Posted on 11/07/2001 5:23:05 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
ATTENTION, terrorists: Want a U.S. visa? Worried about America's so-called immigration "crackdown" in response to the 9-11 attacks? Have no fear. If you've got cash, your green card is in the bag.
Last weekend, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that federal officials had arrested a Saudi national accused of accepting bribes for U.S. visas. Abdulla Noman worked for the U.S. Commerce Department and issued visas in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. An informant told FBI agents that he paid Noman "approximately $3,178" in 1998 for a U.S. visa. Noman was nabbed last week during a visa-buying sting operation in Las Vegas. Investigators are probing Noman's possible links to the 9-11 hijackers -- 15 of whom received their visas legally in Saudi Arabia.
Noman's arrest, coupled with new measures to "tighten" the foreign student visa program, may appear to close off easy access to American green cards. But terrorists need not worry. There are plenty of other ways to purchase U.S. visas.
These cash-for-visa schemes are advertised widely on the Internet, in international newspapers, and by the U.S. government itself.
Take the EB-5 immigrant investor visa offered by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. It allows up to 10,000 wealthy foreigners and their families each year to buy immigrant visas in exchange for business investments. The law says the down payment must be at least $500,000. But former INS officials-turned-private consultants successfully lobbied for loosened financial rules. Despite recent reforms, the scam continues around the world.
Here is what one immigration firm, Acker Choquette Advocates based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, promises Middle Eastern immigrant investor applicants on its website: "Financing is available, with low initial cash investment of US $136,000.00. Minimum physical presence in the US is all that is required, along with the intent to remain a permanent resident."
We sell visas like used cars: Cheap, quick, and sleazy.
Here's another: The E-2 treaty investor program allows many foreigners (including those from Egypt, Oman, and Pakistan) to enter the country without INS approval if they fork over a modest $150,000 investment and agree to manage U.S.-based businesses. The E-2 visas take as little as two days to process and can be renewed indefinitely. Investors can bring their spouses, children, and "key employees" with them.
Then there's the "245(i) provision" of immigration law, which allows visa overstayers to pay a measly $1,000 fee and "adjust their status" without leaving the U.S. Rest of Story Here.
--Boris
Few outside the tech industry know that so many foreigners are helping companies stay competitive, said Michael H. Davis, a lawyer who recently assisted Samavedam with getting his visa.
"Just as you have in Oxnard Mexicans picking strawberries, you also have this whole hidden community that people don't think about--all the Indians and Chinese and Pakistanis," Davis said. "Nobody stops to think, 'Who are the people who are staffing all these jobs?' " * * *
The federal government does not track the precise number of H-1B visa holders working in each county, but local immigration lawyers estimate there are about 500 in Ventura County. In the past two years alone, 110 companies from Ventura to Thousand Oaks asked for permission to fill 388 jobs with foreign workers, federal records show. Some prospective employees were from Ethiopia, Australia, China and India.
Recruiters ranged from high-tech companies such as giant Amgen in Thousand Oaks to less predictable bidders such as the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. The department is trying to fill four forensic scientist positions in its crime lab, and is pursuing a candidate from England who applied over the Internet.
"Normally we don't recruit outside the United States," said sheriff's personnel manager Kelly Shirk. "But a forensic scientist is a difficult position to recruit for." American candidates have turned up their noses at the $46,670-to-$65,402 salary, because of this area's high cost of housing.
Other local employers that have H-1B employees or are interested in them include Xircom Inc. in Thousand Oaks, Ventura-based Patagonia Inc., Houweling Nurseries in Camarillo, the Conejo Unified School District, Haas Automation in Oxnard and Jafra Cosmetics in Westlake Village.
Vitesse Semiconductor in Camarillo counts about 100 H-1B holders among its ranks nationally and 56 locally. Amgen has 85 H-1Bs among roughly 4,400 employees at its Thousand Oaks headquarters. Rockwell Science Center in Thousand Oaks employs a dozen foreign workers on H-1B visas. Baxter's Thousand Oaks plant, where Samavedam works, has four employees on H-1Bs. Two of them are applying for green cards.
These companies welcome the national expansion of the H-1B program. "We're in a growth mode," said Rockwell human resources supervisor Irene Escoto-Garcia. "This increase will definitely allow us to expand our recruiting efforts."
Snip
Samavedam said he was earning more than enough to afford something more luxurious than his former Oxnard apartment with its sparse decor. At the same time, he said, those digs would be considered plenty in his homeland. He received H-1B approval at the end of November, four weeks before his student work visa was to expire.
Baxter hired Samavedam after he applied for the job over the Internet. The company relocated him from the University of Minnesota, where he had been working on his master's degree in microbial engineering since 1997. Samavedam's undergraduate degree from an Indian university in biochemical engineering, combined with his ongoing graduate studies, made him ideally suited.
Getting the H-1B lets him stay on at Baxter, but does not guarantee he'll be able to obtain citizenship or receive a green card. The annual cap on work-based green cards is 140,000, and there is already a green card waiting list of more than 1 million.
Samavedam said he hasn't decided whether to pursue U.S. citizenship; his parents and many friends are still in India. But he'd like the option. His 28-year-old brother, a computer software developer, is living and working in New York on an H-1B. His 30-year-old brother, who works for Motorola in Texas, has an H-1B and has applied for a green card.
The socialist indoctrination centers are working.
Our children are leaving school dumber than hell, but homosexual and politically correct.
At least the Clinton Education Reform Agenda has saved a tree.
Terrorism, in their eyes, must be a fair price to pay for a liberal utopia, eh?
You are thinking of the the Travel Office, not Commerce. Although handpicked democRATS DID take over Commerce.
Are her Arkansas friends still running that Department ??
Meaning Commerce. Good Question. Afterall, Commerce was the focus of much of the illegal campaign fund raising activities of the democRATS. Remember Ron Brown? He was probably murdered to keep him from talking about what the democRATS were doing there at the time. Remember Daley? He took over after Brown's death amid a flurry of shredding. Is it any wonder that he went out of his way to help Gore steal the Florida election? He was probably afraid that if Bush won all they did might still come to light. Afterall, all it would take is the exhumation and autopsy of one little body ... Ron Brown's. But I guess he worried needlessly. Ashcroft doesn't seem to have any intention of investigating and prosecuting the HUNDREDS of serious crimes committed by the Clinton administration and DNC those 8 years. Wonder why THAT is ...
Here's that Las Vegas arrest story: FBI Arrests Saudi National in Las Vegas Strip Hotel Room Sting Operation
Here's another: The E-2 treaty investor program allows many foreigners (including those from Egypt, Oman, and Pakistan) to enter the country without INS approval if they fork over a modest $150,000 investment and agree to manage U.S.-based businesses. The E-2 visas take as little as two days to process and can be renewed indefinitely. Investors can bring their spouses, children, and "key employees" with them.
Then there's the "245(i) provision" of immigration law, which allows visa overstayers to pay a measly $1,000 fee and "adjust their status" without leaving the U.S...
Anyone in favor of CLOSING our borders?
The fact that our very lives are being betrayed by a political elite that serves only to enrich and profit itself and its friends has never been clearer, yet we still seem paralyzed to act politically as a sovereign people to hold them accountable. Fellow citizens -- we are on our own here. The system has been totally corrupted. "We the people" are the ultimate constitutional check against a government gone astray. We must organize a political party movement to defend and restore traditional American political values as expressed by our founders. A recall movement against the entire Congress because of their failure to provide basic security against foreign threats would be a start. The initial goal would be to elect politicians committed to successfully defending ourselves in the current crises and who will have the ultimate objective of restoring constitutional limits on government.
My husband shortcutted that little scheme by writing a letter to a very highly placed elected official that knew this family, but previously had not known of their problem. The green cards were returned promptly, and my friends and their 'attorney' never knew what happened.
End the immigration "free for all".
All of the pictures are working now. The ones copied from JWR took forever to show, whereas the one that hoot2 posted (google) displayed right away. Curious.
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