Indians to protest Green Card delay

[OhioChick]

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 (New York)
Encouraged by the success of the ''Gandhigiri'' campaign in July this year, Indian professionals - engineers, doctors, scientists, academicians and entrepreneurs - have decided to come out on the streets of Washington later this month demanding an end to the ''frustrating'' long wait for the coveted Green Card or the legal permanent residency.

Immigration Voice, organizer of this September 18 Washington rally claim that this is for the first time in the history of the US legal immigrants that such professionals are coming out on the street in protest, which so far has been done by those who enter the country illegally or do not have appropriate paper work to either stay or work legally in this country.

''Our protest is against the ''Broken system of legal employment based immigration,'' Aman Kapoor, president and founder of Immigration Voice told NDTV.Com in an interview.

Kapoor got the Green Card this July after five and half years of long wait. But, many of the highly-skilled immigrants - a sizeable numbers of whom are Indians including in categories like scientists, professors, doctors, engineers and academicians - might have to wait even longer, he says.

This is because, he argues: ''The Employment based green card system is completely broken due to excessive delays and backlogs in petitions of nearly half a million highly skilled workers who are certified by US Government to be doing a job that no US citizen is willing, qualified or able to do.''

Though no official figures are available on the country wise backlog of Green Card applicants, Kapoor says one in five Indians staying in the United States right now are affected by this back log.

It is for this reason, that a rally by legal immigrants in the US is being led and organized by Indians.
If the Immigration Voice - which is mainly run by volunteers - are to be believed people are travelling from far of places in the US, many for more than 1,000 miles to attend the rally in Washington DC on September 18 and make their voice heard before the US Congress.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070025734

[EVDebs]

1. ...while US citizens protest increased H1B visa allowances and fraud w/in the system eom