News Article Thread - 1

[pappu]

Originally Posted by Jimi_Hendrix

When is IV planning to post the action plan? Lately other core team members have also been saying that some announcement is coming; some clarity if possible will be great for the general sentiment here.

Thanks in advance.

We will try to post updates at regular intervals as some story unfolds or we have a plan for members. all plans will be posted on the homepage in the headlines/announcements.

[prince_waiting]

Ms. Ira perhaps doesn't understand the difference between education and tranining. A 12+4 years of education for a Bachelors degree constitutes a education which cannot be obtained from any kind of part time training. It is a fully dedicated approach which Americans are not undertaking, at least in the STEM branches as they used to in the past. I refrain from mentioning about Masters and Doctorates in this post because some imbeciles will still think it they are training programs and not educational ones. For Ms. Ira who possess an inane logical sense, just for clarification the previously mentioned ADVANCED DEGREE programs are not traning programs but EDUCATIONAL ones, which require a solid effort for 18-22 year. Education tends to make people highly skilled, just what the current American generation is lacking in the STEM branches.

[purgan]

fearing the Skil Bill may pass, the Anti-Immigration Machinery has swung into full gear. Expect to see more Anti-H1B, Anti-Immigration Propoganda in the next two months..


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../BIZ/609300356
---
You can reach Sarah Ryley at (313) 222-2536 or sryley@detnews.com.

[pappu]

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news...530b364b3d6b9f

End the Backlogs, Keep the Brain Gain

New America Media, Commentary, Pankaj Kakkar, Oct 02, 2006

Editor's Note: Many highly skilled immigrants have been stuck for years waiting for their legal papers. The U.S. will squander valuable economic benefits if the government fails to correct this anomaly, writes Pankaj Kakkar of Immigration Voice (www.immigrationvoice.org), a nonprofit national grassroots organization advocating for technical changes to help those who are stuck in the system's backlogs and delays. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of the nation's leading immigrant rights advocates.

Lawmakers in Washington are as divided over the issue of illegal immigration as Americans are. Opinions are strong, debate is passionate and no end is in sight. In this debate, however, the plight of legal immigrants is largely forgotten. The United States could lose much because of this oversight.

The path to legally acquiring permanent residency and eventual citizenship in the United States is long and unnecessarily complicated. Yet, many deserving immigrants attempt it every year. Legal immigrants are roughly divided into two categories: family-based and employment-based. They face years of waiting due to anachronistic laws, discriminatory and insufficient quotas, onerous bureaucratic hurdles and paper files glacially being pushed through the system. They also face mounting legal and other costs.

Through all this, they work hard, pay their taxes and live upright, lawful lives with the hope that one day they will become permanent residents and citizens of the greatest democracy in the world. It's in the interest of the United States and its citizens to expedite the immigration process for both employment based and family based immigrants.

It's much easier to see the benefits of employment-based immigration, which currently includes highly skilled immigrants. This category has attracted the best researchers and entrepreneurs of the world for the last half century. These immigrants have started companies that employ hundreds of thousands of Americans (some of these companies are on the Fortune 500 list). Others have done research and invented technologies that have earned them the highest awards in their fields, such as the Nobel Prize. Even those who haven't been as successful have been an indispensable part of America's economic progress, especially in technology.

In my country of birth, India, the phenomenon of the best minds leaving for the United States is called the "brain drain." It isn't hard to see that India's "brain drain" is America's "brain gain." In the current global marketplace, it's in the interest of the United States to ensure that this "brain gain" stays here and is not lost to other competing countries offering attractive benefits to such immigrants.

Family-based immigrants also benefit the United States, although in less economically tangible ways. The best minds of the world, immigrating to the United States through the first category, would be most comfortable and productive in an environment where they're close to their families. These family members themselves contribute to American society by being productive, law abiding residents. Also, in a country that has historically advocated and supported the virtues of having a family, any immigration policy must address the huge backlogs that are preventing families from being reunited.

While legal immigrants benefit the United States greatly, America does them and itself a disservice by making them suffer through an interminable immigration process and countless bureaucratic hurdles.

Currently, legal immigrants have to wait five to 10 years, and some family-based immigrants wait as long as 20 to 25 years, before they can even get a green card, after which they must wait another five years to apply for citizenship.

These long waits have already persuaded several highly skilled and productive potential immigrants to go back to their countries of origin. Quite a few have also immigrated or are considering immigrating to countries where immigration laws are friendlier and less bureaucratic, such as Canada, Ireland and the U.K.

Bills currently in the Congress, such as Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership (SKIL) and Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) have provisions that would significantly ameliorate the wait times and hurdles that legal immigrants face. These bills would benefit the American economy by making sure that the technology leaders of tomorrow innovate and invent here in the United States, not elsewhere in the world.

In the rush to secure America's borders, Congress shouldn't overlook its duty to secure America's competitive edge and global leadership. Congress can show the world and the people it represents that America is still the leader when it comes to forging a compassionate, fair and forward-looking immigration policy, a policy that can keep America secure and economically vibrant.

[styrum]

Originally Posted by purgan

fearing the Skil Bill may pass, the Anti-Immigration Machinery has swung into full gear. Expect to see more Anti-H1B, Anti-Immigration Propoganda in the next two months..


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../BIZ/609300356
---
You can reach Sarah Ryley at (313) 222-2536 or sryley@detnews.com.

And, as expected, nobody suggests to give greencards instead of H1Bs, which would have solved all the problems mentioned in the article.

[manderson]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti.../1/94348.shtml

This was posted on a separate thread before by cr52401. Just wanted to add it to our archives.

[mi2]

Originally Posted by pappu

Legal immigrants turn to the Net
Applicants push for faster process to get green cards

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...egals1002.html
azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1002legals1002.html

Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 2, 2006 12:00 AM

Alok Sharma watched from the sidelines with a mix of frustration and envy when a million people across the country marched in the spring in support of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The India-born doctor entered the United States legally 10 years ago on a professional-worker visa. But he has been unable to become a legal permanent resident because of a years-long backlog for employment-based green cards.

"Everyone talks about the illegal immigrants. What about us who followed the law?" said Sharma, who practices medicine in Yuma.


Legal entrants who played by the rules, such as Sharma, feel overlooked in the immigration-reform debate. Now, they are growing their own movement, taking their cause to a different avenue: the Internet.

Their Web site, Immigration Voice, has grown to a 6,000-strong political force aimed at pressing Congress to raise the annual cap on employment-based green cards and call attention to the brainpower legal immigrants bring to this country. Without them, advocates say, the global competitiveness of the U.S. economy would suffer.

But with Congress fixated on border security, a bill pending that would boost green cards and reduce waits is unlikely to pass this year.

There are thousands of legal immigrants in Arizona, many in the high- tech and medical sectors, who await reform and can't help but cast a jealous eye at the attention everyone up to the White House is giving illegal immigrants.

Marching on the Net

The Web site has created a grass-roots movement made up of highly skilled legal immigrants, many of them educated in the U.S., said Aman Kapoor, an India-born program analyst at Florida State University and the Web site's founder. Many are researchers, scientists, engineers, doctors and entrepreneurs for U.S. companies, universities and businesses.

These legal immigrants help drive innovation and create jobs, Kapoor said. But a wait of up to seven years for employment-based green cards is pushing legal immigrants to seek employment in other countries with shorter waits. That could weaken the competitiveness of the U.S. workforce, he said.

The Web site allows widely scattered legal immigrants waiting for green cards to meet others in the same situation. They share information, post blogs and swap advice. With a click of a button, they can fire off Web faxes to members of Congress urging quick action on bills that could affect them. Or they can contribute money, some of which has gone to hire a Washington, D.C., public relations firm to lobby on their behalf.

"We are not marching in the streets. We are taking our efforts online to create a community," Kapoor said.

Lots of hurdles

There are about a half-million legal immigrants in the process of applying for employment-based green cards, according to Kapoor. The wait is long because applicants must jump through a series of hoops involving two federal bureaucracies, the Labor Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. First, an employer must be willing to sponsor them. Then, the employer must prove to the Labor Department that no American could be found to fill the job, an expensive process that can take up to two years. Once the labor certification is approved, the applicant applies for a green card through Citizenship and Immigration Services. The applicant then gets in line until a green card becomes available, waiting up to five more years.

The government limits the number of employment-based green cards to 140,000 a year. No country can receive more than 7 percent of the total, creating backlogs. Immigrants from India and China, which send large numbers of professionals to the U.S., face the longest waits.

Stuck in limbo

Immigrants stuck in the green-card line often are forced to put their careers and personal lives on hold.

That's what happened to Sharma, 41, the Yuma doctor. He agreed to work for three years in Yuma, a rural area designated as having a doctor shortage, in exchange for a shot at a green card.

His green-card application was approved in January, after he completed his three-year obligation. But because he is from India, Sharma faces an additional four- to five-year wait. One of his twin sons is autistic, and Sharma would like to move to a larger city with access to better treatment. But if he does, he'll have to start the green-card process all over again.

What's more, his wife, also a physician from India, is in the U.S. on a dependant visa, which means she can't work.

Kola Akinwande, 47, another member of Immigration Voice, faces a similar situation. The database administrator from Nigeria entered the U.S. legally on a professional worker visa. He has been waiting two years for his labor certification. And he had to turn down a promotion from his employer, a medical-insurance company in Phoenix, because the application bars him from changing jobs.

Without a green card, Akinwande has to pay out-of-state tuition for his oldest son, an Arizona State University student. The higher tuition costs him $11,159 more a year than in-state.

Akinwande said he's considering offers from employers in Canada, where the wait to become a legal permanent resident takes about a year.

"Their system is based on a point system. Right now if I applied, it would take me about 12 months to get a permanent resident card. Here, you don't know how long the process will take," Akinwande said.

Shortening the wait

Immigration Voice and other advocates hope legislation will pass this year that would shorten the wait for employment-based green cards.

One bill, sponsored by Republicans John Shadegg of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, is pending in the House and Senate. The bill would raise the yearly cap on employment-based green cards to 290,000 from 140,000 and reduce the wait to about six months.

Unlike now, dependents would not be counted against the cap, freeing up more green cards for foreign national professionals.

The bill has bipartisan support. But chances are slim that it will pass this year. A similar proposal embedded in a sweeping immigration bill passed by the Senate in May later died. And for now, the House and Senate's biggest priority is tightening border security.

Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the American Council on International Personnel, a trade association, said raising the cap would help the U.S. retain its global competitiveness.

America's universities are not producing enough graduates in mathematics, the sciences and engineering to meet workforce demands, she said. In Arizona, for example, nearly 63 percent of engineering master's degrees at ASU and the University of Arizona went to foreign nationals, according to Compete America, a coalition of trade associations and high-tech companies that includes Microsoft, Motorola and Sun Microsystems.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based group that advocates immigration control, said raising the cap for employment-based green cards is a bad idea. The U.S. should be providing training and investing in its own people, not importing professionals from outside the country, he said.



Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8312.

Very nicely written article! Just thanked the writer and made my first contribution to IV.

I, like many others, don't know when these efforts will yield results. However the spirit and persistence shown by the members of IV group is in itself worth applauding!

Keep it up!

[BostonGCVictim]

Well said. I posted comments on the site. Lets see if they show up.

Originally Posted by pappu

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news...530b364b3d6b9f

End the Backlogs, Keep the Brain Gain

New America Media, Commentary, Pankaj Kakkar, Oct 02, 2006
...

[prince_waiting]

http://www.yaledailynews.com/Article...rticleID=33577

The article is too lengthy to be posted over here. Members, please follow the link.

[rujulm]

http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opini...n+immigration/

Charleston Daily Mail
Editorial: End the backlog in immigration
People who want to stay here legally deserve a timely response


Thursday October 05, 2006

PEOPLE who enter the country illegally, when stopped by the police, are simply released. This policy baffles local law enforcement officials.

But people who enter the United States legally and seek to play by the rules often face a bureaucratic tangle that disrupts their work and upsets their family life.

The federal government needs to fix this.

The Department of Homeland Security reported a backlog of 600,000 legal immigrants who are awaiting action on their efforts to become citizens of the United States.

This backlog exists although the number of applications has fallen.

Dr. Saed Ahmad of Pakistan has been in the United States for 10 years, but will not legally be able to stay on the job at Charleston Area Medical Center if the FBI does not complete its background check on him by Sunday.

"All an FBI agent has to do is go through my files," Ahmad said. "They can check with Pakistan

to see if I was involved in any bad activities there.

"The funny thing is, aren't we trying to investigate people and find out who the bad guys are? It should be a priority to find out about these people living

and working in the U.S. I've been here 10 years

and the FBI hasn't had a chance to do my background check."

Ahmad's application must go through an immigration office in Vermont, causing further delay.

Does this process have to be so infernal?

In a computerized world, could not some of these questions be resolved at the local level, and without such enormous delays?

[BostonGCVictim]

This reporter had contacted me in August on my blog. Here's what she wanted from me:

From: "Ryley, Sarah" <sryley@detnews.com>
"Right now, I'm looking for H-1B visa holders in Michigan who feel that
they're being mistreated/ underpaid by their employers and workers in
Michigan who feel that they've been displaced by H-1B visa holders. I
understand that these people are difficult to locate so I've been
trying to contact any source of information possible that could be of help. Do
you think you'd have any contacts/ information that I could use in some
way directly related to Michigan?"

She already had a story in mind when she was still looking for evidence and admitted that finding these type of people are difficult, meaning these are very rare occurances. Yet we have an article devoted to it. What can I say? We are at a complete disadvantage here as the anti group has tremendous contacts at the right places.

Originally Posted by purgan

fearing the Skil Bill may pass, the Anti-Immigration Machinery has swung into full gear. Expect to see more Anti-H1B, Anti-Immigration Propoganda in the next two months..


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../BIZ/609300356
---
You can reach Sarah Ryley at (313) 222-2536 or sryley@detnews.com.

[pappu]

Originally Posted by BostonGCVictim

This reporter had contacted me in August on my blog. Here's what she wanted from me:

From: "Ryley, Sarah" <sryley@detnews.com>
"Right now, I'm looking for H-1B visa holders in Michigan who feel that
they're being mistreated/ underpaid by their employers and workers in
Michigan who feel that they've been displaced by H-1B visa holders. I
understand that these people are difficult to locate so I've been
trying to contact any source of information possible that could be of help. Do
you think you'd have any contacts/ information that I could use in some
way directly related to Michigan?"

She already had a story in mind when she was still looking for evidence and admitted that finding these type of people are difficult, meaning these are very rare occurances. Yet we have an article devoted to it. What can I say? We are at a complete disadvantage here as the anti group has tremendous contacts at the right places.

Part of Anti immigrant orgs media agenda is to highlight cases of H1B abuse in order to stop all kinds of legal immigration bills. They have already started their work for lame duck session and know that there will be efforts to push for legal provisions. Meanwhile we are also working on getting articles published in the media-- washington post, NewsMax, arizona republic, oklahoma times, newamerica media etc. One more is in the works. members should also try to help us by writing to newspapers on their own and get reporters interested in us. Pls also try to help us by increaing our membership and contributing to IV. IN order for us to push ahead full pace we will need all help we can get.

Pls use this tool
http://immigrationvoice.org/index.ph...ends&Itemid=55
and send messages to everyone you know and request them to forward the email to all their contacts to spread the word. This viral campaign will help our membership drive and also increase awareness.

[gsc999]

Bernanke Expects Housing Slide To Rein In Second-Half Growth


The Federal Reserve's top two officials yesterday highlighted the risk that the sinking housing market could put a significant dent in U.S. economic growth in the second half of the year.

Remarks by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Vice Chairman Donald Kohn suggest the central bank's job has become more complicated and the outlook for interest rates more uncertain in recent months. While risks to economic growth appear to have increased, inflation remains a concern and thus cuts to short-term interest rates -- a growth tonic the market now expects -- appear unlikely for now.

Nonetheless, the perceived concern about housing's impact prompted investors, who already foresee the Fed cutting rates sometime next year, to further drive down long-term interest rates in the bond market and sent stocks sharply higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 123.27 points, or 1.05%, to a record 11850.61.

Mr. Bernanke, answering questions after a speech in Washington, said the housing sector is undergoing a "substantial correction" that will likely shave about "a percentage point off growth in the second half of the year" from what it would otherwise have been "and probably something going into next year as well," estimates close to private forecasters' views. Mr. Bernanke also said there is "limited evidence" the falloff in housing activity had spilled over to other parts of the economy. "To this point, other parts of the economy are remaining relatively strong."

But he also said it is tough to predict how the "dynamics" of housing and its impact on the overall economy "will play out. . . . How far will this correction go? It is very difficult to tell, is the honest answer."

Mr. Kohn echoed those remarks in a speech to the Money Marketeers of New York University, a group that promotes economic education and discussion. The falloff in housing construction and home sales has "proven to have been more rapid and deeper than many economists had predicted." Nonetheless, he too said there is "little evidence" of a spillover to the rest of the economy. Once the overhang of unsold houses and cars is worked off, growth should return closer to its long-term trend rate, Mr. Kohn said. (Economists generally put that trend rate at about 3%) He added: "The risks . . . seem to me to be weighted toward a weaker outcome."

Both Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Kohn, however, reiterated that they remain concerned about inflation, which is at worrisomely high levels. Mr. Kohn said while he is concerned about both weaker economic growth and higher inflation, "the upside risks to inflation are of greater concern." In response to questions after the speech, he reinforced that, adding: "Don't sell the Fed's concern about inflation short." Mr. Bernanke reiterated previous comments that inflation "is still above what we would consider price stability" and bears careful monitoring, but that the Fed expects inflationary pressures to ease as the economy slows.

Markets in recent months have begun to predict that the Fed will cut its short-term interest-rate target, now at 5.25%, several times over the next year, starting perhaps as soon as December, reflecting investor concerns that a sizable housing slump would erode consumer spending. (It is expected to remain unchanged at the Fed's Oct. 24-25 meeting.) But that seemed at odds with Fed officials' stated concern about inflation. Their remarks yesterday suggest their assessment of the risks are shifting closer to the market's, but not enough to make a near-term rate cut likely.

Indeed, Mr. Kohn, while not directly challenging investors' rate expectations, did suggest they may be overconfident in their views, as reflected by low volatility in fixed-income markets. "I am surprised at how little market participants seem to share my sense that the uncertainties [about growth, inflation and interest rates] are fairly sizable," he said.

Mr. Bernanke's remarks are indicative of "a Fed on hold versus a Fed on the verge of cutting rates," said Drew Matus, economist at Lehman Brothers.

Former Fed governor Laurence Meyer said the central bank likely believes housing will have a bigger negative impact on growth than it previously anticipated. Mr. Meyer, now with forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, expects the economy to grow at an annual rate of 2.2% over the second half after growing at a 4.1% rate in the first half. But the bond and futures markets may be even more pessimistic, he said. "I think the market's expecting more than a substantial correction," Mr. Meyer said. "The markets don't seem to get that the slowdown is perfect -- it's just what the doctor ordered."

Stock and bond markets rallied after Mr. Bernanke's comments, which were seen as more evidence that the next move at the Fed -- despite officials' public protests that inflation remains very much a worry -- will be to cut interest rates sometime next year.

Financial markets are still getting used to Mr. Bernanke's style. His willingness to put a figure on the expected impact of housing on growth may have been interpreted as a sign of his concern, but it may be more a result of his greater willingness to put precise numbers on his views than his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, generally did.

Yesterday's economic data offer a hint that the "soft landing" Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues are seeking -- where growth eases and inflation retreats -- appears to be unfolding.

The Institute for Supply Management, a group of corporate purchasing managers, said its index of service-sector activity fell to 52.9, its lowest in more than three years, from 57.0 in August. Readings above 50 still indicate expansion, but its pace is cooling. The Institute's measure of prices paid by service companies plunged in September, largely from a big drop in the price of oil. "Business conditions getting better on lower oil prices," a purchasing manager for one company in the agriculture and forestry industry said. Measures of hiring increased last month, however, suggesting business may pick up in coming months.

The Commerce Department, meanwhile, reported that factory orders were essentially unchanged in August from July following a decrease the previous month, confirming a slowdown is under way for manufacturers.

Mr. Kohn said the housing correction could be "more abrupt and destabilizing" and "overshoot," and consumers could be hit hard if their spending has relied heavily on housing-backed loans. But he considers that scenario unlikely. Housing starts "may be closer to their trough than to their peak," based on what demographic factors suggest is the sustainable level of new construction. Long-term interest rates are "unusually low" and short-term rates are "normal," in contrast to the high levels that accompanied other housing slumps.

He said several factors that have boosted "core" inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, are likely to fade. The "pass-through" of rising energy prices to other goods and services may have added half a percentage point to core inflation, he said, and if energy prices stop rising, core inflation should decline. He noted that consumers' and the bond market's expectations of inflation have also fallen recently, small steps "in the right direction."

In his prepared remarks to the Washington Economic Club, Mr. Bernanke noted as the U.S. ages and the portion of its population that works shrinks, the economy -- and Americans' standard of living -- will have to grow more slowly. One way to mitigate that, he said, is for Americans to consume less now and save more to finance investment that generates future income. But he said the longer it takes Americans to save more, the worse the impact on future generations will be.

If the country saves as little as it does today for 20 more years, future generations' consumption would be 14% lower than in a scenario where the population didn't age. A more equitable scenario, he said, would be for the U.S. to boost its savings rate today by three percentage points. Then, both the current and future generations would consume only 4% less than under a scenario with no aging. One way to boost national saving, he said, would be for households to sock away more, but "the most straightforward way" is for the government to cut its budget deficit.

Separately, Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, speaking elsewhere in Washington yesterday, praised the progress emerging markets have made since the crisis almost a decade ago that nearly brought the global financial system to its knees. "The direction of change in the emerging world seems fundamentally reassuring," Mr. Geithner said in a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Recalling the meltdown that swept emerging economies in 1997-98, when he was a top international official at the U.S. Treasury, Mr. Geithner said "emerging markets have established a record of credible fiscal- and monetary-policy management, built more-substantial cushions of insurance against potential shocks in external reserves, restructured the currency denomination, maturity and composition of their debts to make them less vulnerable to volatility, and begun to build deeper and stronger domestic financial systems."

In answer to a question, Mr. Geithner said he believes China is "committed to a more flexible [exchange rate] regime over time" while wisely making related changes in financial policy.

[tdasara]

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna...7-5360f9d4e38e

[manderson]

http://www.dailymail.com/story/News/+/2006100910/Doctor's+immigration+papers+extended/

Doctor's immigration papers extended
by Jake Stump
Daily Mail Staff
Print StoryEmail StoryDr. Saed Ahmad can breathe a sigh of relief for now. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted the Charleston doctor a one-year extension on his employment authorization document.
Ahmad, 34, previously had been told that he would not be able to work anywhere in the country after Sunday. Ahmad, originally from Pakistan, applied for a green card in May 2005, but he has not received an FBI background check to complete the application.

The one-year extension, granted Friday, means Ahmad will be showing up to work at Charleston Area Medical Center as usual this week.

He also operates a private clinic in Sistersville.

"There are many happy faces at CAMC right now," said Dr. Kathleen Mimnagh, medical director of the CAMC hospitalist program.

Ahmad works as a hospitalist, caring for adult patients suffering from diabetes, stroke, hypertension, heart attacks and other related ailments. He cares for as many as 20 patients a day.

Mimnagh said several of his patients at CAMC and in Sistersville had bombarded Sen. Jay Rockefeller's office with concerns. Rockefeller's regional office in Charleston has been helping Ahmad and other immigrants pursue green cards and other documents.

Ahmad is just one of 400 West Virginians who entered the country legally and are now entangled in a backlog of immigration cases.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, there's a backlog of 600,000 legal immigrants waiting to become United States citizens. The FBI has been handed the burden of conducting background security checks for a percentage of those backlogged cases.

"The West Virginians who depend on Dr. Ahmad's work for their health care needs would have suffered greatly without today's decision," Rockefeller said Friday. "It is my hope that in highlighting this bureaucratic mess, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has hopefully taken the necessary steps to resolve problems threatening the careers of many men and women working to meet the educational, medical and economic needs of West Virginians."

Since Ahmad now has a one-year extension on his employment document, he no longer will be required to drive to the local immigration office in Pittsburgh every two months for a temporary extension.

Ahmad called Mimnagh, Rockefeller and Rockefeller's state deputy director, Wes Holden, "Mountaineers who moved mountains" for him.

He also thanked his patients and friends at CAMC and in Sistersville.

Ahmad entered the country 10 years ago as an exchange medical student from Pakistan. He attended Harvard Medical School and West Virginia University.

Ahmad had been worried about his financial situation when the government initially told him he couldn't work after Oct. 8.

He is married and has two boys, ages 2 and 4, who are natural U.S. citizens.

"He's very kind and is always working quietly," Mimnagh said. "Everyone wanted to go to bat for him."

Contact writer Jake Stump at 348-4842.