldest and the latest PD) in each category (EB1, EB2, EB3 etc) for all approved cases in a given month.


The first one is the single most important piece of information that can do miracles potentially...... The second one would be icing on the cake...

Why should IV community make this top priority
- We are not asking USCIS/DOS/Congress to change any laws. Which means

- We don't have to lobby hard
- We don't have to spend lots of money
- We don't have to suffer thru the indignation of our cause(5882) being prioritzed lower than some *Horse* S*&% in congressional discussions
- Less scope of this cause/drive being caught in political red tape

- The information we are asking is already available to them and its not too hard to compile..since all data is computerized

- They can't claim they don't have these numbers, since this is the most basic (among other info) info they would have to provide to DOS to set PDs etc...

- The law (FOI) is already in place and on our side. And the process is straight forward as well.

- By having this data made public, would automatically

- Drive transparency and accountability
- Pressure USCIS to work efficiently and FAIRLY.
- Prevent wastage of Visa numbers
- Expose the plight of Legal immigrants to every one.

I sincerely request IV core/admins to comment on this and tell us
- What are the reasons/impediments that prevent us from pursuing this
- What would they need from the IV community to make this happen.

No disrespect but I hope we get some more details than 'Get in touch with your local state chapters'

[bsbawa10]

Originally Posted by optimystic

I have mentioned the same thing in couple of other threads...

I reiterate --- We need a immediate, thorough, persistent, high profile effort from IV community to get just two things

ONE
----
The numbers of pending I-485 cases in all categories (and possibly year wise break down of numbers). Whether using FOI act or requesting via Ombudsman or file lawsuit or whatever it takes

TWO
-----
Requesting USCIS to make public just two bits of information every month. The range of PDs (the oldest and the latest PD) in each category (EB1, EB2, EB3 etc) for all approved cases in a given month.


The first one is the single most important piece of information that can do miracles potentially...... The second one would be icing on the cake...

Why should IV community make this top priority
- We are not asking USCIS/DOS/Congress to change any laws. Which means

- We don't have to lobby hard
- We don't have to spend lots of money
- We don't have to suffer thru the indignation of our cause(5882) being prioritzed lower than some *Horse* S*&% in congressional discussions
- Less scope of this cause/drive being caught in political red tape

- The information we are asking is already available to them and its not too hard to compile..since all data is computerized

- They can't claim they don't have these numbers, since this is the most basic (among other info) info they would have to provide to DOS to set PDs etc...

- The law (FOI) is already in place and on our side. And the process is straight forward as well.

- By having this data made public, would automatically

- Drive transparency and accountability
- Pressure USCIS to work efficiently and FAIRLY.
- Prevent wastage of Visa numbers
- Expose the plight of Legal immigrants to every one.

I CANNOT AGREE MORE. I ALSO REQUEST EVERYBODY TO JUMP IN AND ASK FOR THIS THESE TWO THINGS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE.

[p1234]

Originally Posted by internet

I oppose this priority. Just getting the number information is not going to get us greencards. We need to spend our energies for something that gets greencards and not some more statistics. We need to try and think of helpful administrative fixes we can do in the absence of a bill.

Let's first start with getting more info out of USCIS. Haven't enough time and energy spent in trying to get laws changed? None of the bills ever see the light of the day. Isn't that more realistic than pessimistic?

Can we not focus on this first?

[optimystic]

Originally Posted by internet

I oppose this priority. Just getting the number information is not going to get us greencards. We need to spend our energies for something that gets greencards and not some more statistics. We need to try and think of helpful administrative fixes we can do in the absence of a bill.

I disgree with your disagreement

I mentioned couple of reasons how this data/statistics is going to help us in my post above.

The biggest problem I currently see is that USCIS operations are shrouded in secrecy....Hence there is no accountability or pressure or incentive to process cases fairly in priority order...

Even if we can get some laws passed like Visa recapture....what if USCIS continues to work at snail's pace and continue to process cases out of order.... You can't even blame them any more for Visa number wastage since there will be plenty of visas after recapture and they will respond back "Hey there's no more wastage now, why are you worrried...you will get your GC eventually! " "Or we are short handed , we can't go any faster than this"

So how to force them to work efficiently and process more cases....I see only one Way ---Transparency...if everyone knows how many 2001/2002 cases are rotting in their warehouses while they for no reason play sea-saw with PDs and Processing dates, then there might be some pressure...Hell it might even motivate dormant members of this community to take up arms (placards ! ) and fight (rally ! ) for the cause. AILA etc may be able to support us openly...

I mean this is a very low hanging fruit as opposed to other drives that are being proposed (law changes to allow house buyers to get GC faster, Removal of Country quotas etc).....but the potential for benefit may be huge....Unless I am totally missing some thing here...Hence the request for comments from experienced people from IV core...

[optimystic]

^^ bump ^^

[bsbawa10]

Originally Posted by optimystic

^^ bump ^^

Hi Optimystic, I think either quite many people have left IV or have no enthusiasm left at all. I fully support you though.

[hopefulgc]

Can atleast one person from IV core help us out with this so that people on the sidelines can start joining in and supporting this. We can totalyl use the support.
we gotta get this going.

Originally Posted by optimystic

I have mentioned the same thing in couple of other threads...

I reiterate --- We need a immediate, thorough, persistent, high profile effort from IV community to get just two things

ONE
----
The numbers of pending I-485 cases in all categories (and possibly year wise break down of numbers). Whether using FOI act or requesting via Ombudsman or file lawsuit or whatever it takes

TWO
-----
Requesting USCIS to make public just two bits of information every month. The range of PDs (the oldest and the latest PD) in each category (EB1, EB2, EB3 etc) for all approved cases in a given month.


The first one is the single most important piece of information that can do miracles potentially...... The second one would be icing on the cake...

Why should IV community make this top priority
- We are not asking USCIS/DOS/Congress to change any laws. Which means

- We don't have to lobby hard
- We don't have to spend lots of money
- We don't have to suffer thru the indignation of our cause(5882) being prioritzed lower than some *Horse* S*&% in congressional discussions
- Less scope of this cause/drive being caught in political red tape

- The information we are asking is already available to them and its not too hard to compile..since all data is computerized

- They can't claim they don't have these numbers, since this is the most basic (among other info) info they would have to provide to DOS to set PDs etc...

- The law (FOI) is already in place and on our side. And the process is straight forward as well.

- By having this data made public, would automatically

- Drive transparency and accountability
- Pressure USCIS to work efficiently and FAIRLY.
- Prevent wastage of Visa numbers
- Expose the plight of Legal immigrants to every one.

[optimystic]

Got a red dot with a comment "." !

To the commenter:
I don't care about red dot or green dot. But I do care about what you think or want to say, as long as it is a reasonable argument. And I often would prefer it as a open response rather than a hidden comment.

A healthy open debate is a necessary process to arrive at a consensus direction. But when you give me nothing but a "." as your response, I don't know what we can debate about it! I wonder what do you even get by just giving red for my point of view but not saying what your point of view is ! That is not just weak but a NULL argument !

I do appreciate though for not using some foul language in the comment

Reasonable arguments are always welcome. Please do let us know why you disagree.

[sanju]

Look, either you care about the red/green dot or you don't. It can't be both at the same time. And if you don't care about the red dots or the comments, then why did you dedicate an entire post to red dot. It must have taken you at least 10 minutes to read the comments, think about a response and then draft your response of 10 lines. It makes me sick when someone says that I don't care about the red dots and argues against the red dot/-ve remark or the type/manner of -ve remark. I mean, such post speaks loud and clear that you are very very very mindful of your reputation on the unanimous forum on which your reputation is decided by other unanimous members, without you knowing who those unanimous members are. Why argue with that unanimous member who gave you -ve reputation if you don't care. I see at least 3-4 such posts every day and couldn't stop myself from posting my views about such posts. If you don't care about red/green dots, why even check to see if you got red or green dot?

Originally Posted by optimystic

Got a red dot with a comment "." !

To the commenter:
I don't care about red dot or green dot. But I do care about what you think or want to say, as long as it is a reasonable argument. And I often would prefer it as a open response rather than a hidden comment.

A healthy open debate is a necessary process to arrive at a consensus direction. But when you give me nothing but a "." as your response, I don't know what we can debate about it! I wonder what do you even get by just giving red for my point of view but not saying what your point of view is ! That is not just weak but a NULL argument !

I do appreciate though for not using some foul language in the comment

Reasonable arguments are always welcome. Please do let us know why you disagree.

[optimystic]

Originally Posted by sanju

Look, either you care about the red/green dot or you don't. It can't be both at the same time. And if you don't care about the red dots or the comments, then why did you dedicate an entire post to red dot. It must have taken you at least 10 minutes to read the comments, think about a response and then draft your response of 10 lines. It makes me sick when someone says that I don't care about the red dots and argues against the red dot/-ve remark or the type/manner of -ve remark. I mean, such post speaks loud and clear that you are very very very mindful of your reputation on the unanimous forum on which your reputation is decided by other unanimous members, without you knowing who those unanimous members are. Why argue with that unanimous member who gave you -ve reputation if you don't care. I see at least 3-4 such posts every day and couldn't stop myself from posting my views about such posts. If you don't care about red/green dots, why even check to see if you got red or green dot?

Sanju,

- I thought I made it clear that I cared about the view point/comment (or the absence there of) than the dot itself

- unanimous ---- I think you mean anonymous

- I don't claim that I am totally oblivious to reputation points....they do have some purpose...they obviously have some weight (people pay attention to your view points based on perceived reputation) otherwise IV core would not have made that a requirement to participate in chat. But I am not obsessive about the points either.

- I look at the reputation comments to see what people are thinking about my view point & who agree/disagree with me (some people put their handles in comments so you know who agree with your view point) so I can clarify my views better if I can

- I took me only 5 min to go thru comments and write that post.

- I would have rather preferred you commented a line or two about the topic of this thread than 13 lines you used up commenting on trivial stuff. (I am guilty of doing the same, now that I responded to your post )

-Some times I find any excuse I can to post a response to stealthily bump up the topic I am interested in to the top rather than blatantly "^^BUMP^^" ing

- I hope I responded to all your points (I know from some other posts of yours that you are stickler for getting responses to all points you made)


Now I hope you rather made some comments on the topic in question than this response

[sanju]

Thanks, I meant anonymous.

Quite frankly, I think you were reacting to the red dot because if it would have been green, you would have not written a post about it. But because it was red, you couldn't resist expressing your frustration over something you seem to believe strongly. Hence my post about why say I don't care, when actually you do.

5 or 10 minutes, doesn't make much difference. The fact that you are still thinking about it is what matters. All that I am trying to say is, if you really don't care, don't even be tempted to look to find out if others approve of you. Because if you are looking for approval from others, you will always be in this state of conflict to say that you don't care only when someone disapprove your thoughts. Its like, if you have $10 million, and you go out to buy everything that you DON'T WANT, and then wonder why is my house filled with all the things that I don't want. Just like that, when you look and respond to the things that you don't want, you just create more of such events that you don't want. I am merely suggesting you not to look at red/green if you actually don't care. You are free to chose whatever works for you. And if you still want to care about it because you believe that there are better minds, in this case IV core, who would not have made that a requirement to participate in chat, well, in that case, I am sure you would agree with the same better minds, again in this case, IV core, should be allowed to choose not to respond to this thread, instead of demanding a response.

Originally Posted by optimystic

Sanju,

- I thought I made it clear that I cared about the view point/comment (or the absence there of) than the dot itself

- unanimous ---- I think you mean anonymous

- I don't claim that I am totally oblivious to reputation points....they do have some purpose...they obviously have some weight (people pay attention to your view points based on perceived reputation) otherwise IV core would not have made that a requirement to participate in chat. But I am not obsessive about the points either.

- I look at the reputation comments to see what people are thinking about my view point & who agree/disagree with me (some people put their handles in comments so you know who agree with your view point) so I can clarify my views better if I can

- I took me only 5 min to go thru comments and write that post.

- I would have rather preferred you commented a line or two about the topic of this thread than 13 lines you used up commenting on trivial stuff. (I am guilty of doing the same, now that I responded to your post )

-Some times I find any excuse I can to post a response to stealthily bump up the topic I am interested in to the top rather than blatantly "^^BUMP^^" ing

- I hope I responded to all your points (I know from some other posts of yours that you are stickler for getting responses to all points you made)


Now I hope you rather made some comments on the topic in question than this response

Originally Posted by optimystic

Sanju,
- I hope I responded to all your points (I know from some other posts of yours that you are stickler for getting responses to all points you made)

I try not to bother others when I disagree, which is often. But I presume you are referring to my discussion with sc3. It was not my intention to engage with sc3, but couldn't resist responding to some of his assertions. So had to discuss his postings just to make sure that he/she was not walking over others, no other reason. I was not trying to be stickler, just making sure that he did not chose the most convenient path when challenged about his/her views.

Originally Posted by optimystic

Sanju,
-Some times I find any excuse I can to post a response to stealthily bump up the topic I am interested in to the top rather than blatantly "^^BUMP^^" ing

That makes two of us.