How can I get a US visa?

There is no other country doing the following Acts of Treason to their own people.

How can I get a US visa? HARSIMRAN SINGHINDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2005 12:56:11 AM]
Whether it’s the farmer from the rural hinterland or uber urbanite, student or businessman, priest or programmer, the US of A beckons all. One can always try to hop on an airplane as a stowaway and try to sneek into the US. But most times illegal immigrants are caught and packed off home. Under which categories can you apply for a US visa? How to go about it? We answer some of the frequently unasked questions of legally entering the land of opportunity. How can I go to US as a temporary worker? If you possess specialised skills like software programming, accounting and are willing to work in the US on a temporary basis, there are a variety of visa categories you may fall into:
H-1B visa: It applies to people with highly specialised knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education. Generally at least the equivalent of a job-relevant four-year US bachelor's degree is required. The US H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa, which allows a US company to employ a foreign individual for up to six years. You cannot apply directly for an H-1B; your US employer has to file a petition on your behalf. H-1B visas are subject to annual numerical limits. Currently the cap is 65,000 which was subscribed fully within one day. The cap was revised to add 20,000 more visas.
It takes 3-6 months to process an H-1B visa. If your US employer fires you before the expiry of your H-1B, he has to bear the cost of your return transportation to India.
Engineers, lawyers, accountants, teachers, healthcare and IT professionals can work under H-1B. You can search hundreds of websites offering H-1B sponsorships for jobs in software firms, schools, universities, hospitals, accounting firms and law firms.

H-2A visa: Applies to you if you are willing to go to US as a temporary or seasonal agricultural worker.
H-2B visa: Applies to temporary or seasonal non-agricultural workers. This classification requires a temporary labour certification issued by the Secretary of Labor.
H-3 visa: Applies to trainees other than medical or academic. If you are trained in the education of handicapped children, this visa applies to you.
How can I go to US as an athlete/entertainer/artist?
P-1 visa: Applies to you if you are an athlete, or member of an entertainment group that is internationally recognised.
P-2 visa: Applies to artists or entertainers who will perform under a reciprocal exchange programme;
P-3 visa: Applies to artists or entertainers who perform under a programme that is culturally unique.
Q-1 visa: Applies to participants in an international cultural exchange programme for the purpose of providing practical training, employment, and the sharing of the history, culture, and traditions of the alien's home country.
How can I go there as an intra-company transferee?
L-visa: Applies to intra-company transferees who, within the three preceding years, have been employed abroad continuously for one year, and who will be employed by a branch, parent, affiliate, or subsidiary of that same employer in the US in a managerial, executive, or specialised knowledge capacity. Does US encourage people with extraordinary abilities... For how many years is an L-1 visa issued? An L-1 petition may be approved initially for up to three years, with the possibility of extension for up to four more years. In the case of a "new office" in the US, the L-1 will be limited to one year initially with extensions provided thereafter if the new office flourishes. Can dependents of L-1 come to the US? The spouse and children (under 21 years and unmarried) of L-1 can obtain L-2 visas allowing them to enter the US L-2s can obtain employment authorisation to get a job or do their own business.
Does US encourage people with extraordinary abilities?
O-1 visa: Applies to persons who have extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, education, business or athletics, or extraordinary achievements in the motion picture and television field. How can I go to the US as a journalist? If you are a representative of a media group travelling to the US on an assignment, you are eligible for an I-visa. Only those who are actually involved in the newsgathering process are eligible. People involved in associated activities such as proofreaders, set designers, etc are not eligible for I-visas. Can family members also accompany? With the exception of Q-1 Cultural Exchange Visitors, your spouse and minor children under any of the above classifications may also be classified as non-immigrants in order to accompany you. But your spouse or child cannot accept employment in the United States. However, you must be able to show that you will be able to support your family in the United States.
How can I go to the US as a fiancee? If you’ve decided to get married and your would-be husband/wife is a US citizen, then the K-visa is there for you. Your fiance has to file a petition with the USCIS on your behalf. The K-visa is valid for 90 days, within which the marriage must take place. What if I decide to marry someone else on entering US? Then, you’ll be deported back. It’s as simple as that! Even if the marriage doesn’t take place within 90 days, your K-visa will be cancelled, and you’ll be required to leave the US. Also, you can enter the US only once through the fiancee visa route. Can I work in the US with a fiancee visa? No, you cannot. You’ve to apply for a work permit. Also, you have to become a permanent resident if you wish to stay longer in the US. Your children from previous marriage, if any, can accompany you. But, they should be unmarried and under 21 years of age.
How can I go to US as a religious worker?
R Visa: If you are proceeding to the US to work in a religious capacity, then R is the visa for you. But you cannot go to US as a lay preacher. You have to demonstrate a lifelong commitment to religious life, such as taking vows. Examples include nuns, monks and religious brothers and sisters. What is the definition of a religious worker? You have to be authorised by a recognised denomination to conduct religious worship and perform other duties usually performed by members of the clergy like administering the sacraments or baptising. Examples include liturgical workers, religious instructors or cantors, catechists, workers in religious hospitals, missionaries, religious translators, or religious broadcasters. It does not include janitors, maintenance workers, clerks, fund raisers or solicitors of donations. What are the visa requirements for a religious worker? The applicant must be a member of a religious denomination having a bona fide non-profit religious organisation in the US; s/he has been a member of the denomination for two years immediately preceding admission; The applicant is entering the US solely to carry on the vocation of a minister. S/he should be able to furnish: A letter from an authorised official of the specific unit of the employing organisation certifying any of the following: That, immediately prior to the application for the R visa, the applicant has been a member of the religious denomination for the required two-year period; That, if the applicant is a religious professional, he or she has at least, for entry into the religious profession. baccalaureate degree or equivalent, and that such a degree is required. Family members: A religious worker's spouse and unmarried children under 21 years of age may be granted derivative status. They may study but cannot accept employment in the US. Time limits: Holders of R visas may remain in the US for up to five years to pursue their calling.
How to apply for a temporary work visa? Your prospective employer or agent must file Form I-129, (Petition for Non-immigrant Worker), with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Once approved, the employer or agent is sent a notice of approval, Form I-797. The approval of a petition does not guarantee you visa issuance. What is the required fees and documentation? For a temporary work visa you have to pay a non-refundable $100 application fee and submit: 1) An application Form DS-156E, completed and signed. Blank forms are available without charge at all US consular offices 2) A passport valid for travel to the US and with a validity date at least six months beyond the applicant's intended period of stay in the US. 3) Photo requirements 4) A notice of approval, Form I-797 (issued by the US-INS, earlier) Other Documentation: With the exception of the H-1 and L-1, applicants you may also need to show proof of binding ties to a residence outside the US. This is to guarantee that you won’t settle in the US and are going there only as a temporary worker.
How can I go to US as a student?
The "F" visa is for academic studies, and the
"M" visa is for non-academic or vocational studies. The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) is designed to monitor school and exchange programs and F, M and J category visitors.
SEVIS is an internet-based system that maintains information on non-immigrant students (F and M visas), exchange visitors (J visa), and their dependents (F-2, M-2 and J-2). F-1 visa: Approval for attendance of academic students may be solicited by an accredited college or university that awards bachelors, masters, doctorate or professional degrees, a seminary; an institution that provides language training or instruction in the fine arts. M-1 visa: Approval for the attendance of non-academic students may be solicited by a community college or junior college that provides vocational or technical training and awards associate degrees; a vocational high school; a trade school or a school of non-academic training other than language training. J visa: The exchange visitor programme is designed to promote the interchange of persons, knowledge, and skills in the fields of education, arts, and sciences. Participants include students at all academic levels; On-the-job trainees, teachers, professors, research scholars; professional trainees in the medical and allied fields; and international visitors coming for the purpose of travel, observation, consultation or demonstrating specialised knowledge or skills, or participating in organised people-to-people programs. Keep in mind that June, July, and August are the busiest months in most consular sections, and interview appointments are the most difficult to get during that period. Students need to plan ahead to avoid having to make repeat visits to the embassy. What are the requirements for a student visa? All applicants should be prepared to provide: • Degrees and diplomas from previous institutions attended; • Scores from standardised tests required by the educational institution such as the TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT, etc.; • Financial evidence that shows you or your parents who are sponsoring you have sufficient funds to cover your tuition and living expenses during the period of your intended study. Each applicant for a student visa must pay a non-refundable $100 application fee and submit: 1) An application Form DS-156, completed and signed. Blank forms are available without charge at all U.S. consular offices; 2) A passport valid for travel to the US and with a validity date at least six months beyond the applicant's intended period of stay in the United States. 3) Photographs 4) For the "F" applicant, a Form I-20A-B. For the "M" applicant, a Form I-20M-N. 5) Evidence of sufficient funds.
At the interview you must be able to satisfactorily demonstrate to the consular officer that you have no plans of settling in the US, that you have binding ties which will bring you back to India.
So, pick your visa and pack your bags to pursue your dreams in the land of opportunity.
The Economic Times Online Printed from economictimes.indiatimes.com > Politics/Nation
©Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1121833.cms

Biggest Scandal to hit the Indian Outsourcing Industry

India fortifies its data security
By Erica Lee NelsonTHE WASHINGTON TIMES Published May 28, 2005

NEW DELHI -- Employees of an outsourced call center in India coaxed Citibank account holders in the United States to reveal their personal identification numbers -- and then siphoned $426,000 from their accounts, Indian police said.

In the biggest scandal to hit the Indian outsourcing industry, 16 arrests have been made since April, and more are expected. The case, which began at the MphasiS call center in Pune, 77 miles from Bombay, has raised fears of a backlash in an industry that received revenue of more than $3.4 billion from the United States in 2004.

With global outsourcing contracts totaling $163 billion in 2004, according to research firm Datamonitor, security is an increasing concern for companies that choose to outsource work, especially those that move work overseas.

Although outsourcing contracts are full of security provisions, companies have to put faith in foreign laws and police to catch and punish criminals. In a country where the first data security and cybercrime act was passed only in 2000, the MphasiS case has been regarded as a test of India's laws as well as its enforcement.

The verdict, it seems, has been largely positive. Citibank does not plan to change its business relationship with MphasiS, and the Indian authorities' response to the crime was seen as quick and effective.

Yet, with the United States accounting for two-thirds of India's technology and outsourcing-industries' revenue, the Indian information-technology association, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), is on its toes.

Harris Miller, president of Information Technology Association of America, said, "If companies that are using or considering India for global sourcing lose confidence ... then the Indian IT industry will be severely harmed."

The private sector's concern is evident in the fact that roughly 25 percent of every outsourcing agreement is used to establish detailed security measures. Surprise audits by clients are frequent, and outsourcing companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on security.

At Wipro Spectramind, one of the largest outsourcing firms here, all the computer terminals are "dumb," meaning they have no hard disks, so no information can be saved. Staff members are watched on camera. Cell phones, IPods and even pen and paper are not allowed inside. It is strict rules such as these, combined with graveyard shifts and a young, restless work force that keep attrition in the industry between 25 percent and 40 percent, a NASSCOM study says.

To help keep track of employees, NASSCOM is setting up a voluntary database in which skilled workers can register their resumes and personal data. While NASSCOM Vice President Sunil Mehta insists that the database is not for security purposes, MphasiS's Jeroen Tas said that it would be coordinated with police and enable faster, more accurate screening.

Mr. Miller is positive about India's security measures. "During my visits to numerous firms, I have found [security] very high, frankly, often somewhat higher than some companies in the United States and in other more developed economies," he said.

Still, shaky ground remains. A NASSCOM survey on information security, done jointly with Evalueserve, noted that almost 50 percent of the technology and business outsourcing companies studied did not have certified information-security personnel on staff.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that 83 percent of 150 Indian companies surveyed had information-security breaches in 2004.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050528-073046-3398r

Q&A:InformationBuilders CEO blasts Gates H-1B stand

'He can find all the engineers he wants in this country,' says Gerald Cohen Q&A by Don Tennant
MAY 02, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Gerald Cohen, the outspoken founder and CEO of New York-based business intelligence software vendor Information Builders Inc., spoke with Computerworld on Friday about the controversy surrounding offshore outsourcing and the H-1B visa cap. Excerpts from that interview follow:
Bill Gates told an audience in Washington a few days ago that the U.S. needs to get rid of the cap on H-1B visas (see story). What's your position on that? He's full of it. He says, "I'd hire a lot more American engineers if I could find them -- they're not available, and that's why we're going to China and India." He's full of it. He's going there because it's just cheaper. He can find all the engineers he wants in this country.
A lot of CEOs of companies like yours are saying they just can't find the people, so they're lobbying Congress to get rid of the H-1B visa cap. That's bulls---. A couple years ago that was true, and that's when the cap was raised. You know who wants [to get rid of the cap]? The Indian companies. The way the Indian companies work is they have to have a certain number of people here, and a lot more people back there -- so they're the ones who want to get all these people in. And they don't even pay them American wages -- they just pay them as cheaply as they can.
I'm the chairman of the New York Software Industry Association. One of the programs we have is a federal government program that gives the city of New York money to run technical training courses for people in the city to upgrade their skills, so city companies don't have to go overseas [for workers]. The program is essentially an H-1B replacement program.
But surely you use overseas labor to lower your own costs. I'm going to put two hats on. With one hat -- my [Software Industry Association] hat -- I say we want to keep jobs in New York City. The other hat says we want the company to be prosperous, and if I can lower my costs by doing work overseas, the company's more prosperous. But I'm not so sure that's better for the country.
I think a certain amount of tariff protection protects native industries. If it was product, we have a mechanism -- we put a tariff on it, and we've used that for years. It's a well-accepted idea. In fact, most of the guys [overseas] we're buying from have restrictive tariffs -- we can't get into their markets so easily. For services, you don't have a tariff, so it's a phenomenon that now services are going outside the U.S. And I personally think that's not a healthy thing for the country.
How much of your development work is done outside of the U.S.? We do a little quality-assurance work outside of the U.S. We find it's economical to do the routine kind of QA work [overseas].
What's your response to the unemployed U.S. IT worker who says you should be keeping those jobs in the U.S.? We have to [do business] economically. It's a real problem. The government is providing us with no help, so we're doing [what we have to do] ourselves. If you look further down the road, there's going to be a huge drain of IT jobs. A lot of these jobs that go overseas are the spawning grounds for future jobs. So the whole industry's going to move offshore.
What do you want the government to do to help? The Indians will bring people into the U.S. cheaply [to work here]. No! When you [bring people into] the U.S., you have to pay American wages. That would be a minimum standard, for example. There are a lot of small things that could be done, but I have no solution for how we're going to throttle this in some way.
In any case, you have no problem finding the skills you need for your company in the U.S.? No, I don't. I go offshore strictly for price. I can get things done cheaper in Moscow than I can in New York City.
A lot of people say the education system in the U.S. is failing to provide qualified IT workers. You disagree? That's bunk. Why do you have declining computer science majors? Because every parent is saying, "Why major in computer science when all the jobs are going offshore?" It feeds itself. And I guarantee you, if it doesn't stop, in a couple years you're not going to have much of an IT industry here.
So you feel the universities are doing a good job? Yeah, but they're getting a declining enrollment. I'm on the board of the CUNY Institute for Software Development and Design, and I think [universities are] doing a terrific job of graduating competent master's and Ph.D. program students in computer technology.
You rely on markets outside of North America for 25% of your business, and you've said that number could rise to 50% by the time you pass the torch to a successor. So, clearly you expect to do a lot more work overseas. If you have a laboratory in France or England, that's not replacing American jobs, necessarily. You're selling in England, you should do some work in England, for example. That makes sense. What are you selling in India? Zilch.
So you don't buy the argument about outsourcing offshore as a means of getting a foothold in a market? No, I don't buy that. What are you going to sell to the Indians? We're not going to sell them a whole lot of software. And not much hardware either, if you ask me. The hardware we do sell them is manufactured in China or Taiwan.
But it's a big world out there, and as it computerizes, it's going to buy software. So I think there's a huge market outside the U.S. All of us are building out our infrastructures to sell worldwide. And we're going to hire employees in those countries. That's good for their economy and good for our economy

Microsoft's Gates issues warning cry

Chairman says U.S. technology may suffer if visa caps on skilled foreign workers aren't lifted. April 28, 2005: 2:07 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at U.S. companies if it wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday.
Microsoft (Research) is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the Library of Congress.
"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense," Gates said.
Gates echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders who warn that the United States must improve science education and boost spending on research and development to avoid falling behind India, China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.
But he reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy."
"If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?" he said.
Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003.
The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the fiscal year last October by U.S. employers anxious to recruit foreigners for jobs in medicine, engineering, education, research and programming, among other fields.
While increasing the number of H-1B visas is important, "we can't be so naive to believe that there is not a very serious border-security problem that we need to deal with," said California Republican Rep. David Dreier, who heads the House Rules Committee.
Undersecretary of Commerce Phil Bond, a top Bush administration technology official, pointed out that the unemployment rate for engineers is above the national average.
But Gates said his company was hiring at all levels, from recent college graduates to those with more advanced skills. "Anybody who's got a good computer-security education, they're not out there unemployed," he said. "We're just not seeing an available labor pool."
Even with the labor shortage, Microsoft plans to keep most of its operations in the United States, Gates said. While the company just opened a research office in Beijing, "our development's going to stay in the United States," he said.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/27/technology/microsoft_visalimits.reut/index.htm