panks
06-30 01:20 PM
Hello All,
I am in my 10th year of H1B visa. (GC in process). Every other time I went to INDIA , I got my stamping in INDIA except in 2009 when I returned on Advanced Parole because of a lack of time. Now I need to go to INDIA again in July and I observed this condition for visa stamping at INDIAN consulates which is :
Have the same class of U.S. visa which is still valid or that has expired less than 12 months from the scheduled date of interview.
Wish to apply for the same visa class (e.g. had an H1 work visa, now applying again for an H1 work visa)
My question is whether my last entry to US on Advanced Parole will be interpreted as not having the same class of VISA. After I entered on AP , I did renew my H1 Visa and it is valid upto April'2011.
Thanks in advance
I am in my 10th year of H1B visa. (GC in process). Every other time I went to INDIA , I got my stamping in INDIA except in 2009 when I returned on Advanced Parole because of a lack of time. Now I need to go to INDIA again in July and I observed this condition for visa stamping at INDIAN consulates which is :
Have the same class of U.S. visa which is still valid or that has expired less than 12 months from the scheduled date of interview.
Wish to apply for the same visa class (e.g. had an H1 work visa, now applying again for an H1 work visa)
My question is whether my last entry to US on Advanced Parole will be interpreted as not having the same class of VISA. After I entered on AP , I did renew my H1 Visa and it is valid upto April'2011.
Thanks in advance
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ck_b2001
06-08 10:11 AM
I would appreciate some feedback on following situation;
1) My wife is on H4/EAD. She is beneficiary of my AOS application. She holds Master's Degree from US. What is the best option for her to work on?
2) She was on H1B from Oct 2001 to Mar 2003. She COS to H4 after her job terminated with-in weeks. Since then she's been in US (on H4) and never been out for more than couple of months. Can she apply for H1B and not limited to H1B quota and wait till Oct?
3) Would changing to H1B abondon her AOS?
4) Can she work on EAD now and switch to H1B around Oct time if she has to apply for fresh H1B for next yr quota.
4) If she can get H1B, can she still use AP for travel?
6) If i loose job or my 485 is denied, isn't it better she has H1B so i can get on H4 or on her GC application.
Thanks,
1) My wife is on H4/EAD. She is beneficiary of my AOS application. She holds Master's Degree from US. What is the best option for her to work on?
2) She was on H1B from Oct 2001 to Mar 2003. She COS to H4 after her job terminated with-in weeks. Since then she's been in US (on H4) and never been out for more than couple of months. Can she apply for H1B and not limited to H1B quota and wait till Oct?
3) Would changing to H1B abondon her AOS?
4) Can she work on EAD now and switch to H1B around Oct time if she has to apply for fresh H1B for next yr quota.
4) If she can get H1B, can she still use AP for travel?
6) If i loose job or my 485 is denied, isn't it better she has H1B so i can get on H4 or on her GC application.
Thanks,
Macaca
06-10 05:53 AM
Why Washington Can�t Get Much Done (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/weekinreview/10broder.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) By JOHN M. BRODER (http://www.nytimes.com/gst/emailus.html), June 10, 2007
MEMBERS of Congress � with the possible exceptions of Senator Robert C. Byrd and Representative John D. Dingell � come and go. So do presidents and even Supreme Court justices.
But some big issues come to the nation�s capital and never leave, despite the politicians� best efforts to wrap them up and send them packing. Immigration is one.
Efforts to craft a grand compromise on the perennially nettlesome issue of how to deal with the millions who want to settle in this country collapsed in the Senate in spectacular fashion Thursday night, even though President Bush and the Senate leadership desperately wanted a deal. Almost everyone in Washington believes that America�s immigration laws are an unenforceable mess. But confronted with real legislation built on real compromises, the Senate sank beneath murderous political, geographic and ideological crosscurrents. Despite vows of senators to resuscitate the bill, it may be months � or years � before Congress again comes close to passing a major overhaul of immigration law.
But immigration is only one of several major policy matters on which virtually all Americans agree that something has to be done, even as Washington seems mired in dysfunction. What will happen when Congress turns next to energy legislation? Or global warming? Health care? Social Security?
It sometimes seems that it takes a catastrophe to create consensus. The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 all shattered partisan divisions and led, at least for a time, to enhanced presidential power and a rush of bipartisan lawmaking (some of which political leaders later came to regret). Today, however, the partisan chasm in Washington is deeper than it has been in 100 years, according to some academic studies, as moderate blocs in both parties have all but vanished.
�Remember,� said Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, �these are really big problems and they�re really tough. Solving them is going to involve some major changes in the way we live, the way we tax ourselves, the way we get our health care and the way we transport ourselves.�
He added: �Many of these questions are caught up in ideological differences that really are quite fundamental. On all of them right now there is no consensus in the country and therefore the political system has to try to create one where none now exists.�
A sign of how hard it is to fashion a compromise on these big questions is the length of time between major legislative actions on them. It took almost a decade from the collapse of the Clinton administration�s health care initiative in 1994 to the passage of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit. The federal minimum wage went unchanged for 10 years until this spring. The last major overhaul of immigration law passed in 1986. The most recent significant revision to Social Security came in 1983.
Even the relatively new issue of global warming has been batted around since 1988, when Al Gore began talking about its potentially dire effects. Now, despite a foot-high stack of proposed legislation on the subject, virtually nothing has been done.
Mr. Gore said it was extremely difficult to move the political system when it is paralyzed by partisan passion and beset by well-financed and well-organized interests. He refers to the combination of the oil, coal and automobile industries as the �carbon lobby,� which he said is very difficult to defeat.
Washington, he said, has also failed to act on global warming for much the same reason that it has not tackled the possible future insolvency of Social Security or the problem of 45 million Americans who lack health insurance. �There�s just garden-variety denial,� he said. �It�s unpleasant to think about and easy to push it off.�
Washington often serves as a trailing indicator of public sentiment on an issue, following action in state capitals or responding belatedly to a growing public outcry. Congress and the White House did not seriously begin to move on immigration until two years ago, after the Minutemen, a civilian group, started patrolling the borders and Southwestern state governors declared states of emergency to deal with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants stealing in from Mexico.
Given the failure of the 1986 immigration legislation to stem the illegal flow, the public is wary of any new government effort to control the borders, said Merle Black, a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. And many lawmakers fear that if they support the current legislation they will be blamed if it fails to live up to its promises. After all, the Medicare drug benefit, too, was a much-heralded attempt to lower the costs of medicines for the elderly, but it created mountains of burdensome paperwork and huge unanticipated costs for the government.
�The public has seen a whole series of performance failures, whether it was the war in Iraq or the response to Katrina,� Professor Black said. �It makes different groups of individuals very skeptical about politicians offering solutions. On top of that, Bush�s approval ratings are so low that he can�t exert any leadership even within his own party.�
Government stasis was not unintended. The Founding Fathers designed the American system of government to cool public passions and created numerous impediments to rash action. They might not be surprised that two decades passed between significant action on immigration law or government old-age pensions. But they might have had trouble conceiving the complexity of the issues facing modern Washington, like global warming or the need to find a way to provide even basic medical care to one in seven Americans.
�It was a pretty simple world Madison was dealing with when he wrote the Federalist Papers,� said Morris P. Fiorina, professor of political science at Stanford University. �His focus was on land, labor and commerce. He was clearly aware of the need to defend the borders, but he was more concerned that you had to limit the reach of government and insure that transitory majorities can�t have their way.�
The molasses pace of governance in America is frustrating to many in and outside Washington. But the framers recognized that the dangers of succumbing to fleeting enthusiasms are often far greater than the slow process of fashioning a consensus from the competing interests of a sectional country.
�I agree that it is a bad thing for it to take an extraordinarily long time to deal with problems,� said Mickey Edwards, a former Republican representative from Oklahoma and now a vice president of the Aspen Institute and a lecturer in government at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. �But I think it is a worse thing to rush into solutions when you�re dealing with a nation of 300 million people.�
He cited Prohibition and the Medicare drug benefit as examples of laws that carried large and unintended consequences.
�I don�t suggest that given enough time you can make everything perfect,� Mr. Edwards said. �But you do need enough time to make sure all views are heard and you can avoid the unforeseen circumstances that plague so many things.�
�You don�t just want them to act,� he said. �You want them to act responsibly.�
MEMBERS of Congress � with the possible exceptions of Senator Robert C. Byrd and Representative John D. Dingell � come and go. So do presidents and even Supreme Court justices.
But some big issues come to the nation�s capital and never leave, despite the politicians� best efforts to wrap them up and send them packing. Immigration is one.
Efforts to craft a grand compromise on the perennially nettlesome issue of how to deal with the millions who want to settle in this country collapsed in the Senate in spectacular fashion Thursday night, even though President Bush and the Senate leadership desperately wanted a deal. Almost everyone in Washington believes that America�s immigration laws are an unenforceable mess. But confronted with real legislation built on real compromises, the Senate sank beneath murderous political, geographic and ideological crosscurrents. Despite vows of senators to resuscitate the bill, it may be months � or years � before Congress again comes close to passing a major overhaul of immigration law.
But immigration is only one of several major policy matters on which virtually all Americans agree that something has to be done, even as Washington seems mired in dysfunction. What will happen when Congress turns next to energy legislation? Or global warming? Health care? Social Security?
It sometimes seems that it takes a catastrophe to create consensus. The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 all shattered partisan divisions and led, at least for a time, to enhanced presidential power and a rush of bipartisan lawmaking (some of which political leaders later came to regret). Today, however, the partisan chasm in Washington is deeper than it has been in 100 years, according to some academic studies, as moderate blocs in both parties have all but vanished.
�Remember,� said Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, �these are really big problems and they�re really tough. Solving them is going to involve some major changes in the way we live, the way we tax ourselves, the way we get our health care and the way we transport ourselves.�
He added: �Many of these questions are caught up in ideological differences that really are quite fundamental. On all of them right now there is no consensus in the country and therefore the political system has to try to create one where none now exists.�
A sign of how hard it is to fashion a compromise on these big questions is the length of time between major legislative actions on them. It took almost a decade from the collapse of the Clinton administration�s health care initiative in 1994 to the passage of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit. The federal minimum wage went unchanged for 10 years until this spring. The last major overhaul of immigration law passed in 1986. The most recent significant revision to Social Security came in 1983.
Even the relatively new issue of global warming has been batted around since 1988, when Al Gore began talking about its potentially dire effects. Now, despite a foot-high stack of proposed legislation on the subject, virtually nothing has been done.
Mr. Gore said it was extremely difficult to move the political system when it is paralyzed by partisan passion and beset by well-financed and well-organized interests. He refers to the combination of the oil, coal and automobile industries as the �carbon lobby,� which he said is very difficult to defeat.
Washington, he said, has also failed to act on global warming for much the same reason that it has not tackled the possible future insolvency of Social Security or the problem of 45 million Americans who lack health insurance. �There�s just garden-variety denial,� he said. �It�s unpleasant to think about and easy to push it off.�
Washington often serves as a trailing indicator of public sentiment on an issue, following action in state capitals or responding belatedly to a growing public outcry. Congress and the White House did not seriously begin to move on immigration until two years ago, after the Minutemen, a civilian group, started patrolling the borders and Southwestern state governors declared states of emergency to deal with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants stealing in from Mexico.
Given the failure of the 1986 immigration legislation to stem the illegal flow, the public is wary of any new government effort to control the borders, said Merle Black, a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. And many lawmakers fear that if they support the current legislation they will be blamed if it fails to live up to its promises. After all, the Medicare drug benefit, too, was a much-heralded attempt to lower the costs of medicines for the elderly, but it created mountains of burdensome paperwork and huge unanticipated costs for the government.
�The public has seen a whole series of performance failures, whether it was the war in Iraq or the response to Katrina,� Professor Black said. �It makes different groups of individuals very skeptical about politicians offering solutions. On top of that, Bush�s approval ratings are so low that he can�t exert any leadership even within his own party.�
Government stasis was not unintended. The Founding Fathers designed the American system of government to cool public passions and created numerous impediments to rash action. They might not be surprised that two decades passed between significant action on immigration law or government old-age pensions. But they might have had trouble conceiving the complexity of the issues facing modern Washington, like global warming or the need to find a way to provide even basic medical care to one in seven Americans.
�It was a pretty simple world Madison was dealing with when he wrote the Federalist Papers,� said Morris P. Fiorina, professor of political science at Stanford University. �His focus was on land, labor and commerce. He was clearly aware of the need to defend the borders, but he was more concerned that you had to limit the reach of government and insure that transitory majorities can�t have their way.�
The molasses pace of governance in America is frustrating to many in and outside Washington. But the framers recognized that the dangers of succumbing to fleeting enthusiasms are often far greater than the slow process of fashioning a consensus from the competing interests of a sectional country.
�I agree that it is a bad thing for it to take an extraordinarily long time to deal with problems,� said Mickey Edwards, a former Republican representative from Oklahoma and now a vice president of the Aspen Institute and a lecturer in government at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. �But I think it is a worse thing to rush into solutions when you�re dealing with a nation of 300 million people.�
He cited Prohibition and the Medicare drug benefit as examples of laws that carried large and unintended consequences.
�I don�t suggest that given enough time you can make everything perfect,� Mr. Edwards said. �But you do need enough time to make sure all views are heard and you can avoid the unforeseen circumstances that plague so many things.�
�You don�t just want them to act,� he said. �You want them to act responsibly.�
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gc4vk
07-09 01:35 PM
Hello ALL,
My spouse and myself are called for 485 initial interview, .
1) Do my spouse need to take Affidavit of Support docs(form I 864), my 485 is employment based and not family based(I am the primary applicant).
EB3-IN,
PD : June-1-06, NSC
I140 approved - Jan, 2007.
485 Filed -- Aug 2007
My spouse and myself are called for 485 initial interview, .
1) Do my spouse need to take Affidavit of Support docs(form I 864), my 485 is employment based and not family based(I am the primary applicant).
EB3-IN,
PD : June-1-06, NSC
I140 approved - Jan, 2007.
485 Filed -- Aug 2007
more...
arunsarun
11-29 02:09 PM
From twitter : whitehouse: 3:00 EST Live video chat on DREAM Act with Cecilia Mu�oz via Facebook
White House Live on Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/)
White House Live on Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/)
SGP
04-04 05:08 AM
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$GOOD MORNING GC$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Deadline = April 30th, 2011
Goal = 5000 votes on survey (see I-485 filing w/o current PD thread) and momentum to continue with this campaign.The survey is a platform to gather and push for launching action items. Based on response by 04/30/2011 - IV will decide whether to even proceed with initiative or not.
Actions - 1) Vote on survey.
2)Email ivcoordinator@gmail.com with PD, ph#,email & subject "I485 filing impacted�,
3)Print/Circulate Fliers and spread FB, wiki link (see "support thread")
This is a supporting thread to the "Want to File I-485 without Current Priority Date? Gather here" thread started by pappu.
As suggested by pappu/starsun, this supporting thread provides impacted members with additional information and tools to help the initiative.
Visit Immigration Voice Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Employment_Based_Green_Card#Process_.28EB1.2C_EB2. 2C_and_EB3.29) - for overview of Employment Based - Green Card process
Visit I485 Filing w/o current PD Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Current_Grass-Roots_Initiative_-_I-485_Filing_without_Current_Priority_Date) - for overview of this initiative
As pappu stated in the first post of the above referenced thread - some of the ongoing efforts include finding how many IV members would get benefit from such a provision and get basic details such as username/Priority Date of impacted members. Future action items might include drafting documents and letters to support this provision. There maybe actions such as sending emails etc. However we would not be able to open a public action item unless we can have thousands of our members willing to participate in a grassroots action item. This survey intends to understand the needs of our membership for this provision and collect grassroots information.
The fact is we have a dedicated group of volunteers (and we need more) who have been trying their best to spread the message about this initiative so that a strong grass-roots support can be created leading up to launch of the public action items. So far we have around 1100 people who have responded. Based on quick calculations carried out using PERM data, it is estimated that there are at least 60K-70K EB applicants waiting to file I-485/EAD/AP (this is a very conservative estimate..the actual number could be much more). Grass-roots initiatives require time and patience and we request maximum number of impacted folks to participate actively.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What can you do to participate?
1) Vote on the poll/survey created by Pappu.
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/forum14-members-forum/1599353-want-to-file-485-when-pd-is-not-current-gather-here.html
Then please send an email to ivcoordinator@gmail.com (starsun) with subject - "I485 filing without current PD - Impacted Member". Include your a) IV username b) Email address c) Phone #, d) State of Residence e) Priority Date - so that grassroot efforts can be coordinated
2) Print out below Flier and circulate at all asian/indian malls/groceries/theaters. Forward the flier to your friends/co-workers and ask them to do the same.
I485 Filing Initiative Flier (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/images/a/a8/Flier_I485_latest2.pdf)
3) Volunteers have created a facebook community and an Immigration Voice WIKI page to spread the message about this initiative. Please circulate these links among your friends/co-workers who will be helped.
Please "Share" and "Link" and "send to friend" the facebook community via your Facebook account. Also include these two links when you post on the IV forum.
Facebook - IV I485 filing w/o current PD initiative community (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Immigration-Voice-Grass-roots-Campaigns/150562351660693?v=info)
(Just FYI that you might have to be logged in for the above link to direct to the facebook community. Alternately, search for "Immigration Voice Grass-roots Campaigns" to find the community after logging in. Search "Immigration Voice" to go to the IV's main facebook page)
Immigration Wiki -
I485 Filing Initiative - IV Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Current_Grass-Roots_Initiative_-_I-485_Filing_without_Current_Priority_Date)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PM these members for additional info:
nmdial ; geevikram ; vbkris77 ; ashwin_27 ; snathan
Dedicated members can also join the leaders group: http://groups.google.com/group/485-filing-iv-initiative
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deadline = April 30th, 2011
Goal = 5000 votes on survey (see I-485 filing w/o current PD thread) and momentum to continue with this campaign.The survey is a platform to gather and push for launching action items. Based on response by 04/30/2011 - IV will decide whether to even proceed with initiative or not.
Actions - 1) Vote on survey.
2)Email ivcoordinator@gmail.com with PD, ph#,email & subject "I485 filing impacted�,
3)Print/Circulate Fliers and spread FB, wiki link (see "support thread")
This is a supporting thread to the "Want to File I-485 without Current Priority Date? Gather here" thread started by pappu.
As suggested by pappu/starsun, this supporting thread provides impacted members with additional information and tools to help the initiative.
Visit Immigration Voice Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Employment_Based_Green_Card#Process_.28EB1.2C_EB2. 2C_and_EB3.29) - for overview of Employment Based - Green Card process
Visit I485 Filing w/o current PD Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Current_Grass-Roots_Initiative_-_I-485_Filing_without_Current_Priority_Date) - for overview of this initiative
As pappu stated in the first post of the above referenced thread - some of the ongoing efforts include finding how many IV members would get benefit from such a provision and get basic details such as username/Priority Date of impacted members. Future action items might include drafting documents and letters to support this provision. There maybe actions such as sending emails etc. However we would not be able to open a public action item unless we can have thousands of our members willing to participate in a grassroots action item. This survey intends to understand the needs of our membership for this provision and collect grassroots information.
The fact is we have a dedicated group of volunteers (and we need more) who have been trying their best to spread the message about this initiative so that a strong grass-roots support can be created leading up to launch of the public action items. So far we have around 1100 people who have responded. Based on quick calculations carried out using PERM data, it is estimated that there are at least 60K-70K EB applicants waiting to file I-485/EAD/AP (this is a very conservative estimate..the actual number could be much more). Grass-roots initiatives require time and patience and we request maximum number of impacted folks to participate actively.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What can you do to participate?
1) Vote on the poll/survey created by Pappu.
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/forum14-members-forum/1599353-want-to-file-485-when-pd-is-not-current-gather-here.html
Then please send an email to ivcoordinator@gmail.com (starsun) with subject - "I485 filing without current PD - Impacted Member". Include your a) IV username b) Email address c) Phone #, d) State of Residence e) Priority Date - so that grassroot efforts can be coordinated
2) Print out below Flier and circulate at all asian/indian malls/groceries/theaters. Forward the flier to your friends/co-workers and ask them to do the same.
I485 Filing Initiative Flier (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/images/a/a8/Flier_I485_latest2.pdf)
3) Volunteers have created a facebook community and an Immigration Voice WIKI page to spread the message about this initiative. Please circulate these links among your friends/co-workers who will be helped.
Please "Share" and "Link" and "send to friend" the facebook community via your Facebook account. Also include these two links when you post on the IV forum.
Facebook - IV I485 filing w/o current PD initiative community (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Immigration-Voice-Grass-roots-Campaigns/150562351660693?v=info)
(Just FYI that you might have to be logged in for the above link to direct to the facebook community. Alternately, search for "Immigration Voice Grass-roots Campaigns" to find the community after logging in. Search "Immigration Voice" to go to the IV's main facebook page)
Immigration Wiki -
I485 Filing Initiative - IV Wiki (http://immigrationvoice.org/wiki/index.php/Current_Grass-Roots_Initiative_-_I-485_Filing_without_Current_Priority_Date)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PM these members for additional info:
nmdial ; geevikram ; vbkris77 ; ashwin_27 ; snathan
Dedicated members can also join the leaders group: http://groups.google.com/group/485-filing-iv-initiative
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
more...
krishnam70
07-23 09:30 PM
Is there a web site to check I-140 and I485 status??.
www.immigrationwatch.com
check it out
www.immigrationwatch.com
check it out
2010 lady gaga album cover born
ashatara78
09-14 01:06 PM
We got something similar. I have seen other posts in the forums but can't find them now. I would suggest you go for the fingerprints/biometrics and be done with it. Don't give them an excuse to actually implement "if you don't show up, your application will be considered abandoned".
more...
Macaca
11-11 08:15 AM
Extreme Politics (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Brinkley-t.html) By ALAN BRINKLEY | New York Times, November 11, 2007
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.
Few people would dispute that the politics of Washington are as polarized today as they have been in decades. The question Ronald Brownstein poses in this provocative book is whether what he calls “extreme partisanship” is simply a result of the tactics of recent party leaders, or whether it is an enduring product of a systemic change in the structure and behavior of the political world. Brownstein, formerly the chief political correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and now the political director of the Atlantic Media Company, gives considerable credence to both explanations. But the most important part of “The Second Civil War” — and the most debatable — is his claim that the current political climate is the logical, perhaps even inevitable, result of a structural change that stretched over a generation.
A half-century ago, Brownstein says, the two parties looked very different from how they appear today. The Democratic Party was a motley combination of the conservative white South; workers in the industrial North as well as African-Americans and other minorities; and cosmopolitan liberals in the major cities of the East and West Coasts. Republicans dominated the suburbs, the business world, the farm belt and traditional elites. But the constituencies of both parties were sufficiently diverse, both demographically and ideologically, to mute the differences between them. There were enough liberals in the Republican Party, and enough conservatives among the Democrats, to require continual negotiation and compromise and to permit either party to help shape policy and to be competitive in most elections. Brownstein calls this “the Age of Bargaining,” and while he concedes that this era helped prevent bold decisions (like confronting racial discrimination), he clearly prefers it to the fractious world that followed.
The turbulent politics of the 1960s and ’70s introduced newly ideological perspectives to the two major parties and inaugurated what Brownstein calls “the great sorting out” — a movement of politicians and voters into two ideological camps, one dominated by an intensified conservatism and the other by an aggressive liberalism. By the end of the 1970s, he argues, the Republican Party was no longer a broad coalition but a party dominated by its most conservative voices; the Democratic Party had become a more consistently liberal force, and had similarly banished many of its dissenting voices. Some scholars and critics of American politics in the 1950s had called for exactly such a change, insisting that clear ideological differences would give voters a real choice and thus a greater role in the democratic process. But to Brownstein, the “sorting out” was a catastrophe that led directly to the meanspirited, take-no-prisoners partisanship of today.
There is considerable truth in this story. But the transformation of American politics that he describes was the product of more extensive forces than he allows and has been, at least so far, less profound than he claims. Brownstein correctly cites the Democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement as a catalyst for partisan change — moving the white South solidly into the Republican Party and shifting it farther to the right, while pushing the Democrats farther to the left. But he offers few other explanations for “the great sorting out” beyond the preferences and behavior of party leaders. A more persuasive explanation would have to include other large social changes: the enormous shift of population into the Sun Belt over the last several decades; the new immigration and the dramatic increase it created in ethnic minorities within the electorate; the escalation of economic inequality, beginning in the 1970s, which raised the expectations of the wealthy and the anxiety of lower-middle-class and working-class people (an anxiety conservatives used to gain support for lowering taxes and attacking government); the end of the cold war and the emergence of a much less stable international system; and perhaps most of all, the movement of much of the political center out of the party system altogether and into the largest single category of voters — independents. Voters may not have changed their ideology very much. Most evidence suggests that a majority of Americans remain relatively moderate and pragmatic. But many have lost interest, and confidence, in the political system and the government, leaving the most fervent party loyalists with greatly increased influence on the choice of candidates and policies.
Brownstein skillfully and convincingly recounts the process by which the conservative movement gained control of the Republican Party and its Congressional delegation. He is especially deft at identifying the institutional and procedural tools that the most conservative wing of the party used after 2000 both to vanquish Republican moderates and to limit the ability of the Democratic minority to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. He is less successful (and somewhat halfhearted) in making the case for a comparable ideological homogeneity among the Democrats, as becomes clear in the book’s opening passage. Brownstein appropriately cites the former House Republican leader Tom DeLay’s farewell speech in 2006 as a sign of his party’s recent strategy. DeLay ridiculed those who complained about “bitter, divisive partisan rancor.” Partisanship, he stated, “is not a symptom of democracy’s weakness but of its health and its strength.”
But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch. To make this case, Brownstein cites not an elected official (let alone a Congressional leader), but the readers of the Daily Kos, a popular left-wing/libertarian Web site that promotes what Brownstein calls “a scorched-earth opposition to the G.O.P.” According to him, “DeLay and the Democratic Internet activists ... each sought to reconfigure their political party to the same specifications — as a warrior party that would commit to opposing the other side with every conceivable means at its disposal.” The Kos is a significant force, and some leading Democrats have attended its yearly conventions. But few party leaders share the most extreme views of Kos supporters, and even fewer embrace their “passionate partisanship.” Many Democrats might wish that their party leaders would emulate the aggressively partisan style of the Republican right. But it would be hard to argue that they have come even remotely close to the ideological purity of their conservative counterparts. More often, they have seemed cowed and timorous in the face of Republican discipline, and have over time themselves moved increasingly rightward; their recapture of Congress has so far appeared to have emboldened them only modestly.
There is no definitive answer to the question of whether the current level of polarization is the inevitable result of long-term systemic changes, or whether it is a transitory product of a particular political moment. But much of this so-called age of extreme partisanship has looked very much like Brownstein’s “Age of Bargaining.” Ronald Reagan, the great hero of the right and a much more effective spokesman for its views than President Bush, certainly oversaw a significant shift in the ideology and policy of the Republican Party. But through much of his presidency, both he and the Congressional Republicans displayed considerable pragmatism, engaged in negotiation with their opponents and accepted many compromises. Bill Clinton, bedeviled though he was by partisan fury, was a master of compromise and negotiation — and of co-opting and transforming the views of his adversaries. Only under George W. Bush — through a combination of his control of both houses of Congress, his own inflexibility and the post-9/11 climate — did extreme partisanship manage to dominate the agenda. Given the apparent failure of this project, it seems unlikely that a new president, whether Democrat or Republican, will be able to recreate the dispiriting political world of the last seven years.
Division of the U.S. Didn’t Occur Overnight (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/books/13kaku.html) By MICHIKO KAKUTANI | New York Times, November 13, 2007
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, The Penguin Press. $27.95
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.
Few people would dispute that the politics of Washington are as polarized today as they have been in decades. The question Ronald Brownstein poses in this provocative book is whether what he calls “extreme partisanship” is simply a result of the tactics of recent party leaders, or whether it is an enduring product of a systemic change in the structure and behavior of the political world. Brownstein, formerly the chief political correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and now the political director of the Atlantic Media Company, gives considerable credence to both explanations. But the most important part of “The Second Civil War” — and the most debatable — is his claim that the current political climate is the logical, perhaps even inevitable, result of a structural change that stretched over a generation.
A half-century ago, Brownstein says, the two parties looked very different from how they appear today. The Democratic Party was a motley combination of the conservative white South; workers in the industrial North as well as African-Americans and other minorities; and cosmopolitan liberals in the major cities of the East and West Coasts. Republicans dominated the suburbs, the business world, the farm belt and traditional elites. But the constituencies of both parties were sufficiently diverse, both demographically and ideologically, to mute the differences between them. There were enough liberals in the Republican Party, and enough conservatives among the Democrats, to require continual negotiation and compromise and to permit either party to help shape policy and to be competitive in most elections. Brownstein calls this “the Age of Bargaining,” and while he concedes that this era helped prevent bold decisions (like confronting racial discrimination), he clearly prefers it to the fractious world that followed.
The turbulent politics of the 1960s and ’70s introduced newly ideological perspectives to the two major parties and inaugurated what Brownstein calls “the great sorting out” — a movement of politicians and voters into two ideological camps, one dominated by an intensified conservatism and the other by an aggressive liberalism. By the end of the 1970s, he argues, the Republican Party was no longer a broad coalition but a party dominated by its most conservative voices; the Democratic Party had become a more consistently liberal force, and had similarly banished many of its dissenting voices. Some scholars and critics of American politics in the 1950s had called for exactly such a change, insisting that clear ideological differences would give voters a real choice and thus a greater role in the democratic process. But to Brownstein, the “sorting out” was a catastrophe that led directly to the meanspirited, take-no-prisoners partisanship of today.
There is considerable truth in this story. But the transformation of American politics that he describes was the product of more extensive forces than he allows and has been, at least so far, less profound than he claims. Brownstein correctly cites the Democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement as a catalyst for partisan change — moving the white South solidly into the Republican Party and shifting it farther to the right, while pushing the Democrats farther to the left. But he offers few other explanations for “the great sorting out” beyond the preferences and behavior of party leaders. A more persuasive explanation would have to include other large social changes: the enormous shift of population into the Sun Belt over the last several decades; the new immigration and the dramatic increase it created in ethnic minorities within the electorate; the escalation of economic inequality, beginning in the 1970s, which raised the expectations of the wealthy and the anxiety of lower-middle-class and working-class people (an anxiety conservatives used to gain support for lowering taxes and attacking government); the end of the cold war and the emergence of a much less stable international system; and perhaps most of all, the movement of much of the political center out of the party system altogether and into the largest single category of voters — independents. Voters may not have changed their ideology very much. Most evidence suggests that a majority of Americans remain relatively moderate and pragmatic. But many have lost interest, and confidence, in the political system and the government, leaving the most fervent party loyalists with greatly increased influence on the choice of candidates and policies.
Brownstein skillfully and convincingly recounts the process by which the conservative movement gained control of the Republican Party and its Congressional delegation. He is especially deft at identifying the institutional and procedural tools that the most conservative wing of the party used after 2000 both to vanquish Republican moderates and to limit the ability of the Democratic minority to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. He is less successful (and somewhat halfhearted) in making the case for a comparable ideological homogeneity among the Democrats, as becomes clear in the book’s opening passage. Brownstein appropriately cites the former House Republican leader Tom DeLay’s farewell speech in 2006 as a sign of his party’s recent strategy. DeLay ridiculed those who complained about “bitter, divisive partisan rancor.” Partisanship, he stated, “is not a symptom of democracy’s weakness but of its health and its strength.”
But making the same argument about a similar dogmatism and zealotry among Democrats is a considerable stretch. To make this case, Brownstein cites not an elected official (let alone a Congressional leader), but the readers of the Daily Kos, a popular left-wing/libertarian Web site that promotes what Brownstein calls “a scorched-earth opposition to the G.O.P.” According to him, “DeLay and the Democratic Internet activists ... each sought to reconfigure their political party to the same specifications — as a warrior party that would commit to opposing the other side with every conceivable means at its disposal.” The Kos is a significant force, and some leading Democrats have attended its yearly conventions. But few party leaders share the most extreme views of Kos supporters, and even fewer embrace their “passionate partisanship.” Many Democrats might wish that their party leaders would emulate the aggressively partisan style of the Republican right. But it would be hard to argue that they have come even remotely close to the ideological purity of their conservative counterparts. More often, they have seemed cowed and timorous in the face of Republican discipline, and have over time themselves moved increasingly rightward; their recapture of Congress has so far appeared to have emboldened them only modestly.
There is no definitive answer to the question of whether the current level of polarization is the inevitable result of long-term systemic changes, or whether it is a transitory product of a particular political moment. But much of this so-called age of extreme partisanship has looked very much like Brownstein’s “Age of Bargaining.” Ronald Reagan, the great hero of the right and a much more effective spokesman for its views than President Bush, certainly oversaw a significant shift in the ideology and policy of the Republican Party. But through much of his presidency, both he and the Congressional Republicans displayed considerable pragmatism, engaged in negotiation with their opponents and accepted many compromises. Bill Clinton, bedeviled though he was by partisan fury, was a master of compromise and negotiation — and of co-opting and transforming the views of his adversaries. Only under George W. Bush — through a combination of his control of both houses of Congress, his own inflexibility and the post-9/11 climate — did extreme partisanship manage to dominate the agenda. Given the apparent failure of this project, it seems unlikely that a new president, whether Democrat or Republican, will be able to recreate the dispiriting political world of the last seven years.
Division of the U.S. Didn’t Occur Overnight (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/books/13kaku.html) By MICHIKO KAKUTANI | New York Times, November 13, 2007
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America By Ronald Brownstein, The Penguin Press. $27.95
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texasdesi
01-10 12:25 AM
If i have labor and 140 approved with previous employer, can i go back to join them on H1B and continue GC process? Appreciate any advise. The new company is unable to start GC process due to economic conditions and capout date is Sept 2010.
more...
siva74
06-09 08:37 PM
Hi, I need your expertise, please help me. Following is my situation.
My EB3 labor priorty date was June 2003 was in pending, later same company filed in EB2 and I 140 got approved in Dec 2005.
I filed I 485 application in july 2007 and I applied in so hurry, I forgot to send a copy of I 140 approval as part of 485 filing. I got all the receipt notices.
My EB3 labor got approved before my 485 filing and I140 got approved this month
I would like to port the EB3 priority date. Please input your suggestions.
Thanks,
Siva
My EB3 labor priorty date was June 2003 was in pending, later same company filed in EB2 and I 140 got approved in Dec 2005.
I filed I 485 application in july 2007 and I applied in so hurry, I forgot to send a copy of I 140 approval as part of 485 filing. I got all the receipt notices.
My EB3 labor got approved before my 485 filing and I140 got approved this month
I would like to port the EB3 priority date. Please input your suggestions.
Thanks,
Siva
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imnail
01-15 02:34 AM
I send my I485 application on Nov 6th 2007. No receipts yet. Checks have not cashed as well. Anyone in my position?
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manishkatiyar
01-11 04:54 PM
I am on L1 and my wife was working on L2 + EAD since Aug-2007 with her employer.
She got her H1B approved in Oct-2009 with the same employer - which means that she automatically moved to H1B, correct?
We went to India but she gave her L2 I-94 on departure and did not give H1B I-94
She entered back to US on L2 on 03-Jan so I am assuming that her status has been updated to L2 now.
Please advise if at all she needs to move to H1B again since her L2 EAD is still valid.
If she needs to move to H1B, then what is the best way, we can easily go to Meixco for stamping from LA.
Thanks
She got her H1B approved in Oct-2009 with the same employer - which means that she automatically moved to H1B, correct?
We went to India but she gave her L2 I-94 on departure and did not give H1B I-94
She entered back to US on L2 on 03-Jan so I am assuming that her status has been updated to L2 now.
Please advise if at all she needs to move to H1B again since her L2 EAD is still valid.
If she needs to move to H1B, then what is the best way, we can easily go to Meixco for stamping from LA.
Thanks
more...
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06-19 09:40 PM
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01-12 07:11 PM
I know people with such extension. They didn't have any problem for visa or travel.
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admin
02-10 05:58 PM
The House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform held a full committee hearing on February 9, 2006, to address issues important to U.S.
national interests especially with reference to the recent American Competitiveness Initiative. Here is the report on it.
national interests especially with reference to the recent American Competitiveness Initiative. Here is the report on it.
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stormrider0610
November 17th, 2008, 10:23 AM
Thanks Bob, I'll have a look see.