qvadis
08-22 03:09 AM
There is no ambiguity in law. The law is clear. One law (and one rule) should yield one interpretation. If someone interperting the languge of law differently; then that is their mistake. Thats what DOS was doing in between 2001 and 2006.
The law comes actually down to the following two rules:
(1) horizontal spill if visas available
(2) vertical spill for visas not required
The language in (2) is much stronger. A visa number that is still available cannot be required at the same time. So one could argue that DOS is now misinterpreting the law.
The law comes actually down to the following two rules:
(1) horizontal spill if visas available
(2) vertical spill for visas not required
The language in (2) is much stronger. A visa number that is still available cannot be required at the same time. So one could argue that DOS is now misinterpreting the law.
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gc_chahiye
06-24 07:25 PM
Can you add a dependent after your 485 is approved?
my lawyer said yes, the important things are that:
1. you must be married before teh I-485 is approved; otherwise the dependent needs to be sponsored under family petition etc. However note that in this case the dependent would be starting his/her I-485 at that point (when you are already approved) so will 'catch up' to approval later (and if dates retrogress, then the dependent is 'stuck' longer, without GC, while you will have your GC and all related benefits (ability to stop working, change types of work etc))
2. the date needs to be current for the dependent to file, but the fact that you got approved means that your PD is current (as you can only get approved when your PD is current)
Also, if I become a beneficiary on my wife's application, will I be able to maintain my H-1 status, and keep on renewing it?
yes you can continue on your H1
My wife and I are now leaning towards independent filing, with no beneficiary for now.
we are still undecided, same boat. Warnings from some attorneys (as Pappu has pointed out above) are making us think of filing independently, with teh risk that one person gets GC first and the other would than tag along maybe an year or whatever late depending on how dates move/stay.
what do your lawyers say about multiple 485 filings?
my lawyer said yes, the important things are that:
1. you must be married before teh I-485 is approved; otherwise the dependent needs to be sponsored under family petition etc. However note that in this case the dependent would be starting his/her I-485 at that point (when you are already approved) so will 'catch up' to approval later (and if dates retrogress, then the dependent is 'stuck' longer, without GC, while you will have your GC and all related benefits (ability to stop working, change types of work etc))
2. the date needs to be current for the dependent to file, but the fact that you got approved means that your PD is current (as you can only get approved when your PD is current)
Also, if I become a beneficiary on my wife's application, will I be able to maintain my H-1 status, and keep on renewing it?
yes you can continue on your H1
My wife and I are now leaning towards independent filing, with no beneficiary for now.
we are still undecided, same boat. Warnings from some attorneys (as Pappu has pointed out above) are making us think of filing independently, with teh risk that one person gets GC first and the other would than tag along maybe an year or whatever late depending on how dates move/stay.
what do your lawyers say about multiple 485 filings?
pranju
06-15 02:40 PM
Does the A# belong to primary applicant or it can be written in Spouse Application too ?
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lazycis
01-24 01:18 PM
I have send emails to my credit card company and the people who processed the payment and none of them have been able to help me.
You should just fill a dispute form and send it to your credit card issuer. It's probably not too late. The bank can and should refund you the overpay.
You should just fill a dispute form and send it to your credit card issuer. It's probably not too late. The bank can and should refund you the overpay.
more...
h_shaik
04-06 01:47 PM
Updates on advocacy day posted on http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/forum14-members-forum/2086451-live-updates-advocacy-day-in-dc-april-2011-a-6.html#post2499745
Hi,
I am a one time donor of $50 and not able to view the donor threads. If there is some extra step to be done by Admin for my User ID to grant permission or i don't qualify to view this thread. if i am not qualified what is the minimum qualification?
Hi,
I am a one time donor of $50 and not able to view the donor threads. If there is some extra step to be done by Admin for my User ID to grant permission or i don't qualify to view this thread. if i am not qualified what is the minimum qualification?
sugaur
09-12 07:59 AM
My priority date is current since september 2010.
My H1B transfer application is with USCIS since Aug 27th, 2010. The date for transfer requested is Novemebr 1st, 2010.
My I 485 was filed in Aug 2008. I have been working with the current sponsoring employer since 2005, no breaks.
I am expecting an RFE for my I 485. Anyone who was in similar situation share what kind of RFE is likely to be issued? I already have a job letter from the new employer essentially stating same kind of work duties.
Thanks.
PS: Also, how do you start a new thread on IV?
My H1B transfer application is with USCIS since Aug 27th, 2010. The date for transfer requested is Novemebr 1st, 2010.
My I 485 was filed in Aug 2008. I have been working with the current sponsoring employer since 2005, no breaks.
I am expecting an RFE for my I 485. Anyone who was in similar situation share what kind of RFE is likely to be issued? I already have a job letter from the new employer essentially stating same kind of work duties.
Thanks.
PS: Also, how do you start a new thread on IV?
more...
aau
08-07 04:11 PM
I have the same question as I think, it is not possible. How can you re-apply for the same job you are in currently, in EB2?
Yes you can -when you were eligible for the EB2 filing at the time of filing for EB3!
Why would someone do that u ask? Please call my employer and ask him this question. The answer is - so that you are stuck with him for few more years.
Yes you can -when you were eligible for the EB2 filing at the time of filing for EB3!
Why would someone do that u ask? Please call my employer and ask him this question. The answer is - so that you are stuck with him for few more years.
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jainGC
09-10 01:04 AM
Hi All,
Its been astonishing journey, came to US in 2000 June, saw downfall of .coms followed by Housing bubble burst, than 911 , than Economical challenges, Job losses, etc.... the irony list are/were endless. Hope of GC was next to impossible.
Following were the steps to miracle :
- Filed Labor in 2005 Dec, got denied due to lawyers mistake:mad:
- Refiled the same application and Got approved in March 2006:D
- Applied I-140, paid extra for premium but it took more than 4 months to approve.:mad:
- Fight with employer, left company overnite, guess when ?(2 weeks before July Fiasco :mad:)
- Refilled labor in Jan 2008, Got approved in March 2008
- RFE on previously approved I-140
- Convinced lawyers to file application for I-140 , requesting PD recapturing.
- Got I-140 Approval in Aug 2008
- Filed I-485 in Aug 2008
- FP in Oct 2008
- RFE in Aug 2009
- Contacted Congressman, it was helpful as got to know the exact situation.
- Took infopass 2 times
- Not sure if this helped or not but called 1-800 number and spoke with level 2 officer and she hinted that I may not have to wait that long ?
- Approval in Sep 2010
Thanks to IV, it was immensely helpful.
Its been astonishing journey, came to US in 2000 June, saw downfall of .coms followed by Housing bubble burst, than 911 , than Economical challenges, Job losses, etc.... the irony list are/were endless. Hope of GC was next to impossible.
Following were the steps to miracle :
- Filed Labor in 2005 Dec, got denied due to lawyers mistake:mad:
- Refiled the same application and Got approved in March 2006:D
- Applied I-140, paid extra for premium but it took more than 4 months to approve.:mad:
- Fight with employer, left company overnite, guess when ?(2 weeks before July Fiasco :mad:)
- Refilled labor in Jan 2008, Got approved in March 2008
- RFE on previously approved I-140
- Convinced lawyers to file application for I-140 , requesting PD recapturing.
- Got I-140 Approval in Aug 2008
- Filed I-485 in Aug 2008
- FP in Oct 2008
- RFE in Aug 2009
- Contacted Congressman, it was helpful as got to know the exact situation.
- Took infopass 2 times
- Not sure if this helped or not but called 1-800 number and spoke with level 2 officer and she hinted that I may not have to wait that long ?
- Approval in Sep 2010
Thanks to IV, it was immensely helpful.
more...
factoryman
05-24 06:31 PM
I-693, supplemental I-693 (vaccination record) , copy of enclosed documents, blood tests (HIV) , skin test results( BCG), your acceptance for these tests, x-ray report (if skin test is very positive - see belwo) and TB diagnosis ( no TB) is enclosed in the sealed envelope. In original.
The same set is given to you. The medical staff with go through section by section and show it to you (in your copy) that all sections are completed ans signed. If you take vaccination on the first day, then on the third day they will give you sealed cover. [LIST=1]
Feel free to PM me if you need any information. I don't go back and read all the threads and all postings. So, PM is best.
Can someone explain to me what is advance Parole and why it is needed?? My lawyer didn't mention it.
also how long do you have to wait after you get the medical exam done to get the results to file for I-485??? Thank you
The same set is given to you. The medical staff with go through section by section and show it to you (in your copy) that all sections are completed ans signed. If you take vaccination on the first day, then on the third day they will give you sealed cover. [LIST=1]
Feel free to PM me if you need any information. I don't go back and read all the threads and all postings. So, PM is best.
Can someone explain to me what is advance Parole and why it is needed?? My lawyer didn't mention it.
also how long do you have to wait after you get the medical exam done to get the results to file for I-485??? Thank you
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mallu
09-25 12:33 AM
I guess only a minority of people get stuck in name check ( unlike immigration portal forums , the FBI namecheck discussion thread doesn't move much) or may be that majority still in the 'waiting for receipt notice/FP' mode.
more...
desi3933
01-30 06:33 AM
Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices
Civil Rights Divison Office of Special Counsel Did You Know Page (http://www.justice.gov/crt/osc/htm/engperliwdiss.php)
Employers may not request more or different documents than are required to verify employment eligibility, reject reasonably genuine-looking documents, or specify certain documents over others with the purpose or intent of discriminating on the basis of citizenship status or national origin. U.S. citizens and all work authorized individuals are protected from document abuse.
Civil Rights Divison Office of Special Counsel Home Page (http://www.justice.gov/crt/osc/htm/Webtypes2005.php)
.
Civil Rights Divison Office of Special Counsel Did You Know Page (http://www.justice.gov/crt/osc/htm/engperliwdiss.php)
Employers may not request more or different documents than are required to verify employment eligibility, reject reasonably genuine-looking documents, or specify certain documents over others with the purpose or intent of discriminating on the basis of citizenship status or national origin. U.S. citizens and all work authorized individuals are protected from document abuse.
Civil Rights Divison Office of Special Counsel Home Page (http://www.justice.gov/crt/osc/htm/Webtypes2005.php)
.
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dontcareanymore
01-09 04:32 PM
Counting time after I140 approval towards citizenship proposal is already on our table for things to consider as a campaign. For Campaigns like this, we will need massive support than what we currently have. Even recent greencard holders can benefit from it.
So the first step before we undertake any big project is to get more membership base.
So let us first figure out ways in which we can get more people involved on IV. Without massive participation no campaign, letter/lobby/phonecall etc will work. We need to really go out of our way and spread the word around so that everyone that is stuck in this immigration mess can join this movement.
I know IV is just for employment based, but I believe other categories of people also are victims of "Adjustment Of Status" delays and they will and can benefit from this proposal. I guess a broad based coalition is possible. There are people with political muscle that benefit from this development (Latino Votes).
Is it a good idea to reach out to other immigrant groups ?
Just my 2 cents.
So the first step before we undertake any big project is to get more membership base.
So let us first figure out ways in which we can get more people involved on IV. Without massive participation no campaign, letter/lobby/phonecall etc will work. We need to really go out of our way and spread the word around so that everyone that is stuck in this immigration mess can join this movement.
I know IV is just for employment based, but I believe other categories of people also are victims of "Adjustment Of Status" delays and they will and can benefit from this proposal. I guess a broad based coalition is possible. There are people with political muscle that benefit from this development (Latino Votes).
Is it a good idea to reach out to other immigrant groups ?
Just my 2 cents.
more...
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rcr_bulk
08-26 11:44 AM
While people are discussing about Vonage plan, I bought VG shares at around 50 cents after the news came out and boom sold today at $2.10....Kool 400% profit in just 4 days....
Thanks Vonage.....
You are the man
Thanks Vonage.....
You are the man
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tampacoolie
07-14 01:38 PM
I think this guy is smoking crack by fudging the numbers. CNN should block these kind of idiotic broadcasting. We all should fight for this injustic. I am sick of this guy. These kind of propoganda only leads to Nazi ideology in USA.
more...
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english_august
07-11 01:27 AM
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Skilled%2C_legal_immigrants_send_Protest_Blooms
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garamchai2go
12-18 08:52 AM
Dec 6 1400 hrs, Passport rcvd - NO(as of Dec 17), H1-B, Chennai
With telephone conversation with consulate staff , I came to know that sometime tomorrow vfs will have my passport. Will let you know once I hear from vfs.
Dec 6 1400 hrs, Passport sent to vfs - Yes(on Dec 18), H1-B, Chennai
With telephone conversation with consulate staff , I came to know that sometime tomorrow vfs will have my passport. Will let you know once I hear from vfs.
Dec 6 1400 hrs, Passport sent to vfs - Yes(on Dec 18), H1-B, Chennai
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11-03 04:15 PM
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gcfriend65
01-08 08:52 AM
Can we remove the clause- 'Allow filing of Adjustment of Status (Form I-485) when a visa number is not available' from the letter. I think this statement is not as per Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Massive IV campaign for Administrative fixes
Dear Members,
Immigration Voice is starting a massive campaign to get administrative relief for our community. We have had several fruitful meeting with the administration in 2007, some of these meetings were scheduled in September, November and then in December. In these meetings, we were able to convince the administration about the implication and hardship due to current broken system. Since Congress has not been able to address our issues in 2006-07, we were successful in creating a case for administrative fixes that would give much needed interim relief to EB community. These meetings helped us start a conversation on possible administrative fixes like 3 year EAD-AP, clearly defining �same or similar� if AC-21 is invoked, and we are hearing favorable feedback.
Due to lack of action on legislative front our community�s patience is running out and we want some relief urgently to get out of probationary status. We are thus starting this nationwide campaign that will help our advocacy efforts and get administration to act quickly. There are several components to this campaign.
1) Support from lawmaker offices: We urge all our members to meet their lawmaker offices and get them to write to The President in support of administrative fixes and urging for an immediate administrative relief. The template of the letter is attached. Letters from lawmaker offices to administration get far more attention as compared to anybody else writing the same letter. The template of the letter is posted below. Please request lawmakers to give you a copy of the letter or lawmakers could copy IV on their letter to The President.
2) Support from employers: We urge all members to approach their employer and have them send a letter to The President expressing support for our administrative fixes and appealing for an immediate relief. The template of the letter is attached below. Please request your employer to give you copy iof the letter so that you could provide IV with the copy of the letter.
3) Plea from our community: We urge all our members to write personalized letters to The President directly and convey their plight. If you would like to write your own personalized letter, please do so with your own story. Make sure to stick to the administrative fixes we have listed in the letter template and how these fixes could help you and your family. Please put your name and address in your letter. Anonymous letters will not be delivered and will be discarded. We request that you create 2 copies of your letter. One copy should be posted to The President and the second copy should be sent to Immigration Voice mailbox address at �
Immigration Voice
P O Box 1372
Arcadia, CA 91077-1372
The deadline for receiving all the letters is 9th February 2008. Our plan is to collect thousands of letters that we will also receive in IV mailbox and deliver them, along with the letters from employers and lawmakers across the country, during our meeting with the administration. We believe that this will make a necessary impact to strengthen our case and gather the necessary political will required for administrative fixes. We will also try to get media coverage for this campaign and draw national attention.
Please inform all your friends stuck in greencard retrogression and have them participate in this effort. Please post information about this campaign and link to this thread to as many sites, blogs you can so that we can get extraordinary scale of participation. The success of this effort will depend on the collective sincerity of the entire EB community to get letters from lawmakers, employers and members of the community. Immigration voice is counting on each and every member and it is in up to each member to make this campaign a success and help us to improve our and our families� lives.
Letter Template:
Massive IV campaign for Administrative fixes
Dear Members,
Immigration Voice is starting a massive campaign to get administrative relief for our community. We have had several fruitful meeting with the administration in 2007, some of these meetings were scheduled in September, November and then in December. In these meetings, we were able to convince the administration about the implication and hardship due to current broken system. Since Congress has not been able to address our issues in 2006-07, we were successful in creating a case for administrative fixes that would give much needed interim relief to EB community. These meetings helped us start a conversation on possible administrative fixes like 3 year EAD-AP, clearly defining �same or similar� if AC-21 is invoked, and we are hearing favorable feedback.
Due to lack of action on legislative front our community�s patience is running out and we want some relief urgently to get out of probationary status. We are thus starting this nationwide campaign that will help our advocacy efforts and get administration to act quickly. There are several components to this campaign.
1) Support from lawmaker offices: We urge all our members to meet their lawmaker offices and get them to write to The President in support of administrative fixes and urging for an immediate administrative relief. The template of the letter is attached. Letters from lawmaker offices to administration get far more attention as compared to anybody else writing the same letter. The template of the letter is posted below. Please request lawmakers to give you a copy of the letter or lawmakers could copy IV on their letter to The President.
2) Support from employers: We urge all members to approach their employer and have them send a letter to The President expressing support for our administrative fixes and appealing for an immediate relief. The template of the letter is attached below. Please request your employer to give you copy iof the letter so that you could provide IV with the copy of the letter.
3) Plea from our community: We urge all our members to write personalized letters to The President directly and convey their plight. If you would like to write your own personalized letter, please do so with your own story. Make sure to stick to the administrative fixes we have listed in the letter template and how these fixes could help you and your family. Please put your name and address in your letter. Anonymous letters will not be delivered and will be discarded. We request that you create 2 copies of your letter. One copy should be posted to The President and the second copy should be sent to Immigration Voice mailbox address at �
Immigration Voice
P O Box 1372
Arcadia, CA 91077-1372
The deadline for receiving all the letters is 9th February 2008. Our plan is to collect thousands of letters that we will also receive in IV mailbox and deliver them, along with the letters from employers and lawmakers across the country, during our meeting with the administration. We believe that this will make a necessary impact to strengthen our case and gather the necessary political will required for administrative fixes. We will also try to get media coverage for this campaign and draw national attention.
Please inform all your friends stuck in greencard retrogression and have them participate in this effort. Please post information about this campaign and link to this thread to as many sites, blogs you can so that we can get extraordinary scale of participation. The success of this effort will depend on the collective sincerity of the entire EB community to get letters from lawmakers, employers and members of the community. Immigration voice is counting on each and every member and it is in up to each member to make this campaign a success and help us to improve our and our families� lives.
Letter Template:
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jkays94
06-21 07:04 PM
I got fired last April. I had my I-140 approved. Employer HR told me will not withdraw I-140 but cannot give me employer letter. How should I proceed with filing I-485? Please help.
Thanks
I have seen some posts that suggest using paystubs but this is tricky for you since you won't have anything recent since last April. One gamble would be to file and hope you get an RFE after 6 months when you can get a letter from a new employer ie AC21. However USCIS is warning that they will reject applications if the 'initial evidence' is missing. Do you have a new LC? If so, you could file I-140 premium processing and keep your original PD. Is your former employer willing to re-employ you in the future (assuming your job loss was related to the employer's financial issues) ?? You likely will need a lawyer to work around the hurdles you are facing.
Thanks
I have seen some posts that suggest using paystubs but this is tricky for you since you won't have anything recent since last April. One gamble would be to file and hope you get an RFE after 6 months when you can get a letter from a new employer ie AC21. However USCIS is warning that they will reject applications if the 'initial evidence' is missing. Do you have a new LC? If so, you could file I-140 premium processing and keep your original PD. Is your former employer willing to re-employ you in the future (assuming your job loss was related to the employer's financial issues) ?? You likely will need a lawyer to work around the hurdles you are facing.
jasmin45
07-13 07:24 AM
The whole controversy involving Lou Dobbs and leprosy started with a “60 Minutes” segment a few weeks ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30leonside.html
Robert Caplin for The New York Times
Lou Dobbs was at the anchor desk for CNN’s 2006 election coverage.
Related Articles
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Reader Responses (May 30, 2007)
Episodes of "Lou Dobbs Tonight"
"60 Minutes" of May 6, 2007 Leprosy Statistics The segment was a profile of Mr. Dobbs, and while doing background research for it, a “60 Minutes” producer came across a 2005 news report from Mr. Dobbs’s CNN program on contagious diseases. In the report, one of Mr. Dobbs’s correspondents said there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous three years, far more than in the past.
When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.
“Well, I can tell you this,” he replied. “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
With that Orwellian chestnut, Mr. Dobbs escalated the leprosy dispute into a full-scale media brouhaha. The next night, back on his own program, the same CNN correspondent who had done the earlier report, Christine Romans, repeated the 7,000 number, and Mr. Dobbs added that, if anything, it was probably an underestimate. A week later, the Southern Poverty Law Center — the civil rights group that has long been critical of Mr. Dobbs — took out advertisements in The New York Times and USA Today demanding that CNN run a correction.
Finally, Mr. Dobbs played host to two top officials from the law center on his program, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” where he called their accusations outrageous and they called him wrong, unfair and “one of the most popular people on the white supremacist Web sites.”
We’ll get to the merits of the charges and countercharges shortly, but first it’s worth considering why, beyond entertainment value, all this matters. Over the last few years, Lou Dobbs has transformed himself into arguably this country’s foremost populist. It’s an odd role, given that he spent the 1980s and ’90s buttering up chief executives on CNN, but he’s now playing it very successfully. He has become a voice for the real economic anxiety felt by many Americans.
The audience for his program has grown 72 percent since 2003, and CBS — yes, the same network that broadcasts “60 Minutes” — just hired him as a commentator on “The Early Show.” Many elites, as Mr. Dobbs likes to call them, despise him, but others see him as a hero. His latest book, “War on the Middle Class,” was a best seller and received a sympathetic review in this newspaper. Mario Cuomo has said Mr. Dobbs is “addicted to economic truth.”
Mr. Dobbs argues that the middle class has many enemies: corporate lobbyists, greedy executives, wimpy journalists, corrupt politicians. But none play a bigger role than illegal immigrants. As he sees it, they are stealing our jobs, depressing our wages and even endangering our lives.
That’s where leprosy comes in.
“The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Mr. Dobbs said on his April 14, 2005, program. From there, he introduced his original report that mentioned leprosy, the flesh-destroying disease — technically known as Hansen’s disease — that has inspired fear for centuries.
According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As Ms. Romans, the CNN correspondent, relayed: “There were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”
“Incredible,” Mr. Dobbs replied.
Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Romans engaged in a nearly identical conversation a few weeks ago, when he was defending himself the night after the “60 Minutes” segment. “Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy,” she said, again attributing the number to Ms. Cosman.
To sort through all this, I called James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, an arm of the federal government. Leprosy in the United States is indeed largely a disease of immigrants who have come from Asia and Latin America. And the official leprosy statistics do show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.
The peak year was 1983, when there were 456 cases. After that, reported cases dropped steadily, falling to just 76 in 2000. Last year, there were 137.
“It is not a public health problem — that’s the bottom line,” Mr. Krahenbuhl told me. “You’ve got a country of 300 million people. This is not something for the public to get alarmed about.” Much about the disease remains unknown, but researchers think people get it through prolonged close contact with someone who already has it.
What about the increase over the last six years, to 137 cases from 76? Is that significant?
“No,” Mr. Krahenbuhl said. It could be a statistical fluctuation, or it could be a result of better data collection in recent years. In any event, the 137 reported cases last year were fewer than in any year from 1975 to 1996.
So Mr. Dobbs was flat-out wrong. And when I spoke to him yesterday, he admitted as much, sort of. I read him Ms. Romans’s comment — the one with the word “suddenly” in it — and he replied, “I think that is wrong.” He then went on to say that as far as he was concerned, he had corrected the mistake by later broadcasting another report, on the same night as his on-air confrontation with the Southern Poverty Law Center officials. This report mentioned that leprosy had peaked in 1983.
Of course, he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. Instead, he lambasted the officials from the law center for saying he had. Even yesterday, he spent much of our conversation emphasizing that there really were 7,000 cases in the leprosy registry, the government’s 30-year database. Mr. Dobbs is trying to have it both ways.
I have been somewhat taken aback about how shameless he has been during the whole dispute, so I spent some time reading transcripts from old episodes of “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” The way he handled leprosy, it turns out, is not all that unusual.
For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.
Second, Mr. Dobbs really does give airtime to white supremacy sympathizers. Ms. Cosman, who is now deceased, was a lawyer and Renaissance studies scholar, never a medical doctor or a leprosy expert. She gave speeches in which she said that Mexican immigrants had a habit of molesting children. Back in their home villages, she would explain, rape was not as serious a crime as cow stealing. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a list of other such guests from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Finally, Mr. Dobbs is fond of darkly hinting that this country is under attack. He suggested last week that the new immigration bill in Congress could be the first step toward a new nation — a “North American union” — that combines the United States, Canada and Mexico. On other occasions, his program has described a supposed Mexican plot to reclaim the Southwest. In one such report, one of his correspondents referred to a Utah visit by Vicente Fox, then Mexico’s president, as a “Mexican military incursion.”
When I asked Mr. Dobbs about this yesterday, he said, “You’ve raised this to a level that frankly I find offensive.”
The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.
There is no denying that this country’s immigration system is broken. But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and made everyone else better off.
More to the point, if Mr. Dobbs’s arguments were really so good, don’t you think he would be able to stick to the facts? And if CNN were serious about being “the most trusted name in news,” as it claims to be, don’t you think it would be big enough to issue an actual correction?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30leonside.html
Robert Caplin for The New York Times
Lou Dobbs was at the anchor desk for CNN’s 2006 election coverage.
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Episodes of "Lou Dobbs Tonight"
"60 Minutes" of May 6, 2007 Leprosy Statistics The segment was a profile of Mr. Dobbs, and while doing background research for it, a “60 Minutes” producer came across a 2005 news report from Mr. Dobbs’s CNN program on contagious diseases. In the report, one of Mr. Dobbs’s correspondents said there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous three years, far more than in the past.
When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.
“Well, I can tell you this,” he replied. “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
With that Orwellian chestnut, Mr. Dobbs escalated the leprosy dispute into a full-scale media brouhaha. The next night, back on his own program, the same CNN correspondent who had done the earlier report, Christine Romans, repeated the 7,000 number, and Mr. Dobbs added that, if anything, it was probably an underestimate. A week later, the Southern Poverty Law Center — the civil rights group that has long been critical of Mr. Dobbs — took out advertisements in The New York Times and USA Today demanding that CNN run a correction.
Finally, Mr. Dobbs played host to two top officials from the law center on his program, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” where he called their accusations outrageous and they called him wrong, unfair and “one of the most popular people on the white supremacist Web sites.”
We’ll get to the merits of the charges and countercharges shortly, but first it’s worth considering why, beyond entertainment value, all this matters. Over the last few years, Lou Dobbs has transformed himself into arguably this country’s foremost populist. It’s an odd role, given that he spent the 1980s and ’90s buttering up chief executives on CNN, but he’s now playing it very successfully. He has become a voice for the real economic anxiety felt by many Americans.
The audience for his program has grown 72 percent since 2003, and CBS — yes, the same network that broadcasts “60 Minutes” — just hired him as a commentator on “The Early Show.” Many elites, as Mr. Dobbs likes to call them, despise him, but others see him as a hero. His latest book, “War on the Middle Class,” was a best seller and received a sympathetic review in this newspaper. Mario Cuomo has said Mr. Dobbs is “addicted to economic truth.”
Mr. Dobbs argues that the middle class has many enemies: corporate lobbyists, greedy executives, wimpy journalists, corrupt politicians. But none play a bigger role than illegal immigrants. As he sees it, they are stealing our jobs, depressing our wages and even endangering our lives.
That’s where leprosy comes in.
“The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Mr. Dobbs said on his April 14, 2005, program. From there, he introduced his original report that mentioned leprosy, the flesh-destroying disease — technically known as Hansen’s disease — that has inspired fear for centuries.
According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As Ms. Romans, the CNN correspondent, relayed: “There were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”
“Incredible,” Mr. Dobbs replied.
Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Romans engaged in a nearly identical conversation a few weeks ago, when he was defending himself the night after the “60 Minutes” segment. “Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy,” she said, again attributing the number to Ms. Cosman.
To sort through all this, I called James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, an arm of the federal government. Leprosy in the United States is indeed largely a disease of immigrants who have come from Asia and Latin America. And the official leprosy statistics do show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.
The peak year was 1983, when there were 456 cases. After that, reported cases dropped steadily, falling to just 76 in 2000. Last year, there were 137.
“It is not a public health problem — that’s the bottom line,” Mr. Krahenbuhl told me. “You’ve got a country of 300 million people. This is not something for the public to get alarmed about.” Much about the disease remains unknown, but researchers think people get it through prolonged close contact with someone who already has it.
What about the increase over the last six years, to 137 cases from 76? Is that significant?
“No,” Mr. Krahenbuhl said. It could be a statistical fluctuation, or it could be a result of better data collection in recent years. In any event, the 137 reported cases last year were fewer than in any year from 1975 to 1996.
So Mr. Dobbs was flat-out wrong. And when I spoke to him yesterday, he admitted as much, sort of. I read him Ms. Romans’s comment — the one with the word “suddenly” in it — and he replied, “I think that is wrong.” He then went on to say that as far as he was concerned, he had corrected the mistake by later broadcasting another report, on the same night as his on-air confrontation with the Southern Poverty Law Center officials. This report mentioned that leprosy had peaked in 1983.
Of course, he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. Instead, he lambasted the officials from the law center for saying he had. Even yesterday, he spent much of our conversation emphasizing that there really were 7,000 cases in the leprosy registry, the government’s 30-year database. Mr. Dobbs is trying to have it both ways.
I have been somewhat taken aback about how shameless he has been during the whole dispute, so I spent some time reading transcripts from old episodes of “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” The way he handled leprosy, it turns out, is not all that unusual.
For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.
Second, Mr. Dobbs really does give airtime to white supremacy sympathizers. Ms. Cosman, who is now deceased, was a lawyer and Renaissance studies scholar, never a medical doctor or a leprosy expert. She gave speeches in which she said that Mexican immigrants had a habit of molesting children. Back in their home villages, she would explain, rape was not as serious a crime as cow stealing. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a list of other such guests from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Finally, Mr. Dobbs is fond of darkly hinting that this country is under attack. He suggested last week that the new immigration bill in Congress could be the first step toward a new nation — a “North American union” — that combines the United States, Canada and Mexico. On other occasions, his program has described a supposed Mexican plot to reclaim the Southwest. In one such report, one of his correspondents referred to a Utah visit by Vicente Fox, then Mexico’s president, as a “Mexican military incursion.”
When I asked Mr. Dobbs about this yesterday, he said, “You’ve raised this to a level that frankly I find offensive.”
The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.
There is no denying that this country’s immigration system is broken. But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and made everyone else better off.
More to the point, if Mr. Dobbs’s arguments were really so good, don’t you think he would be able to stick to the facts? And if CNN were serious about being “the most trusted name in news,” as it claims to be, don’t you think it would be big enough to issue an actual correction?
indiangcseeker
03-19 06:15 PM
Aright: I spoke with a person at NJ Senator Robert Menendez's office. She mentioned about lots of Calls/Mails and Faxes about Green Card Backlogs have been received.
I've faxed them regarding the same and hoping to get response, if not then next week will do a follow-up call.
Also mailed the letter to DOS and NJ Representatives from congress.org.
If possible will definitely meet Senator Robert Menendez.
I've faxed them regarding the same and hoping to get response, if not then next week will do a follow-up call.
Also mailed the letter to DOS and NJ Representatives from congress.org.
If possible will definitely meet Senator Robert Menendez.
