Keep Ravi Ragbir in the US with his family and community!

Sign this petition today to help Ravi and his family!

Long time resident, community activist, father, and husband, Ravi Ragbir, faces permanent exile from his life in the US. A 15-year green card holder, Ravi has worked as an organizer to protect the rights of all immigrants, including through the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. But he is now at risk of deportation to Trinidad—without a single meaningful hearing in immigration court—because of a single, decade-old conviction.

Ravi experienced the worst of the deportation system. An immigration judge ordered him to be deported without considering any of the evidence of his character and strong community ties. Ravi was detained for years throughout his immigration case and was transferred to an immigration jail in Alabama, far away from his family and community.

 Upon release from immigration jail, Ravi rose to leadership in the immigrant rights
community. Through his work, Ravi met his current partner and wife, Amy Gottlieb, another community leader. They live in Brooklyn and spend the majority of their time in the New York/New Jersey area, where their family—including Ravi’s teenage daughter, Deborah—also lives.

Despite the overwhelming public support for Ravi to remain in the United States with the family and the community that so desperately needs him, he faces imminent deportation.

Please sign this petition to tell ICE to not deport Ravi!

Thank you! Grace Gleason has been Released from ICE Detention!

On October 10, 2011 we blogged about how you can support efforts to release Grace Gleason from ICE Detention.  Grace has a U.S. citizen husband, a U.S. citizen daughter, a son who is a U.S. lawful permanent resident and an elderly father who is also a U.S. lawful permanent resident.

Three thousand supporters signed a petition asking for Grace to be released and it worked.  Grace was released on Tuesday, October 18, 2011.

Thank you!

Dishonest Data on Immigration Cripples Honest Debate and Sensible Lawmaking

For years, data produced by restrictionist, anti-immigrant advocacy groups have permeated politics and policy. Today is no different. What’s alarming, however, is the ease with which politicians and lawmakers are using this dishonest data to support their restrictive positions on immigration.

Take the recent passage of HB 56 in Alabama. Sponsors of the bill are using flawed data produced by the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) to defend the passage of the bill. Using FAIR’s numbers, they claim unauthorized immigrants in Alabama use public services to the tune of $280 million a year. In the media, these supporters fail (as does the media reporting on it) to cite where the numbers come from. Passing them off as “official” state data, the average person would assume that these numbers were crunched by Alabama’s own legislature or government agencies. However, this is simply not the case. In fact, Alabama legislators failed to produce a fiscal note enumerating the fiscal impacts of HB 56, so the only fiscal justification they had for this bill was flawed data from FAIR.

Strikingly, during the last few debates among GOP presidential aspirants, more than one candidate referenced data by FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), another extreme anti-immigrant research group. Michele Bachmann recently quoted FAIR data claiming the costs of unauthorized immigration to the U.S. were $113 billion dollars per year, with $82 billion being shouldered by states. This is the same study Alabama officials pulled their state data from and passed off as official data.

Explaining the basic flaws in FAIR’s reporting is actually simple: they exaggerate the costs associated with unauthorized immigrants while vastly undercounting their contributions. What’s most appalling about their “economic” analysis is how they include the costs of educating the U.S.-born children of immigrants and never credit back the productivity of these children when they grow into contributing adult citizens. FAIR also adds unsubstantiated costs derived from unsupported assumptions about the children of unauthorized immigrants. For example, FAIR assumes all children of unauthorized immigrants are using ESL programs and free and reduced price lunch programs. Finally, to exaggerate the costs as much as possible, FAIR vastly underestimates the contributions that immigrants make as consumers, workers, and taxpayers. This formula allows FAIR to make to make it look as if unauthorized immigrants cost more than they contribute.

Another recent reference to restrictionist data came from Mitt Romney and his staff, who quoted a CIS study which claims almost half the jobs created in Texas under Governor Perry went to unauthorized workers. Fortunately, these numbers were challenged by FactCheck.org, which noted that the report has been debunked in the Dallas Morning News by Pia Orrenius, an economist and immigration expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas—and by a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation who wrote an analysis critical of the CIS study.

No one is arguing that the drastic increase in unauthorized immigration over the past two decades is not an appropriate debate topic or that policy changes aren’t needed. However, we will never achieve real solutions unless we demand intellectual honesty, rather than pandering and platitudes, in debates on immigration. The data and research put forth by anti-immigrant groups, whose only solution is to deport them all, cannot be the basis for honest policymaking or policy discussion.

Photo by jypsygen.

Source:**Immigration Impact

Near End for Occupy Wall Street....

Occupy Wall Street has become a daily topic on our media sources and New York topics. The protesters at Zucotti Plaza have made Battery Park their new home, but as the four-week period of occupying has passed Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the park will shut down Friday, October 14 at 7 A.M. As a result some of  the "99%" are now cleaning the park themselves in effort to not shut down the protest. Their main concern is that once the Parks and Recreation crew is finished cleaning up protesters will not be allowed to bring back any kind of sleeping gear. In the end, this will terminate the protest partially.


Source:**New York Times

More DREAMers Arrested

After a "sit-in" outside ICE in Los Angeles, five DREAM Act leaders were arrested after protesting immediate action from President Barrack Obama to grant some sort of relief to Dreamers all over the country. All five leaders are College educated individuals who immigrated to the U.S. as children. For now they will have to be content with knowing that future undocumented students will receive financial-aid for either city or state universities.


Source:**America's Voice

USCIS Updates 2012 H1B Count – 41,000

USCIS Updates 2012 H1B Count – 41,000

As of October 07, 2011 – USCIS received approximately 41,000 H1B cap-subject petitions. They received 19,100 H1B petition towards the Master’s exemption of 20,000 for aliens with advanced degrees. The master’s quota will be exhausted quickly. The regular quota is moving at a faster pace, and is expected to end soon as well.

Posted by neha shah on October 13, 2011

Not So Sweet Home Alabama

        The fleeing began the same day the Immigration Laws in Alabama were passed. Parents withdrew students from schools and farm workers left their jobs. As a result farmers, who were dependant on undocument immigrants to work on their crops and land, are closing up and absenty rates are increasing in schools. According to the Alabama's Attorney General, "illegal immigrants" are the reason why Alabama is lacking jobs, they are only part of 4% percent of their workforce. Using the excuse that 182 inmates are now held by ICE, yet the inmate rate in Alabama is 31,000. Apparently the numbers do not matter in Alabama...





Source:**Immigration Impact

Tell ICE to Free Mom/Wife from Immigration Detention Now!

Sign this Petition to support the immediate release of Heng Yee Chee (also known as Grace Gleason)from Immigration Detention on the basis of humanitarian grounds. The Department of Homeland Security has agreed that her old deportation case should be reopened so that she can obtain a green card but Immigration Customs and Enforcement is still not releasing her from detention.  Grace is being neglected of proper medical attention that will have a detrimental impact on her long-term health. Grace’s family, which consists of a U.S. citizen husband, a U.S. citizen daughter, a lawful permanent resident son, and a lawful permanent resident father, are all suffering and very worried about Grace’s health and well-being.  Please sign this Petition now to help Grace and her family and to tell ICE to release her immediately from immigration detention.

Great News - California DREAM ACT Passes!

Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the author of the California Dream Act said today (Saturday, October 8, 2011) that California Governor Jerry Brown has signed the bill allowing undocumented immigrants attending California universities to receive state financial aid.

The governor’s action also allows those without citizenship papers to tap into institutional grants while attending the University of California and California State University systems, and to get fee waivers in the California community college system.  See this article from today's Los Angeles Times.

Staytuned for official word from the Governor's office!

Question of the Day

     The lawyers at the Law Offices of Bryan Pu-Folkes are ready to answer any of your immigration-related questions, concerns and/or worries. The latest question received was about an I-130 Alien Relative Petition filed by a father for his son.  Please read the question and answer below:

QUESTION
"Hello, well my dad is a legal Resident (not Citizen) and submitted the I-130 Alien Relative Petition. Today I got the paper saying that I’m approved but I'm [not] eligible for adjustment of status. Why? My dad did this with my older sister and her petition didn't have any limitations or priority date.  By the I-485 instructions I’m ok to apply, there’s no problem. What can I do?  I got a 203 (a) (2) (A) INA.  I'm from Colombia and my priority date is May, 02, 2011. I don’t understand what to do or why I have to wait to apply?"

ANSWER

Dear M.G.,

Thank you for writing the Law Office of Bryan Pu-Folkes.  Congratulations on the approved I-130, Alien Relative Petition. 

The status of the petitioner (in this case your father) and the beneficiary (in this case you) will impact how long it will take for the beneficiary to apply for lawful permanent status (a green card).  Since your father is a U.S. lawful permanent resident and you are a child the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services puts you into category Family 2A.  See our  Visa Dates site.  As you can see from looking at the chart they are currently processing the priority date January 8, 2009.  Based on the current visa bulletin and your priority date (May 2, 2011) you will have to wait  approximately two years or so before your priority date is current and you can apply for your green card.  You can visit our website from time to time to check the visa bulletin (http://www.pufolkeslaw.com/). 

I am not certain why your sister didn't have to wait to apply.  If your father applied as a lawful permanent resident for your sister then she would also have to wait for her priority date to be current - it may be that at the time your sister's I-130 petition was approved the priority date was already current.

Please note, if you get married prior to your visa becoming current or prior to receiving lawful permanent resident status, then your approved I-130 petition will be automatically revoked.  That is because there is no category for a married child of a lawful permanent resident.  Your father would have to resubmit a petition on your behalf after he naturalized and became a U.S. citizen.

If you have any other questions please feel free to write back at  http://bryanpufolkeslaw.blogspot.com/ and thanks again for writing!

Law Offices of Bryan Pu-Folkes
**Please be advised that this response does not form an attorney-client relationship.  Electronic mail and Internet-based communications may not be relied upon as legal advice, unless expressly stated as such. If your case is similar to the one above, please be aware that each case has different information that makes a case unique in its own way. Please seek legal help or email us your actual information for advice.***
--
Bryan Pu-Folkes
Law Offices of Bryan Pu-Folkes
78-27 37th Avenue (Suite 4)
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
tel: 718-205-5353
fax: 718-205-5133
email: bryan@pufolkeslaw.com
web:   http://www.pufolkeslaw.com/

ASK A QUESTION THROUGH OUR LINK ABOVE.
we answer our messages within 24 hours.

Queens HIV Testing Stops

74th Street/Roosevelt Ave E, F, M, R, 7
82nd Street 7
90th Street 7
103rd Street 7

Jackson Heights Tutor's Shaping the Briliant Minds of our Community

      The area of TriBeCa in Manhattan is not only homeground for Wall Street, NYSE and City Hall, Universities and prestigious schools are located with in the same radius, such as Stuyvesant High school. A walk around Battery Park on a mid afternoon Wednesday is deinitely assured that you will run into a stampede of Stuyvesant students with over packed bookbags and NYCDOE instrumental pieces. 72% percent of the student body is of Asian descent or from an Asian country. In 1972, Stuyvesant along with other specialized high schools became part of the "Specialized High School Examination" schools. Back in Queens many of the Korean, Chinese, Bengali and Indian communities have started prep schools for these exams. They are called cramm schools. Fifteen years ago a Bangladeshi man began his tutorial business with three students to ensure that the children in the Jackson Heights community were accepted to either Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. Now with seven location, including a brand new location in Astoria, Dr. Mansur Kahn, the founder of Khan's Tutorial, one hundred students are accepted into specialized high schools each year.


Source:**Wall Street Journal

"Papers"

Please watch the trailer.... great documentary on the lives of undocumented students...

The Numbers are IN!

The Center for American Progress published a great piece on their website by Angela M. Kelley, Vice President for Immigration Policy and Advocacy and Philip E. Wolgin, Immigration Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress. They both worked together to calculate the economy impact that an immigration reform would provide the country with.

source:**Center for american Progress