immig4me
09-02 08:32 AM
USCIS - Direct Filing Addresses for Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextchannel=fe529c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a 1RCRD&vgnextoid=eb7b5cdc2c463110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD )
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CRAZYMONK
05-17 02:33 PM
My cousin was in the same situation last year. She got the passport with VISA stamp in 2 weeks.
SAP
01-26 12:00 AM
FOlks,
I am tired of this GC process like u all are. the following is my situation.
Currently on H1B and 140 cleared with company B, no 485 applied missed the boat during the VISA bulletin fiasco(USCIS money making scam)
i have a future GC with COMPANY A, 485 applied, i have EAD/AP also.
i am tired of my current job, too much exploitation, i want to change, so my question is can i just take some other permanent employment using this EAD/AP
My question is as this future GC with COMPANY A and i have never worked for this company A. can i do a AC21 and move on ?
does AC21 apply future GC. ?
Appreciate any thoughts in this matter
Thanks
SAP
I am tired of this GC process like u all are. the following is my situation.
Currently on H1B and 140 cleared with company B, no 485 applied missed the boat during the VISA bulletin fiasco(USCIS money making scam)
i have a future GC with COMPANY A, 485 applied, i have EAD/AP also.
i am tired of my current job, too much exploitation, i want to change, so my question is can i just take some other permanent employment using this EAD/AP
My question is as this future GC with COMPANY A and i have never worked for this company A. can i do a AC21 and move on ?
does AC21 apply future GC. ?
Appreciate any thoughts in this matter
Thanks
SAP
2011 Consider some of the men medium hairstyles below as a good starting point
krishna.ahd
05-15 04:00 PM
Only 36 votes so far ???????????????????
more...
Openarms
09-23 02:32 PM
Form W-11, Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act.
What is this form? Are there any issues involved (in prospect of getting GC) in filling this to the employer??
What is this form? Are there any issues involved (in prospect of getting GC) in filling this to the employer??
Blog Feeds
10-30 05:50 PM
H1B Visa Lawyer Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, President Obama signed into law the FY10 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill. (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2892enr.txt.pdf) This Law provides a three year extension for four (4) immigration related programs. Specifically, the law extends the non-minister religious worker program, the �Conrad 30� program, the EB-5 visa program, and the E-Verify program through September 30, 2012.
The information contained in this web posting was provided by:
AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 09102968 (posted Oct. 29, 2009)" (http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=30431)
More... (http://www.h1bvisalawyerblog.com/2009/10/fy10_dhs_appropriations_bill_s.html)
On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, President Obama signed into law the FY10 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill. (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2892enr.txt.pdf) This Law provides a three year extension for four (4) immigration related programs. Specifically, the law extends the non-minister religious worker program, the �Conrad 30� program, the EB-5 visa program, and the E-Verify program through September 30, 2012.
The information contained in this web posting was provided by:
AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 09102968 (posted Oct. 29, 2009)" (http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=30431)
More... (http://www.h1bvisalawyerblog.com/2009/10/fy10_dhs_appropriations_bill_s.html)
more...
manishs7
01-13 06:00 PM
Dude,
Here is a link for you :
Advanced Parole renewal process and attachments - Page 10 - Immigration Voice (http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=19282)
Here is a link for you :
Advanced Parole renewal process and attachments - Page 10 - Immigration Voice (http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=19282)
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jeevan
05-13 01:49 PM
I need your suggestions on my situation and below is the same.
1. Priority date (04Oct2006) is current in June bulletin
2. Applied labor & I40 with previous employer.
3. Applied I485 in July 2007 ( applied I 485 before marriage) with previous employer
4. Joined other employer on Sep 2009
5. Not applied AC21 portability to new employer.
Now my priority date is going to be current as of June 1st, so need to file I-485 for my wife. Based on my situation could you please suggest the best approach to apply dependent's I485. i.e Apply dependent I485 from previous employer or through my new employer asking for AC21 along with employment verification letter).
Appreciate your help in advance.
1. Priority date (04Oct2006) is current in June bulletin
2. Applied labor & I40 with previous employer.
3. Applied I485 in July 2007 ( applied I 485 before marriage) with previous employer
4. Joined other employer on Sep 2009
5. Not applied AC21 portability to new employer.
Now my priority date is going to be current as of June 1st, so need to file I-485 for my wife. Based on my situation could you please suggest the best approach to apply dependent's I485. i.e Apply dependent I485 from previous employer or through my new employer asking for AC21 along with employment verification letter).
Appreciate your help in advance.
more...
vincepr
08-22 09:24 AM
Any idea who represented skilled workers in the meeting that happened. I don't see Immigration Voice in the list.
Is IV core looking into how they can how they can be part of such meetings in future. If we are not represented, there wont be anything for us even in the comprehensive immigration reform. We employees cant rely on employers to represent us. That why we are where we are today.
Is IV core looking into how they can how they can be part of such meetings in future. If we are not represented, there wont be anything for us even in the comprehensive immigration reform. We employees cant rely on employers to represent us. That why we are where we are today.
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rajenk
04-09 01:32 PM
All your questions should be to your immigration attorney. As you are trying to get L1 your company should take care of all these.
more...
mrE
07-30 01:47 AM
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sw33t
08-30 04:30 PM
Digg it guys!
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diptam
06-29 09:08 AM
1) If A# is not available so we need to populate it with I-94# ? I got
this weird idea from Point 10 of I-765 form where it says A# or I-94#
Of course in other places it just asks A# ( specially in I-131 form)
2) For I-131 there are lot of doubts - want to double check
a) Class of Admission - ?
b) A# is the very first Information sought !!
c) Date of Intended Departure and Expected length of Trip
d) For how many Trips you intend to use
3) In G-325A Bigraphic form also at the end - it again asks for
ALIEN REGISTRATION NUMBER - what is the that ??
Thanks,
Diptam
this weird idea from Point 10 of I-765 form where it says A# or I-94#
Of course in other places it just asks A# ( specially in I-131 form)
2) For I-131 there are lot of doubts - want to double check
a) Class of Admission - ?
b) A# is the very first Information sought !!
c) Date of Intended Departure and Expected length of Trip
d) For how many Trips you intend to use
3) In G-325A Bigraphic form also at the end - it again asks for
ALIEN REGISTRATION NUMBER - what is the that ??
Thanks,
Diptam
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whattodo21
04-14 11:32 AM
Can I use EAD to do part time work?
Can it be in any field?
Does any of this affect my gc process?
I-140 , I-485 filed
Spouse is the primary filer.
Can it be in any field?
Does any of this affect my gc process?
I-140 , I-485 filed
Spouse is the primary filer.
more...
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sam_hoosier
07-19 02:14 PM
No issues, since her H1B is independent of your I-485. As long as she was in her old job/the job mentioned on her G-325 on the day you filed your app. you should be okay.
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prem_goel
09-09 03:54 PM
Visa Bulletin for October 2010 (http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5145.html)
Looks like the dates did not retrogress. Bit of a good news :)
EB2-I 08MAY06
EB3-I 15JAN02
EB2-C 22MAY06
EB3-C 08NOV03
Looks like the dates did not retrogress. Bit of a good news :)
EB2-I 08MAY06
EB3-I 15JAN02
EB2-C 22MAY06
EB3-C 08NOV03
more...
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dammeinmarrtin
08-10 01:56 AM
My wife and I got married here in the Phil.He wants to file for an immigrant visa.We've been searching on the internet for some info but unfortunately we have some problem with some sites coz we cant get access to it.I also want to know how long it'll take to process an immigrant visa and the fees.
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Macaca
07-22 05:33 PM
For Real Drama, Senate Should Engage In a True Filibuster (http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_8/ornstein/19415-1.html) By Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, July 18, 2007
For many Senators, this week will take them back to their college years - they'll pull an all-nighter, but this time with no final exam to follow.
To dramatize Republican obstructionism, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to hold a mini-version of a real, old-time filibuster. In the old days, i.e., the 1950s, a real filibuster meant the Senate would drop everything, bring the place to a screeching halt, haul cots into the corridors and go around the clock with debate until one side would crack - either the intense minority or the frustrated majority. The former would be under pressure from a public that took notice of the obstructionism thanks to the drama of the repeated round-the-clock sessions.
It is a reflection of our times that the most the Senate can stand of such drama is 24 hours, maybe stretched to 48. But it also is a reflection of the dynamic of the Senate this year that Reid feels compelled to try this kind of extraordinary tactic.
This is a very different year, one on a record-shattering pace for cloture votes, one where the threat of filibuster has become routinized in a way we have not seen before. As Congressional Quarterly pointed out last week, we already have had 40 cloture votes in six-plus months; the record for a whole two-year Congress is 61.
For Reid, the past six months have been especially frustrating because the minority Republicans have adopted a tactic of refusing to negotiate time agreements on a wide range of legislation, something normally done in the Senate via unanimous consent, with the two parties setting a structure for debate and amendments. Of course, many of the breakdowns have been on votes related to the Iraq War, the subject of the all-night debate and the overwhelming focus of the 110th Congress. On Iraq, the Republican leaders long ago decided to try to block the Democrats at every turn to negate any edge the majority might have to seize the agenda, force the issue and put President Bush on the defensive.
But the obstructionist tactics have gone well beyond Iraq, to include things such as the 9/11 commission recommendations and the increase in the minimum wage, intelligence authorization, prescription drugs and many other issues.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his deputy, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), have instead decided to create a very different standard in the Senate than we have seen before, with 60 votes now the norm for nearly all issues, instead of the exception. In our highly polarized environment, where finding the center is a desirable outcome, that is not necessarily a bad thing. But a closer examination of the way this process has worked so far suggests that more often than not, the goal of the Republican leaders is to kill legislation or delay it interminably, not find a middle and bipartisan ground.
If Bush were any stronger, and were genuinely determined to burnish his legacy by enacting legislation in areas such as health, education and the environment, we might see a different dynamic and different outcomes. But the president's embarrassing failure on immigration reform - securing only 12 of 49 Senators from his party for his top domestic priority - has pretty much put the kibosh on a presidentially led bipartisan approach to policy action.
Republican leaders have responded to any criticism of their tactics by accusing Reid and his deputy, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), of trying to squelch debate and kill off their amendments by filing premature cloture motions, designed to pre-empt the process and foreclose many amendments. There is some truth to this; early on, especially, Reid wanted to get the Senate jump-started and pushed sometimes prematurely to resolve issues.
But the fact is that on many of the issues mentioned above, Reid has been quite willing to allow Republican amendments and quite willing to negotiate a deal with McConnell to move business along. That has not been enough. As Roll Call noted last week, on both the intelligence bill and the Medicare prescription drug measure, Republicans were fundamentally opposed to the underlying bills and wanted simply to kill them.
The problem actually goes beyond the sustained effort to raise the bar routinely to 60 votes. The fact is that obstructionist tactics have been applied successfully to many bills that have far more than 60 Senators supporting them. The most visible issue in this category has been the lobbying and ethics reform bill that passed the Senate early in the year by overwhelming margins.
Every time Reid has moved to appoint conferees to get to the final stages on the issue, a Republican Senator has objected. After months of dispute over who was really behind the blockage, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina emerged as the bte noire. But Republican leaders have been more than willing to carry DeMint's water to keep that bill from coming up.
The problem Reid faces on this issue is that to supersede the unanimous consent denial, he would have to go through three separate cloture fights, each one allowing substantial sustained debate, including 30 hours worth after cloture is invoked. In the meantime, a badly needed reform is blocked, and the minority can blame the majority for failing to fulfill its promise to reform the culture of corruption. It may work politically, but the institution and the country both suffer along the way.
Is this obstructionism? Yes, indeed - according to none other than Lott. The Minority Whip told Roll Call, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. For [former Senate Minority Leader Tom] Daschle, it failed. For Reid it succeeded, and so far it's working for us." Lott's point was that a minority party can push as far as it wants until the public blames them for the problem, and so far that has not happened.
The war is a different issue from any other. McConnell's offer to Reid to set the bar at 60 for all amendments related to Iraq, thereby avoiding many of the time-consuming procedural hurdles, is actually a fair one - nothing is going to be done, realistically, to change policy on the war without a bipartisan, 60-vote-plus coalition. But other issues should not be routinely subject to a supermajority hurdle.
What can Reid do? An all-nighter might help a little. But the then-majority Republicans tried the faux-filibuster approach a couple of years ago when they wanted to stop minority Democrats from blocking Bush's judicial nominees, and it went nowhere. The real answer here is probably one Senate Democrats don't want to face: longer hours, fewer recesses and a couple of real filibusters - days and nights and maybe weeks of nonstop, round-the-clock debate, bringing back the cots and bringing the rest of the agenda to a halt to show the implications of the new tactics.
At the moment, I don't see enough battle-hardened veterans in the Senate willing to take on that pain.
For many Senators, this week will take them back to their college years - they'll pull an all-nighter, but this time with no final exam to follow.
To dramatize Republican obstructionism, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to hold a mini-version of a real, old-time filibuster. In the old days, i.e., the 1950s, a real filibuster meant the Senate would drop everything, bring the place to a screeching halt, haul cots into the corridors and go around the clock with debate until one side would crack - either the intense minority or the frustrated majority. The former would be under pressure from a public that took notice of the obstructionism thanks to the drama of the repeated round-the-clock sessions.
It is a reflection of our times that the most the Senate can stand of such drama is 24 hours, maybe stretched to 48. But it also is a reflection of the dynamic of the Senate this year that Reid feels compelled to try this kind of extraordinary tactic.
This is a very different year, one on a record-shattering pace for cloture votes, one where the threat of filibuster has become routinized in a way we have not seen before. As Congressional Quarterly pointed out last week, we already have had 40 cloture votes in six-plus months; the record for a whole two-year Congress is 61.
For Reid, the past six months have been especially frustrating because the minority Republicans have adopted a tactic of refusing to negotiate time agreements on a wide range of legislation, something normally done in the Senate via unanimous consent, with the two parties setting a structure for debate and amendments. Of course, many of the breakdowns have been on votes related to the Iraq War, the subject of the all-night debate and the overwhelming focus of the 110th Congress. On Iraq, the Republican leaders long ago decided to try to block the Democrats at every turn to negate any edge the majority might have to seize the agenda, force the issue and put President Bush on the defensive.
But the obstructionist tactics have gone well beyond Iraq, to include things such as the 9/11 commission recommendations and the increase in the minimum wage, intelligence authorization, prescription drugs and many other issues.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his deputy, Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), have instead decided to create a very different standard in the Senate than we have seen before, with 60 votes now the norm for nearly all issues, instead of the exception. In our highly polarized environment, where finding the center is a desirable outcome, that is not necessarily a bad thing. But a closer examination of the way this process has worked so far suggests that more often than not, the goal of the Republican leaders is to kill legislation or delay it interminably, not find a middle and bipartisan ground.
If Bush were any stronger, and were genuinely determined to burnish his legacy by enacting legislation in areas such as health, education and the environment, we might see a different dynamic and different outcomes. But the president's embarrassing failure on immigration reform - securing only 12 of 49 Senators from his party for his top domestic priority - has pretty much put the kibosh on a presidentially led bipartisan approach to policy action.
Republican leaders have responded to any criticism of their tactics by accusing Reid and his deputy, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), of trying to squelch debate and kill off their amendments by filing premature cloture motions, designed to pre-empt the process and foreclose many amendments. There is some truth to this; early on, especially, Reid wanted to get the Senate jump-started and pushed sometimes prematurely to resolve issues.
But the fact is that on many of the issues mentioned above, Reid has been quite willing to allow Republican amendments and quite willing to negotiate a deal with McConnell to move business along. That has not been enough. As Roll Call noted last week, on both the intelligence bill and the Medicare prescription drug measure, Republicans were fundamentally opposed to the underlying bills and wanted simply to kill them.
The problem actually goes beyond the sustained effort to raise the bar routinely to 60 votes. The fact is that obstructionist tactics have been applied successfully to many bills that have far more than 60 Senators supporting them. The most visible issue in this category has been the lobbying and ethics reform bill that passed the Senate early in the year by overwhelming margins.
Every time Reid has moved to appoint conferees to get to the final stages on the issue, a Republican Senator has objected. After months of dispute over who was really behind the blockage, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina emerged as the bte noire. But Republican leaders have been more than willing to carry DeMint's water to keep that bill from coming up.
The problem Reid faces on this issue is that to supersede the unanimous consent denial, he would have to go through three separate cloture fights, each one allowing substantial sustained debate, including 30 hours worth after cloture is invoked. In the meantime, a badly needed reform is blocked, and the minority can blame the majority for failing to fulfill its promise to reform the culture of corruption. It may work politically, but the institution and the country both suffer along the way.
Is this obstructionism? Yes, indeed - according to none other than Lott. The Minority Whip told Roll Call, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. For [former Senate Minority Leader Tom] Daschle, it failed. For Reid it succeeded, and so far it's working for us." Lott's point was that a minority party can push as far as it wants until the public blames them for the problem, and so far that has not happened.
The war is a different issue from any other. McConnell's offer to Reid to set the bar at 60 for all amendments related to Iraq, thereby avoiding many of the time-consuming procedural hurdles, is actually a fair one - nothing is going to be done, realistically, to change policy on the war without a bipartisan, 60-vote-plus coalition. But other issues should not be routinely subject to a supermajority hurdle.
What can Reid do? An all-nighter might help a little. But the then-majority Republicans tried the faux-filibuster approach a couple of years ago when they wanted to stop minority Democrats from blocking Bush's judicial nominees, and it went nowhere. The real answer here is probably one Senate Democrats don't want to face: longer hours, fewer recesses and a couple of real filibusters - days and nights and maybe weeks of nonstop, round-the-clock debate, bringing back the cots and bringing the rest of the agenda to a halt to show the implications of the new tactics.
At the moment, I don't see enough battle-hardened veterans in the Senate willing to take on that pain.
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sundarpn
04-18 09:28 PM
Hello,
I am currently working on H1b visa (stamped & valid till Feb 2011). My I-485 is pending (EB3, India). However, I have a need to stay on H1-B status.
If I find a new job/employer who files for an H1-B transfer:
1. Can I travel internationally immediately after getting the receipt notice? I will continue to work for my old employer till I get back from vacation.
2. In the same trip, I plan to get married and get my spouse on a H4 visa. Will getting new H4 visa be an issue in such a case?
3. Any issues at POE?
Thanks.
I am currently working on H1b visa (stamped & valid till Feb 2011). My I-485 is pending (EB3, India). However, I have a need to stay on H1-B status.
If I find a new job/employer who files for an H1-B transfer:
1. Can I travel internationally immediately after getting the receipt notice? I will continue to work for my old employer till I get back from vacation.
2. In the same trip, I plan to get married and get my spouse on a H4 visa. Will getting new H4 visa be an issue in such a case?
3. Any issues at POE?
Thanks.
Macaca
09-27 11:40 AM
Following Bush Over a Cliff (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602067.html) By David S. Broder (davidbroder@washpost.com) | Washington Post, September 27, 2007
The spectacle Tuesday of 151 House Republicans voting in lock step with the White House against expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was one of the more remarkable sights of the year. Rarely do you see so many politicians putting their careers in jeopardy.
The bill they opposed, at the urging of President Bush, commands healthy majorities in both the House and Senate but is headed for a veto because Bush objects to expanding this form of safety net for the children of the working poor. He has staked out that ground on his own, ignoring or rejecting the pleas of conservative senators such as Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch, who helped shape the compromise that the House approved and that the Senate endorsed.
SCHIP has been one of the most successful health-care measures created in the past decade. It was started in 1997 with support from both parties, in order to insure children in families with incomes too high to receive Medicaid but who could not afford private insurance.
The $40 billion spent on SCHIP in the past 10 years financed insurance for roughly 6.6 million youngsters a year. The money was distributed through the states, which were given considerable flexibility in designing their programs. The insurance came from private companies, at rates negotiated by the states.
Governors of both parties -- 43 of them, again including conservatives such as Sonny Perdue of Georgia -- have praised the program. And they endorsed the congressional decision to expand the coverage to an additional 4 million youngsters, at the cost of an additional $35 billion over the next five years. The bill would be financed by a 61-cents-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes. If ever there was a crowd-pleaser of a bill, this is it. Hundreds of organizations -- grass-roots groups ranging from AARP to United Way of America and the national YMCA -- have called on Bush to sign the bill. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest insurance lobbying group, endorsed the bill on Monday.
But Bush insists that SCHIP is "an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American" -- an eventuality he is determined to prevent.
Bush's adamant stand may be peculiar to him, but the willingness of Republican legislators to line up with him is more significant. Bush does not have to face the voters again, but these men and women will be on the ballot in just over a year -- and their Democratic opponents will undoubtedly remind them of their votes.
Two of their smartest colleagues -- Heather Wilson of New Mexico and Ray LaHood of Illinois -- tried to steer House Republicans away from this political self-immolation, but they had minimal success. The combined influence of White House and congressional leadership -- and what I would have to call herd instinct -- prevailed.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) argued that "rather than taking the opportunity to cover the children that cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid or the private marketplace, this bill uses these children as pawns in their cynical attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health-care needs."
In his new book, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan wrote that his fellow Republicans deserved to lose their congressional majority in 2006 because they let spending run out of control and turned a blind eye toward misbehavior by their own members. Now, those Republicans have given voters a fresh reason to question their priorities -- or their common sense.
Saying no to immigration reform and measures to shorten the war in Iraq may be politically defensible, because there are substantial constituencies who question the wisdom of those bills -- and who favor alternative policies. But the Bush administration's arguments against SCHIP -- the cost of the program and the financing -- sound hollow at a time when billions more are being spent in Iraq with no end in sight. Bush's alternative -- a change in the tax treatment of employer-financed health insurance -- has some real appeal, but it is an idea he let languish for months after offering it last winter. And, in the judgment of his fellow Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, Bush's plan is too complex and controversial to be tied to the renewal of SCHIP.
This promised veto is a real poison pill for the GOP.
The spectacle Tuesday of 151 House Republicans voting in lock step with the White House against expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was one of the more remarkable sights of the year. Rarely do you see so many politicians putting their careers in jeopardy.
The bill they opposed, at the urging of President Bush, commands healthy majorities in both the House and Senate but is headed for a veto because Bush objects to expanding this form of safety net for the children of the working poor. He has staked out that ground on his own, ignoring or rejecting the pleas of conservative senators such as Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch, who helped shape the compromise that the House approved and that the Senate endorsed.
SCHIP has been one of the most successful health-care measures created in the past decade. It was started in 1997 with support from both parties, in order to insure children in families with incomes too high to receive Medicaid but who could not afford private insurance.
The $40 billion spent on SCHIP in the past 10 years financed insurance for roughly 6.6 million youngsters a year. The money was distributed through the states, which were given considerable flexibility in designing their programs. The insurance came from private companies, at rates negotiated by the states.
Governors of both parties -- 43 of them, again including conservatives such as Sonny Perdue of Georgia -- have praised the program. And they endorsed the congressional decision to expand the coverage to an additional 4 million youngsters, at the cost of an additional $35 billion over the next five years. The bill would be financed by a 61-cents-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes. If ever there was a crowd-pleaser of a bill, this is it. Hundreds of organizations -- grass-roots groups ranging from AARP to United Way of America and the national YMCA -- have called on Bush to sign the bill. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest insurance lobbying group, endorsed the bill on Monday.
But Bush insists that SCHIP is "an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American" -- an eventuality he is determined to prevent.
Bush's adamant stand may be peculiar to him, but the willingness of Republican legislators to line up with him is more significant. Bush does not have to face the voters again, but these men and women will be on the ballot in just over a year -- and their Democratic opponents will undoubtedly remind them of their votes.
Two of their smartest colleagues -- Heather Wilson of New Mexico and Ray LaHood of Illinois -- tried to steer House Republicans away from this political self-immolation, but they had minimal success. The combined influence of White House and congressional leadership -- and what I would have to call herd instinct -- prevailed.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) argued that "rather than taking the opportunity to cover the children that cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid or the private marketplace, this bill uses these children as pawns in their cynical attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health-care needs."
In his new book, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan wrote that his fellow Republicans deserved to lose their congressional majority in 2006 because they let spending run out of control and turned a blind eye toward misbehavior by their own members. Now, those Republicans have given voters a fresh reason to question their priorities -- or their common sense.
Saying no to immigration reform and measures to shorten the war in Iraq may be politically defensible, because there are substantial constituencies who question the wisdom of those bills -- and who favor alternative policies. But the Bush administration's arguments against SCHIP -- the cost of the program and the financing -- sound hollow at a time when billions more are being spent in Iraq with no end in sight. Bush's alternative -- a change in the tax treatment of employer-financed health insurance -- has some real appeal, but it is an idea he let languish for months after offering it last winter. And, in the judgment of his fellow Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, Bush's plan is too complex and controversial to be tied to the renewal of SCHIP.
This promised veto is a real poison pill for the GOP.
Blog Feeds
11-10 03:40 AM
My friend Margaret Stock has prepared an excellent report for the Immigration Policy Center entitled ESSENTIAL TO THE FIGHT: IMMIGRANTS IN THE MILITARY EIGHT YEARS AFTER 9/11. Margaret, an officer in the army and the undisputed leading national expert on immigration and the American armed forces, notes a number of key findings in her report: As of June 30, 2009, there were 114,601 foreign-born individuals serving in the armed forces, representing 7.91 percent of the 1.4 million military personnel on active duty. Roughly 80.97 percent of foreign-born service members were naturalized U.S. citizens, while 12.66 percent were not U.S. citizens....
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2009/11/immigrants-playing-critical-role-in-military.html)
More... (http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2009/11/immigrants-playing-critical-role-in-military.html)
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