The new attention has turned a once-obscure alternative source of funds into a viable route toward development. Use of the 20-year-old program nearly doubled last year, to 1,995 investor applicants in the fiscal year ended last September from 1,031 in the prior year.

In 2006, when the economy was still roaring, there were just 486 applicants, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The program is named EB-5 because it represents a fifth category of employment-based immigration.

Read the rest of the story on WSJ

Related articles

• Green Card Process Steps (socyberty.com)
• How to Get Usa Visa Lottery (socyberty.com)

In addition to change of address for certain employment based I-485′s, the I-485 form itself has changed, and the revision dated 12/3/09 is the only edition acceptable for filing. U.S.C.I.S. is allowing a transitional period up to March 29, 2010, during which it will accept prior versions of the form, but after that, any previous versions of the form that are submitted will be rejected.

Read the full story on ILW

Source: Daily News 365

The court’s ruling comes from the matter of Colmenares Carpio v. Holder which concluded that the applicant “must be under twenty-one when he or she seeks to enter the United States, not when his or her subsequent application adjustment of status is finally adjudicated.”

This result contravenes several decisions of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service or USCIS denying applications for adjustment of status based on a K-2 visa because the applicant was twenty-one years of age or older at the time of adjudication of the adjustment of status.

To recap, the K-2 visa holder must be under twenty-one at the time he or she “seeks to enter” the US when applying for adjustment of status.

Read the full story on abs-cbnnews

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S. Immigration Law Presentation (slideshare.net)

“I am not going anywhere,” Laschenova told IG.

In January, Laschenova’s employer, Integrity Gymnastics in Plain City, Ohio, received a notice from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that her petition for an employment-based immigrant visa was denied, reopened and denied again.

“For how many years we’ve been here and what we’ve done, it’s so stressful right now,” Laschenova said Saturday. “It’s not right. Everyone knows it’s not right.”

Laschenova said she is hopeful that Gus Shihab, the immigration attorney who last week offered to handle her case pro bono, can succeed in appealing it. An Atlanta law firm handled Laschenova’s original case.

“Basically, we’re lucky at least once in these 10 years,” Laschenova said of her new association with Shihab, of Shihab & Associates in Columbus, Ohio. “He started working very, very quickly.”

Read the full story on intlgymnast.com/

• The first is through the annual “green card diversity lottery,” held each year by the Department of Homeland Security, for citizens of countries that have “low rates of immigration” to the United States. Millions of people from specified countries around the world apply to take part in the lottery, but only 50,000 green cards are made available through the process. Each participant in the lottery is issued a number, the government draws about 150,000 numbers, and the people with those numbers then are allowed to apply for one of the 50,000 slots.

• The second way to gain legal entry is to be a spouse, sibling, child or parent of an American citizen or the spouse or minor child of someone who holds a green card and is willing to sponsor your entrance into the United States.

• The third is through an employer, who must complete a lengthy application process that requires proof that the has a unique skill necessary to the business.

THERE ARE other provisions of immigration law that allow people who are seeking asylum to gain legal entry into the country, but being granted asylum is an extraordinarily difficult process.

An additional number of other immigrants are admitted each year under temporary work permits and student visas, however those visas generally do not permit conversion to immigrant status, and they require the holder to leave after a specified length of stay.

And then there is the “S” visa. Essentially a free pass, the visa is awarded only to those who work for law enforcement and must be applied for by law-enforcement officials. The Mayas say immigration officials promised them the “S” visa, but then reneged.

According to immigration officials, only 250 “S” visas are available each year, and fewer than 60 were awarded in 2009.

CONGRESS last year set immigration visa limits at 700,000 for employment and family preferences, excluding refugees and those entering the country on temporary work or student visas.

In 2008, the total number of immigrants admitted to the country (excluding refugees and those on temporary non-tourist visas) tallied just under 750,000.

Source: Daily Free Man

Now she just wants a way to stay in the United States, at least until her college graduation.

A Bright Futures scholar in her junior year at the University of South Florida, Sarah could be deported back to England when she turns 21 this summer.

Her parents, who own a Pinellas County pressure washing business, thought Sarah could remain with them as long as she was their dependent.
“My understanding was that she is my dependent until she finishes school,” said Peter Farnan, 51. “It turns out I was wrong.”

Their plight, and others like it, have advocacy groups pushing to reform the E-2 visa program, which rewards foreign business owners for investing and creating jobs in the United States.

They estimate there are more than 100,000 such businesses, with yearly revenue of $50 billion and a work force of 700,000 despite the visa’s limitations.

Among them: An E-2 holder cannot get a homestead exemption or a job in a different business and has no path to permanent residency.

“This is not an immigration visa,” said Sonja B. Stefanadis, a caseworker for U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis who is trying to help the Farnans. “You’re supposed to just finish up and go home.”

Read the full story at Tampa Bay

Matt, originally from Corning and now living in Rochester, is a U.S. citizen. Heather, who met her husband in 2005 when both were students at the Elim Bible Institute in Lima, is from Hamilton, Ontario, and a Canadian citizen. They thought that once they were married, it would be simple for Heather to get her “green card” and live and work legally here with Matt until they have enough money to finish their degrees and start the family they both want.
For more than a year, they had traveled back and forth to Canada without incident until June 26 (the day before the wedding at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington) when Matt told the Canadian border guards that marriage was the reason for his visit.

“I was turned away at the border,” Matt says. “I had to prove I had a means of departing and that I would return.” He hurried back to Rochester, got a letter from his boss indicating that he has a job, made a copy of his apartment lease, and purchased a return airplane ticket (even though he planned to drive home). He stayed in Canada as a visitor for several weeks before coming home to Rochester, but that’s when the couple realized living together would not be as simple as they hoped.

The U.S. and Canadian governments want to be certain that a marriage between citizens of their countries is legitimate, that the citizen spouse can support the non-citizen, and that the newcomer will not need public assistance, says Rochester lawyer Margaret Catillaz, an expert in immigration law.

Since Heather and Matt were married, both their passports have been flagged and when they visit, they are always detained for questioning. Even though she’s done nothing wrong, Heather said during a recent visit, she always feels as if she’s in trouble.

Matt and Heather just want to be together.

And money is the only thing standing in their way. It costs up to $2,000 to apply for legal resident status and complete the required procedures. And right now, neither Matt and Heather, nor their families, have the money. Heather is unemployed and Matt washes windows and cleans gutters. Rent, car payments, food — that’s all they can afford.

Read the full story on Democrat and Chronicle

In 1990 the U.S. government began granting permanent residency, or greencards, to immigrants who invest over US$1 million in the country, and in 1993 it introduced an immigrant investment program dubbed “Regional Center EB-5 Program” which offers greencards to those who invest at least US$500,000. The number of agencies which file applications for the immigration program on behalf of clients tripled to around 60 to 70 last year from 23 worldwide in 2008.

Immigration through investment is a popular option especially among parents seeking to have their children educated in the U.S., as the parents and all children aged 21 or under are able to receive greencards. Various benefits come with permanent residency, such as lower tuition fees for U.S. residents. Between 2006 and 2008, 1,454 Koreans obtained greencards via the program, the highest number among 67 countries that participated.

Read the full story on Chosun

The following is the advice we give to our clients who have an upcoming interview:

If you were both free to marry (not married to someone else at the time), neither of you have a criminal record, and your marriage is real, you have nothing to worry about. In our experience, the greatest concern of USCIS with respect to marriage-based applications is fraud. If you married your husband or wife to get immigration benefits, the chances are, that will come out, sooner or later. Remember even if you get a greencard, or even if you proceed to citizenship, it can be revoked later if it comes out that you were involved in a sham marriage.

Marriages for the purpose of gaining an immigration benefit are of two types: bilateral fraud and unilateral fraud. Bilateral fraud is when one party pays or promises a benefit to another to marry and apply for a greencard. This type of fraud relatively easy to uncover: the parties usually do not actually live together; they do not know much about each other; their stories are inconsistent, the citizen spouse will often withdraw the petition when he or she is informed by the USCIS officer that marriage fraud is a criminal act and that jail is a possibility. Unilateral fraud is much more subtle. Unilateral fraud is when the U.S. citizen enters into the marriage in good faith and the alien spouse has a hidden agenda: immigration benefit. In this type of fraud the parties typically live together as husband and wife, at least until such time that the alien spouse obtains an unconditional greencard. This type of fraud is more difficult but not impossible to uncover.

According to the Field Adjudicator’s manual, which is available online at www.uscis.gov., the following are factors that adjudicators look at in evaluating the validity of a marriage:

-Large disparity in age;

-No common language;

-Vast difference in cultural and ethnic background;

-Family and friends don’t know about the marriage;

-Marriage arranged by third party;

-Marriage took place immediately before beneficiary’s status in the U.S. (or in the CNMI) terminated;

-Not living together since marriage;

-Alien spouse is friend of family of U.S. citizen spouse (i.e. marriage may have been done as a “favor”);

-U.S. citizen spouse has had prior alien spouses for whom he/she filed petitions for greencards.

Not any one of these factors is likely to result in a denial, but the more of these factors that are present, the more evidence will be required to avoid a denial. We have had clients approved who had one or more of the above indicators, but we needed to work harder and come up with more evidence than is usual. We have had several couples whose courtship was entirely via electronic media: e-mail, social networking, text messaging or telephone. In one instance, we printed out hundreds of email messages in a foreign language and had them certified and translated. We had a couple who met via an online dating service and didn’t meet until their marriage ceremony. But they had videos of an elaborate wedding in another country that took several days and involved hundreds of relatives. They also had a second wedding on Saipan, also involving a large family. They also had very convincing demeanor and lots of joint documents.

As for the questions you might be asked, the following are some general subject areas about which you should be able to give answers: how and where did you first meet; who introduced you; where did you go on your first date; if you don’t speak the same language, how did you communicate; how often did you see each other during your courtship; where did you go; did you meet each other’s family members; who asked whom to marry; where did you get married; who attended your wedding and your relationship to each person; where do you live and who do you live with; be ready to describe your residence in detail, both inside and out; be ready to describe your neighborhood including who your neighbors are.

In addition to being able to answer questions, your demeanor is critical. Demeanor is all of the subtle non-verbal signals that pass between people when they are interacting. How you interact with your husband and with the interviewer are both important. You need to not be too nervous; you need to answer directly and clearly; you need to look at your spouse; you need to look at the interviewer. There are a lot of cross-cultural issues that come into play. One hopes that the interviewer is trained to make allowances for behaviors of persons of a different cultural background.

Joint documents are also important. Over the course of marriage, a couple acquires a lot of joint documents. You are expected to produce such documents for the interview. Some possible joint documents are: home ownership, rental agreement or rental receipts in both your names; utilities accounts in both names; joint bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards; joint car ownership and auto insurance; life insurance, retirement benefits, health insurance where one spouse designates the other as a beneficiary; joint tax returns. Again, if it is a new marriage you will not have too many of these documents. You will need to work harder at convincing the interviewer that your marriage is real. This is where notes, letters, photos and so forth come in. If the marriage is established, you will have more of these documents and less difficulty in proving the validity of the marriage. If you have children, the presumption will be that you are together to make a life, not to scam a greencard, and the interview should be very short and uneventful.